Christopher-L-Edler's Historical Pickleball Videos

 

@Christopher-L-Edler

July 10, 2025

I'm the guy with the "big backswing" on my forehand (and my friend Charles had the "illegal serve"), and I still play; after turning 76 a few weeks ago -- a testament to the health benefits of playing pickleball (and tennis, which I also play).

In the above video from a year ago: (I'm in the white shirt in the near court, with my cousin Eric, who also in the old video, and still plays).

I briefly played racquetball back in the 1970s, but switched to paddle tennis when I discovered it at Venice Beach, California.

In 1978, my uncle played pickleball on the original pickleball court on Bainbridge Island, Washington, and shortly thereafter put in the two pickleball courts seen in the video (recorded about 10 years later).

We were using Pro-Lite paddles -- the first composite paddles ever made (originally, using surplus Boeing materials). The first time someone brought one to play with, it was like the Coke bottle dropping from the sky in "The Gods Must Be Crazy". Not too long after that, everybody had one. (I bought my current paddle about 5 years ago, pre-Covid, after demoing a half-dozen, and the one I liked the best at that time was another Pro-Lite.)

The balls we were using at the time were manufactured by Pickleball, Inc. (I have an invoice for a box of 5 dozen ball from 1986), and they were plenty fast (they were considerably faster than the Cosom Fun Balls we originally used).

At 2:22 in the video, it takes 14 frames for the ball hit from near the baseline to me at the non-volley line -- and about the same for The ball Ben Johns hits from the baseline to the net player at 0:14 here: https://youtu.be/UF0i_EboHqA?t=14 (which he hit hard, judging by his follow through).

By the way -- Charles's serve wasn't illegal at the time -- the serve rules changed radically sometime after this video was recorded -- and an old video of Barney McCallum, one of the inventors of Pickleball, demonstrating the serve, shows that HIS serve was illegal per the new rules -- does that sound right to you? The above video shows him serving in his old age.

Resources

• Chris Edler's Historical Pickleball Playlist
• Chris Edler's Instructional Pickleball Fundamentals Video Series
• The Dink Newsletter May 2025: These Clips of Pickleball in the 1980s vs. 2025 Might Surprise You
• Pickleball Pick-Apart June 2025: Pickleball Time Machine! What Pickleball Looked Like 40 Years Ago! You've Gotta See This!