Pickleball is now Washington’s state official sport, as GovernorJay Inslee signed legislation granting the game a status among a long list of official state symbols.
“Everyone play away,” said Inslee, after signing SB 5615 in the backyard of the Bainbridge Island home where the game was created in the summer of 1965. Pickleball was invented by Washington State Rep. Joel Pritchard, who would later go on to represent the state in Congress and serve as Washington's lieutenant governor.
Pritchard came up with the game when his then 13-year-old son Frank complained about being bored, saying, “When we were young, we invented games.”
“Oh really,” said the young son, “Why don’t you invent a game then?”
Pritchard and two friends, Bill Bell and Barney McCallum, found an old whiffle ball, lowered a badminton net and made paddles out of plywood and played the first game of Pickleball.
Image credit: King 5