If You Build It, They Will Dink
Steve Paranto and His Passion for Pickleball
“All my friends are becoming pickleball players. If they don't play pickleball, I feel sorry for them because everybody else is talking about their new paddle or the new top spin roller they're working on, and the non-pickleball people don’t know what we’re talking about.” — Steve Paranto
“Here, I have it right next to me,” Steve Paranto says, holding up an orange paddle to the screen so I can see it. Inscribed with the words ‘World’s first composite paddle’ and adorned with the signature of the former governor of Washington State, who signed it on the day that pickleball became the official sport of Washington, this paddle is not just typical sports equipment, but a piece of history. He rotates the paddle a few times so I can get a better look.
“That’s Boeing floor paneling from jet airplanes!” he says.
Paranto had been playing pickleball for several years using the durable wooden paddles that resembled oversized ping pong paddles, when he decided to weigh the paddles. He brought his findings to his father, Arlen, an industrial engineer at Boeing and an expert in materials.
“Dad, there’s something wrong with these wooden paddles,” he told him. “I just weighed my tennis racket and tennis ball. The ratio is seven to one. These are thirteen to one. They’re way too heavy.”
His dad, also a recent pickleball convert, was convinced. They went to work, testing out different materials and soon had a prototype for the first composite pickleball paddle — a lighter and more durable revolution in the still-young game. It was two decades after pickleball was invented on an island near Seattle and just over three decades before it became the unstoppable global phenomenon it is today.
The Parantos were ahead of their time. Composite pickleball paddles are now the norm, and all you’ll find on just about every pickleball court around the world — a number that is suddenly a lot.
It’s hard to go anywhere these days without hearing someone talk about how much they love the game that feels like the best of tennis and table tennis rolled into one.
At the start of my On Fire project to interview one of the world’s most passionate people every week and share what I discovered, I decided that I’d open my aperture as wide as possible to any passion. But there was one exception: I knew I wanted to track down the most passionate person in one of the most passionate sports — pickleball. I didn’t know who yet.
So I asked around. Luckily, my parents caught the pickleball bug several years ago, and post-retirement, play for hours almost every day. They asked their community. The one name that kept coming up? Steve Paranto.
Today, Steve Paranto is legendary in the pickleball world — and not just because he pioneered the modern pickleball paddle.
A multi-National Champion at the 5.0 level, he was also one of the first International Pickleball Teaching Professional Association (IPTPA) certified instructors and was inducted into the pickleball hall of fame in 2019. He now hosts the new Pickleball Fountain of Youth podcast, created for pickleball players who are interested in staying young playing the fastest growing sport in the United States.
But my favorite fact about Paranto? He played in the very first pickleball tournament that took place in 1974 — fifty years ago (!) — and he hasn’t stopped competing or teaching since. In fact, he believes he is the longest-running tournament player in the world.
(Actually, that’s not my favorite fact. It’s that Paranto is, on top of everything, known for his pickleball parodies — he plays guitar and sings songs with titles like ‘Too Old for 5.0’ and ’Yoda,’ a song about hall-of-famer Mark ‘Yoda’ Friedenberg.)
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I’m always interested in how passions start, so I was interested to discover that Paranto wasn’t always a pickleball player. In fact, when he first started college at Green River Community College in Auburn, Washington, he played tennis.
But this was just around the corner from Bainbridge Island, where pickleball was first invented in 1965, and word had started getting around about the sport. Paranto and his tennis buddies were stuck inside on a rainy Pacific Northwest day, looking for something to do, when they happened upon some people playing it in their small college gym.
“We just heard the sound of this ball being hit around, and we look over and they’re using these wooden paddles and a whiffle ball. And we thought, ‘You know, that looks a lot like what we do,’” he says.
At the very same time, his professors went on strike. There was no tennis practice, and it was too rainy to play outside, anyway. So what did they do? They played pickleball.
Sometimes, passion discovery is function of a place. Where you live inspires what you love.
When class returned to normal two weeks later, Paranto kept playing. He didn’t know it then, but those early experiences as a freshman in college would shape the next five decades of his life. He played regularly with his friends and participated in the recreational tournaments the school put on, and even wound up teaching the game to his fellow students as part of his sophomore P.E. class. He had fallen in love with the sport and wanted everyone he knew to try it too.
When the inventors of the game announced the first-ever world pickleball tournament, Paranto and his friend, Dave Lester, signed up. They had been winning all the school’s intramural tournaments and thought they were pretty good. Still, they were self-taught, and when they got to the tournament, realized that they had been doing some things wrong.
“We got there, and we go, ‘Wait a minute. They’re using a smaller ball,’” he tells me, laughing. “We had one day to learn how to play with a baseball sized whiffle ball instead of a softball size one.”
Still, they did well, making it to the finals. They eventually lost to two people who learned on the original inventor’s court, Scott Stover (who owns the original pickleball court today) and Rob Cahill (who has since taken lessons from Paranto). Not bad for just having learned how to play with the correct-sized ball the day before.
Paranto kept playing and playing. And before long, he dug up his nice new backyard to put in a pickleball court so he could play whenever he wanted.
His parents, skeptical at first, soon came to love the game and followed suit, and his dad got so hooked that he agreed to take on the project to create the new composite paddle with his son. Paranto would teach everyone, including the students he taught as part of his day job as a physical-education teacher. The sport quickly became a favorite among his students; one of its many magical qualities is that it effortlessly seems to transcend generations.
“I knew how great and fun it was, but nobody else would believe me until they tried it,” he says. At that time, there weren’t very many dedicated pickleball courts, which are shorter and narrower than tennis courts, and portable nets weren’t as nice or easy as the ones today. (Back then, he tells me, they would use badminton nets supported by coffee cans with cement poles sticking out to keep the nets in place.)
“We all knew it was a great game, but we just didn't have courts,” he says. “You know, it's just like they say, ‘If you build it, they will come.’ That's what's happening to pickleball all over the world right now.”
It’s clear that Paranto is just as passionate about the sport today as he was when he discovered it fifty years ago and started his journey toward becoming the longest-running pickleball tournament player of all time.
So what does he love about it?
“It’s just so much fun,” he says, summarizing his five-decade-long affair with the sport.
He’s not the only one that feels this way: go to any pickleball court in the world and you’ll encounter crowds of enthusiasts passionate about the sport. In fact, the noise complaints that have become commonplace are not just from the sound of the ball being hit back and forth — they’re also from people laughing.
“The sport is strangely addicting,” my own father tells me when I ask him why he loves the game so much. He likes the complexity of the game, how good of exercise it is, and how social it is. “It’s just fun,” he says, echoing Paranto. “It’s fun playing with a ball with other people.”
Paranto credits the recent rise in pickleball passion to two major factors. One is the never-ending learning aspect of the game, something I believe is key to all the most lasting passions. He agrees. “You’re never bored,” he says, and tells me he’s always working on improving his game and adding new shots, even a half century later.
But the bigger factor, he says, is the social aspect of the game.
“You get to be around a lot of people in a short amount of time,” he says. Pickleball games are fast, and you switch partners a lot, especially when you’re playing doubles. “You’re meeting a lot of people and you’re close to the people — unlike tennis, where you’re a long way away, yelling across the court.”
Pickleball people tend to connect even outside the court. I’ve seen this with my parents, whose friends have slowly all turned into pickleball players. Paranto says the same of the people he spends his time with. For New Year’s, he rang in the “Pickleball New Year,” as he called it, with 16 couples, all who play — and love — pickleball.
“I realized all my friends are becoming pickleball players,” he says. “If there's anybody ever at my house at a party that's not a pickleball player, I feel sorry for them. Everybody else is talking about their new paddle or the new top spin roller they're working on. And the non-pickleball people don't know what we're talking about.”
Takeaways
Here is one big thing I learned this week about passion, one exercise you can do to stoke your own inner fire, and one aspect of Paranto’s intense enthusiasm that rubbed off on me — and that I now want to learn more about, too!
One Lesson: Find a Gap and Create a Product Out of Your Passion
Steve Paranto's creation of the first composite pickleball paddle shows how deeply-rooted passion can inspire innovation. His profound engagement with the sport of pickleball led him to identify a significant gap – the inefficiency of traditional wooden paddles. This realization was not just a moment of insight but a call to action fueled by his enthusiasm for the game. Alongside his father, he harnessed this passion to develop a product that not only met a crucial need but also revolutionized the sport. This story serves as a powerful example of how transforming a personal passion into a tangible solution can lead to remarkable achievements, and potentially, a rewarding way to immerse oneself deeper in one’s passion or even to create a source of income from it.
One Exercise: Practice the First Four Shots
When I asked Paranto his best pickleball advice for beginners, he didn’t hesitate: work hard on getting good at what’s known in pickleball as the first four shots. These foundational skills include: the serve; the return of serve coupled with moving towards the 'kitchen' (the non-volley zone); executing the third ball drive and drop; and effectively blocking or volleying the fourth shot. Paranto emphasizes the importance of consistent practice with a single grip to build proficiency.
One Curiosity: Finding Local Pickleball Courts
All of this pickleball talk has made me want to play more, so I asked my parents how they find and book courts. They told me about Pickle Play, an app and website that connects pickleball players and helps them find places to play worldwide. To my delight, a simple search revealed multiple court options just within a two-mile radius of my home. I love how technology can help us quickly access community and immerse ourselves in our passions. Time to practice those shots!
Links
(Google Steve Paranto pickleball or search his name in YouTube to find many more instructional videos and podcast interviews he’s done!)
I've been so curious about the addictive trait seeing it in others. Thank you for the insight! Now I want to try it! I hope there's a court in Costa Rica!