Fun fact, Bill Gates has been playing pickleball for over 50 years. Wait a second, pickleball is just getting popular in the past few years, how can this be?
Low and behold, Gates’ dad was actually friends with Barney McCallum and Bill Bell, the inventors of pickleball in the Seattle area back in the 1960’s. His dad was so excited about the game that he actually had a pickleball court built at their house and Bill has been playing ever since.
Gates has said, “At the time, the pickleball community was very small. I doubt there were more than a thousand people in the Seattle area who had ever seen the sport when my family picked it up. And I don’t think anyone expected it would ever become a national phenomenon.”
Bill is still playing each week with his friends and family. He attributes the popularity of the sport to being fairly easy to learn, unlike golf and it doesn’t take a huge investment in equipment to get started. He likes the fact that all ages can play and the best thing about pickleball is that it’s just super fun.
