Jeremiah Norris, 18, prepares to backhand the pickleball during a game at Deering Oaks in Portland. “When I first started playing,” he says, “it was only people in their 50s, 60s and beyond. Now we’re starting to get some younger people playing, people my age.” Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

Like many people across the country, Jeremiah Norris is a burgeoning pickleball addict. Norris, 18, started playing the sport as a high school sophomore and now plays six days a week. Already, he’s noticed a dramatic shift in the landscape.

“Just since I started playing, there’s been this whole new world that’s opened up,” said Norris, a recent graduate of Falmouth High. “When I first started playing … it was only people in their 50s, 60s and beyond. There weren’t any younger people there. Now we’re starting to get some younger people playing, people my age.”

Pickleball has been the fastest-growing sport in America for each of the past three years, with some newcomers like Norris embracing it with a fervor. New pickleball courts are being constructed in Maine to accommodate the spike in players.

And as it grows in popularity, pickleball is experiencing a significant change in demographics. More and more young people – from teenagers to adults in their 20s and 30s – are finding their way onto pickleball courts, shaking up a sport that for years fought a reputation as an activity for retirees.

“It was really considered an old person’s sport, and just in the last three or four years it’s really moved to the 20s and 30-year-olds, which is great,” said Rocky Clark, the Atlantic regional director for USA Pickleball, the governing body for the sport in the U.S. “All the pro pickleball players are between the ages of 16 and probably 35, so that’s doing a lot for the sport.”

Gen Yong, 44, of South Portland has played in high-ranking amateur pickleball tournaments, including the U.S. Open. She has experienced the demographic shift firsthand.

“When I started, even at 36, 37, I was considered one of the youngins in the game,” Yong said. “With all these kids coming in, I feel like the old lady now.”

Nearly 9 million Americans played pickleball last year, according to data from the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, and the sport continues to attract many new players among older adults. The number of players 65 and older more than doubled (a 103% increase) between 2018 and 2022. But the growth among players 34 and younger has been far more dramatic – a leap of 210%. In the 18-to-24 age group, it shot up by 267%.

As the sport has trended younger, it’s become faster and more competitive, and turned from a pastime into a serious, athletic pursuit.

“The younger generation … is seeing on TV how cool it is to play, and how fast it can be,” said John Coray, president of Midcoast Maine Pickleball Club and a regional ambassador for USA Pickleball. “It’s not their grandfather’s game.”

TENNIS CONVERTS

Pickleball’s transition from senior game to all-ages sport has even made converts of serious tennis players, some of whom once considered pickleball ridiculous.

“That was me. I used to make so much fun of people who played pickleball. ‘Oh, this is just stupid tennis out here,'” said 18-year-old Xander Barber of Falmouth, who is ranked seventh in the nation among junior tennis players.

“But it’s definitely a completely different game once you start playing competitively. … I’m getting into pickleball a little too much. My dad yells at me for it, my college coach is always questioning me on it. ‘Are you playing more pickleball tournaments or tennis?'”

Jesse Butler, 28, a former tennis player at Bates College, says of pickleball: “I realized this is just as athletic (as tennis) and takes just as much energy if you’re doing it well.” Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

Jesse Butler, 28, played tennis at Bates College as a freshman. He has seen pickleball’s more athletic side emerge in his job at Foreside Fitness and Tennis in Falmouth.

“I realized this is just as athletic (as tennis) and takes just as much energy if you’re doing it well,” Butler said. “You have more rallies, you play longer points, and you get to do it with a bunch of your friends, and obviously it’s a little more accessible than other sports, too.”

“I think people are coming around to (pickleball) more and more. I think for a while, it was definitely the tennis players and the pickleball players. Now I think you’re seeing more and more players go from one to the other.”

South Portland’s Abby Trieu, 21, grew up playing tennis. She’s switched to pickleball after picking it up a year-and-a-half ago and now plays three times a week.

“Initially when I played it, I thought it was mostly for older people,” she said. “I like the social (element), just talking with other people. It’s not like in tennis, where you have to have a group or someone you know. But in pickleball, you can find posts online to meet with other people to play.”

Abby Trieu of South Portland, right, celebrates with teammate Lucy Bergen of Portland after winning a point while playing pickleball at Deering Oaks. “I like the social (element), just talking with other people,” says Trieu, 21. “It’s not like in tennis, where you have to have a group or someone you know.” Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

That convenience – pickleball has “drop in” play, where players can show up where games are going on and join in – is one of several factors leading to the rising interest among younger players. Another has been the sport’s increasing exposure on television, and the emergence of young stars like 16-year-old Anna Leigh Waters, the No. 1 player in the world.

“More publicity got people wondering ‘Maybe this is actually a thing,'” said Yong, the player from South Portland. “And once it becomes a ‘thing,’ I think you start getting the younger people going ‘All right, I want to be a part of this.'”

IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME

With more players comes the demand for more courts. A pickleball-only facility, the Wicked Pickle, is targeted for a November opening in South Portland and will feature eight courts. Another in Brunswick, the Midcoast Athletic and Recreation Complex, is slated to open in the winter and will have eight courts, bringing the town’s total to 16.

Portland has courts in Deering Oaks, the Eastern Promenade and Payson Park, with more coming in Riverton. Kittery is adding new courts at Emery Field. Saco is adding pickleball to its summer camps, introducing children in grades 6-8 to the sport.

“The game has really picked up, and the tsunami is going to hit Maine this summer,” said Coray of the Midcoast pickleball club. “It’s been here for a couple of years, but it’s going to explode this summer and onward.”

Once they start, pickleball players often find it hard to stop. Linda Einsiedler and her husband, Charlie, built a tennis court at their Falmouth home in 1986. After starting to play pickleball in 2015, the couple drew new lines on the court and have since used it almost exclusively for their new sport. Linda Einsiedler said she was playing nearly every day, and now plays two to three times a week.

“The action on the pickleball court at a high level, it’s very active,” she said, “and I really believe that it stimulates the endorphins just like a runner’s high. I really believe that’s part of it.”

On a afternoon in mid-June, the pickleball courts were full of players at Deering Oaks in Portland.

Julie Brooke, 37, of Portland picked up the sport in 2018. She now plays four to six times per week, in sessions lasting 90 minutes to two hours. Brooke has traveled out of state to play in amateur tournaments – sometimes missing events with family and friends in the process.

“I probably haven’t gone more than a week without playing pickleball since 2020. … It’s embarrassingly a huge part of my life,” Brooke said, laughing. “(And) I could list you dozens of people who play as much as I do.”

But with its surge in popularity, pickleball has made some enemies – most often to do with noise from the clacking of plastic balls.

Media reports in recent years have cited neighbors driven to their wit’s end over the noise. Residents of Wellesley, Massachusetts, living near a pickleball court complained enough that the town’s recreation commission held a meeting in March to hear their grievances. A southern California woman insisted that the sounds of pickleball games being played near her home caused her anxiety. A couple in South Carolina brought a suit against a local country club in 2015, saying the pickleball games upset their quality of life.

Here in Maine, 50 residents of York wrote to the town manager in 2021, arguing against an expansion of the York Paddle Tennis and Pickleball Club, which is seeking to build two new outdoor courts. Lauren DeLong, president of the club, said she expects the expansion request to be added to the York Planning Board’s agenda in July. She said the club would put fencing with 6-by-8-foot panels around the new courts that would drop the noise from pickleball games by 15 decibels.

“We’ve always worked with our neighbors. We’ve always tailored the times that we have the club open to benefit our neighbors. We skew the times to be in their favor,” DeLong said. “We turn the lights off earlier than we have to, start later than we need to. … There was concern with the noise in our neighborhood, and we respect our neighbors and we work really well with many of them who are also members.”

Linda Einsiedler has dealt with this issue, too. Soon after she and her husband started playing pickleball on their court in Falmouth, they were approached by neighbors who requested they limit the noise. The couple added noise-dampening fencing around the court, and also began using quieter balls and paddles and avoiding playing certain times of the day.

“They work at home so they needed to have quiet during their work hours. We just worked out a schedule,” she said. “You’ve got to open the communication with that.”

The detractors, however, seem to be fighting a losing battle. Pickleball is no longer simply an activity that people do casually in their spare time. It’s become a serious athletic pursuit, with a devoted following.

And there’s no way to deny it: The devotees are getting younger and younger.

“We’re past that stage now. … It’s here, and it’s growing,” Coray said. “It’s touching every family at some level, whether it’s your grandfather or your kid.”

Jeremiah Norris, the recent Falmouth High grad, is among those spreading the gospel of pickleball.

Earlier this year, he wanted to start a pickleball club at the school after classes. After getting the go-ahead from faculty, Norris sent out an email to the student body in March, alerting them to the new club.

Students at Falmouth High participate in a pickleball club organized by Jeremiah Norris. Drew Bonifant/Staff Writer

Norris had a feeling he would get some interest. He wasn’t expecting just how much he got.

“It was just trial run to see who was interested. And the first day, we had over 60 people show up,” he said. “It was really overwhelming. I was like ‘All right, well, this is interesting.’ We had 30, 40 people just sitting out (waiting to get a chance to play).

“For me to see that there are people my age who are interested in playing and love playing, it’s just great. It’s exactly what I wanted.”