As the pickleball craze hits Algonquin, students, faculty and community members join the nationwide surge in the sport’s popularity.
With the unveiling of GonkPlex, the revamped sports facility now boasts pickleball courts alongside its tennis courts. Principal Sean Bevan managed the space allocation to ensure both the tennis program’s success and the community’s broader interests were served.
“We did it because we know there’s a market for it, there’s an interest and a desire in our community to play pickleball,” Bevan said. “When you go out there on a warm day, more often than not, there’s more pickleball players from the community using those courts than our tennis courts. That’s been kind of exciting. What grew from this little seed of an idea, a cast-off remark in a meeting a year ago, just evolved and I’m glad it did.”
As a result of this decision, an active pickleball community has emerged.
“I would love nothing more than to go out and see people playing pickleball or tennis or both, people playing basketball, running the track,” Bevan said. “It’s a community asset that we have here…I think pickleball right now is having a moment in the pop culture zeitgeist and it’s exciting to be part of it.”
In response to the community’s growing interest, sophomore Ryan Sechko has taken the initiative to create the Pickleball Club. Meeting every Tuesday after school, the club has quickly gained popularity and consistently sees strong attendance.
“I really like pickleball,” Sechko said. “I started playing maybe a year or two ago. One day I was thinking, after school before baseball, I don’t really have a lot to do, so I might as well just start this club. I knew a lot of people who are interested in pickleball so I thought it would be a good idea — and it was.”
One of the goals of the club is to get more students involved in the sport.
“At the club, we do a lot of warm-up, a lot of drills and then it’s mostly round-robin games,” Sechko said, “This really helps people learn the game, not a lot of people know it. The club really helps them get better and actually learn the game.”
Students looking to join are in luck as Sechko doesn’t plan on stopping.
“I want to plan to run it in the fall next year and into the spring,” Sechko said. “It’s definitely going to be something that I continue up until my senior year and I think that we can run some pretty good tournaments as well throughout the summer.
One of these tournaments was held on May 4 where teams from Tantasqua, Shrewsbury and Westborough came to compete against each other at the school’s facility. Algonquin took home the win with sophomores Luke Daunais and Walter Rogers getting gold. Going forward, Sechko has a vision for the future of pickleball.
“My goals are to expand it and to eventually, I know this is a little ambitious, maybe one day have it turn into a MIAA sport,” Sechko said.
Though this idea may be progressive, years ago it would have been unheard of. When physical education became a required class for seniors, gym teacher Kristen Morcone advocated for the addition of pickleball to the curriculum. It wasn’t until recently that the sport became a student favorite.
“Nine years ago I used to ask the students, ‘Raise your hand if you’ve played pickleball,’ and honestly I’d say one to two students in each class would raise their hand if I was lucky,” Morcone said. “Now, when I ask that same question, I’d say more than half the class raises their hand. The seniors really look forward to playing it and I know the underclassmen now, because of the sports’ popularity, play it and look forward to playing it their senior year.”
Morcone acknowledges the benefits that come from knowing how to participate in pickleball.
“I love the competitive aspect but I love just teaching a student a new sport, especially a sport that they can play with their parents or their grandparents,” Morcone said. “Although a lot of kids know how to play, there’s definitely a handful that don’t or that don’t know the rules exactly because it’s a little tricky.”
As for the future of the sport, Morcone is optimistic.
“It is not going away!” Morcone said. “If anything it is sweeping the nation, I say that all the time. It’s not going anywhere; it’s here to stay.”
