Bettendorf, Iowa = Pickleball Passion Plus!
Iowans must have some predilection that makes them pushovers for pickleball. I was born and spent my childhood in Iowa. When I started playing pickle ball, I knew I was hooked on a healthy new activity. When I introduced my older sister to the game, she immediately got the bug and started making plans to turn her driveway into a court.
On a recent trip to our home town, Bettendorf, Iowa, I was amazed by how many locals there have the pickleball bug and how passionate and productive they are with that infection!
So, in order to inspire my now home city of Seattle to greater pickle ball glory, I decided to write this article about the Quad City Pickleball Club and how much they have accomplished in a relatively short time. It wasn’t hard to find a good source for most of this story; I just showed up at the 6-plex Bettendorf pickle ball courts pictured above with my paddle and there met Dean Easterlund, president of the Quad Cities Pickleball Club and local ambassador to the USA Pickleball Association.
The game was invented in the 1970’s about 10 miles from where I live in Seattle, and has been played in Washington State ever since. According to Dean, it came to the Quad City area (Davenport, Bettendorf, Moline, E. Moline & Rock Island) via snow birds in the mid-2000’s. In 2008 the early Iowa enthusiasts lobbied Davenport and Bettendorf Parks departments to line tennis courts for pickleball. The result? Below are Google maps satellite shots of tennis courts in Bettendorf and Davenport at various city parks:
Emeis park
Northwest park
Kiwanis park
Iowa has some nasty winter weather. After being introduced to and hooked on outdoor pickleball, it didn’t take long for the many locals who don’t escape to the south to find several area indoor gyms to line for play when the outside is frozen solid.
In 2011, Pickleball was made an official sport played in the annual Quad City Senior Olympics, played at the Pepsico Recreation Center at Augustana College.
In 2012 or 2013 a group of pickleball enthusiasts decided to organize into a club. The Quad City Pickleball Club started with around 80 members in 2013, and now is around 200. Dues are $15/year. There’s a website, a newsletter, and a will and a way to get things done. Certainly their most appreciable achievement to a visiting player like me was the 6-plex court built at Kiwanis park in Bettendorf.
This wonderful outdoor facility was funded primarily by the Bettendorf Parks department (at a cost of approx. $90,000), is free and open to the public. It is completely asphalt (easy on feet and joints), has 4 foot padded fencing between courts and is surrounded by a 10 foot fence with a windscreen. Design criteria were based on the outdoor courts found at Sun City West, AZ (which, by the way, are in no way free or open for the public – I lament as I write this nearby in Scottsdale, AZ). A couple more pictures might give you an idea why these are the nicest courts I have played on in my 1 year pickleball experience:
The population of Bettendorf, Iowa is around 34,000. Davenport has about 100,000.
Okay, back to Seattle, population 641,000, near the birth of the game. Great play and players abound at various community centers. Yet, there seems to be no city-wide club or organization of what probably are several hundred regular players in the city. It is a poorly kept secret that we have wonderful summers. We could and should do more to enjoy the outdoor game. The two recent courts built at Maple Leaf Park are nice, but, chasing balls all over creation and conflicting with the walking-running track leaves a lot to improve on. A multi-use, unfenced sports court is under construction at Montlake park, and its utility for pickleball is yet to be revealed. I have lined my local tennis courts with chalk a few times, and they are wonderful to play on. Making tennis courts multi-use was a great beginning for these Iowans. Wouldn’t that be a fantastic thing to do with the many public tennis courts we have in Seattle?
Take another look at those Google satellite photos above. Tennis courts are empty. 4 out of 6 pickleball courts have 4 players each.
-Jeff Parke, Seattle