Why do they call it pickleball — and who invented it

Most people asking "why do they call it pickleball" have heard the dog story. It's backwards. Joan Pritchard named the game in 1965 after the crew term "pickle boat" — a boat rowed by whoever was left over from the other crews — and the Pritchards' dog Pickles didn't arrive until 1968.

Why do they call it pickleball: two stories, one timeline problem

Joan Pritchard was married to Joel Pritchard, one of the three men who assembled the game on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Watching a sport built out of badminton's court, ping-pong's paddles, and tennis's instincts, she reached for a rowing term. A pickle boat is a crew thrown together from the oarsmen nobody picked for the real boats. The comparison stuck, and the game had its name inside its first summer.

The rival version says the sport was named for Pickles, a cocker spaniel who supposedly kept running off with the ball. It's the better story, which is most of why it spread — and it doesn't survive a calendar. Pickles joined the family in 1968, three years after people were already playing. If anything, the dog got named after the game.

Origin story	Where it comes from	Does the timeline hold
The crew "pickle boat" — a boat of leftovers	Joan Pritchard, summer 1965	Yes. The name is attached to the game from its first season
The Pritchards' dog, Pickles	Retold for decades in press coverage and pickleball folklore	No. Pickles arrived in 1968

The pickleball name origin still gets argued over today, partly because the dog story is simply the better anecdote. Both stories get told at clinics today. Only one of them fits the dates.

Who invented pickleball, and what they were actually trying to do

Three men: Joel Pritchard, a Washington state legislator who later served twelve years in Congress and two terms as the state's lieutenant governor; Bill Bell, a businessman friend; and Barney McCallum, who came out the following weekend and stayed involved for the rest of his life.

Summer 1965. Pritchard and Bell got back from golf to find the families at the Pritchard place on Bainbridge Island — a ferry ride west of Seattle — with nothing to do. There was an old asphalt badminton court on the property but no complete set of rackets. Rather than drop it, they went into the house for ping-pong paddles and turned up a perforated plastic ball.

The ball did something a shuttlecock can't: it bounced, and it bounced predictably on asphalt. That one detail is what pushed the afternoon away from badminton and toward a ground game. Within a couple of weekends the three of them were writing rules rather than improvising them, borrowing the court and the serving structure from badminton and the feel of the exchange from ping-pong.

The first paddles were cut out of plywood

Ping-pong paddles were too small and too light for a plastic ball outdoors, so McCallum started cutting paddles by hand out of plywood. Bigger face, longer handle, enough mass to drive the ball without wrecking the wrist.

Wood stayed the standard for years. The first known tournament, in 1976, was still played on wooden paddles — composite and graphite faces didn't take over until much later. If you've ever picked up a cheap starter paddle at a rec center and thought it felt like a cutting board, that's the original design, more or less unchanged.

Why the net sits at 34 inches in the middle

They started with the badminton net that was already strung across the court, roughly five feet high at the center. That's correct for a shuttlecock and hopeless for a ball that bounces — every rally died at the net. So they dropped it to about hip height, near 36 inches, and the sport reorganized itself around the new number.

Today's spec keeps both heights: 36 inches at the sidelines, 34 inches at the center, with the sag built in on purpose so the middle of the net is the lowest point and the down-the-middle ball is the easier one. The playing surface is still a badminton doubles court, 20 by 44 feet, because that's what happened to be painted on the ground in 1965.

The rules that exist to keep the ball in play

Two of pickleball's signature rules came straight out of that first season, and both solve the same problem: a strong player standing at the net can end every point instantly.

The non-volley zone — the kitchen — runs seven feet back from the net on each side, and you can't volley with a foot in it. The two-bounce rule forces the serve and the return to bounce before anyone may volley, which hands the returning team a fair look at the third shot. Take either one away and the game collapses into a serve-and-smash contest.

Scoring came from badminton too. Side-out scoring means only the serving side can score, games run to 11, and you win by two — though rally scoring now shows up in some pro and league formats, so check the format before you argue about it. Side-out is also why doubles calls three numbers before every serve: server's score, receiver's score, and whether you're first or second server.

That three-number call is the piece of 1965 that survived intact, and it's the part players still lose track of mid-match, arguing over whether it was 8-6-2 or 8-6-1. Pickleball Scoreboard is a pickleball scoreboard app for iPhone and Apple Watch that tracks match scores, so the number you call out is the number in front of you.

A short history of pickleball, from one backyard outward

• 1965 — The game is invented at the Pritchard home on Bainbridge Island.
• 1967 — The first court built specifically for pickleball goes in at a neighbor's place on the island, two years after the first rallies.
• 1972 — Pickle-Ball, Inc. is formed to protect and promote the game.
• 1976 — The first known tournament is played at the South Center Athletic Club in Tukwila, Washington, on wooden paddles.
• 1984 — The USA Pickleball Association is organized and publishes the first official rulebook.
• 2020 — The association rebrands as USA Pickleball.
• 2022 — Washington makes pickleball its official state sport, 57 years after the first game.

The growth curve since is the part everyone knows: courts converted from tennis and basketball, dedicated clubs, a professional tour, and repeated recognition as the fastest-growing sport in the United States. Not bad for a game named after a boat full of leftover rowers.

FAQ

When was pickleball invented?

Summer 1965, at Joel Pritchard's home on Bainbridge Island, Washington. The rules were worked out over the following weeks rather than in a single afternoon, and the first court built specifically for the game came two years later, in 1967.

Who invented pickleball?

Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell, and Barney McCallum. Pritchard and Bell started it with ping-pong paddles and a perforated plastic ball; McCallum joined the next weekend, helped write the rules, and made the early plywood paddles.

Where was pickleball invented?

On Bainbridge Island, Washington, across Puget Sound from Seattle, on an old asphalt badminton court at the Pritchard property. That court is why the modern playing surface is still badminton-sized.

How did pickleball get its name?

Joan Pritchard compared the mix of borrowed sports to a crew "pickle boat," which is made up of rowers left over from the other boats. The name was in use during the game's first summer, in 1965.

Was pickleball really named after a dog?

Almost certainly not. The Pritchards did have a dog named Pickles, but he came along in 1968, three years after the game and its name already existed. The likelier sequence is that the dog was named for the sport.