Wisconsin Pickleball

Ripon Pickleball will conduct a Demonstration/Clinic at Center Court in Fond du Lac, WI

2011-10-27T11:15:00.000-07:00

USAPA Ambassador, for Green Lake and Fond du Lac County, Dave Lukoski announced today that members of the Ripon Pickleball Association will present a demonstration/clinic of Pickleball, the fastest growing sport in the nation.

The demonstration/clinic will be held at Center Court Tennis Club in Fond du Lac Wisconsin on Thursday, November 17th, 2011 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and is open to the public at no charge.

Center Court Tennis Club is located at 770 W. Scott Street in Fond du Lac.
For further information please call Center Court @ 920-929-9150. You can visit their website @: http://www.playcentercourt.com/index.php

Great news from Fish Creek in the Door Penisula

2011-04-02T11:21:00.001-07:00

We currently have 10-30 players (depending upon how many head to Arizona, Florida, etc.).

We play at the Nor-Door YMCA in Fish Creek (Door County).

Just hosted our second Annual Pickleball Challenge with 7 teams from Manitowoc and the rest from Sturgeon Bay & Fish Creek Y's.

Currently, there are two indoor courts at our Y and 2 indoor courts at the Sturgeon Bay Y. We will re-do our gym floor at the end of May and will re-configure to have 3 indoor courts in Fish Creek.

Keep up the good work in Ripon and I'll help as much as possible to Make Wisconsin the "hotbed" of Pickleball.

Bill Reifsnyder
Pickleball Ambassador
920-209-0405

Pickleball takes root in Oconto, Wisconsin. Great news!

2011-04-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

My name is Jim Kempfer, and last February I started PB here in Oconto, Wisconsin getting the idea from an article I read in the Journal-Sentinel. In just over one year we have three courts painted on the outside tennis courts, and three painted courts on the gym floor.

BACKGROUND: In 1995 Leon Bond of the Bond Pickle Company donated the money for a community center now called The Bond Community Center. It is a wonderful facility consisting of: full sized swimming pool with suana and hot tub; large gym with walking/running track; two raquettball courts; cardio room; weight room; and a couple classrooms used for different physical activities. We are blessed to have this facility, and I have been a member since 1995. I will try to attached the BCC's website, check it out.

We play PB on Mon., Tues. Wed. and Fri. from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. We have roughly 10 addicts and another 20 or so that have played and show up once in awhile. (work sometimes gets in the way)

Manitowoc Pickleball to host Fall Pickleball at YMCA

2010-07-26T15:22:00.000-07:00

Tom Brull announced recently that he has been successful in getting the Manitowoc YMCA to mark two of their courts for Pickleball. Tom said that they will be playing Pickleball at the YMCA on Sundays beginning at 5:00 p.m. even though the Y is closed to the general public, they will be opening for Pickleball.

Congrats on a great achievement Tom. Those of us in the rest of the State will be bringing our outdoor season to a close in October while Tom and his group will be playing in the comfort of a great YMCA.

Maybe an invitation will be extended to others for play. We can only hope!

Pickleball Clinic conducted in Fond du Lac

2010-07-21T14:58:00.003-07:00

Ripon Pickleball traveled east on Tuesday July 20th and conducted a beginners Pickleball clinic in Fond du Lac on Tennis Courts just south of the Fond du Lac Aquatic Center.

USAPA Ambassador (Green Lake/Fond du Lac Counties) Dave Lukoski, Pat Kubisiak and Bob Ollerman headed out and met fourteen enthusiastic participants at the courts and proceeded through a very well attended clinic where all of the participants from Fond du Lac progressed from those very difficult opening minutes of trying to hit a wiffle ball with a short racket to full pickleball play at the end of the evening.

Bob (honest Bob) Ollerman gets full credit for organizing this clinic as a high school classmate (Colleen Deanovich) contacted him about an intro to Pickleball and then delivered herself, her husband Howie and twelve other very interested participants.

We certainly hope that the great interest in Pickleball by these fourteen will encourage the Fond du Lac Recreation Department that there is interest in the great City of Fond du Lac and will agree to sponsor future clinics.

An open invitation was extended to all of the participants to travel to Ripon to play or to have us back for session two. Thanks to all who helped bring this clinic to fruition.

Congratulations to Wisconsin Senior Games 25th Anniversary

2010-06-10T06:40:00.000-07:00

The Wisconsin Senior Games held in the Madison area is celebrating their 25th year of providing the Senior Games to the State of Wisconsin. Congratulations to all who are involved, it is a great event.

From a pickleball perspective, Fred Frye and his group from the Madison area do a great job of hosting Pickleball Doubles, mixed Doubles and Singles play. These events are held at the Prairie Atheltic Club in Sun Prairie Wisconsin.

This years doubles event increased from four teams in 2009 to eight teams in 2010. Fred and his crew do just a magnificent job and the facility is first rate. We certainly hope that more pickleball players will take advantage of this outstanding tournament when it is held in June of 2011.

Great job Fred!

Coach Chuck Larson integrates Pickleball into Tennis Camp

2010-06-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

Retired Ripon College Tennis coach Chuck Larson spent thirty-nine years coaching Women's and Men's tennis at Ripon College. During those thirty-nine years Chuck and his teams won twenty two conference titles. Now that Chuck is retired he hosts an annual four day tennis camp for folks at Ripon College. This year Chuck has thirty two attendees and as an avid pickleball player and USAPA member, Chuck finds time within the four days to introduce Pickleball to his campers.

Chuck's love of tennis is obvious as he drills men and women in the finer skills of tennis and does all of us who love pickleball a huge favor by introducing others to pickleball, which seems to be the biggest problem we have up here in the north country:
which is bringing people to the sport so that they can play and fall in love with the sport, like we all have.

Thanks to Chuck Larson for being an outstanding ambassador to the great sport of Pickleball.

Six from Ripon to travel to Wisconsin Senior Games

2010-05-21T07:35:00.001-07:00

The Ripon Pickleball Association is proud to announce that we will send three men's doubles teams to the Wisconsin Senior Games to be held in Sun Prairie on June 9, 2010 at the Sun Prarie Athletic Club. The following will be competing:

Chuck Larson and Dick Swanson
Bob Ollerman and Tom Kramer
Dave Lukoski and Pat Kubisiak

We look forward to attending this event and look forward to seeing our friends from the Madison area. Fred Frye and his group do a fabulous job with this event and we hope that we get greater participation this year from the rest of the State and our friends from Minnesota as well.

Pickleball tournaments in Wisconsin and Minnesota 2010

2010-04-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

From St. Cloud Minnesota Area Pickleball

Pickleball tournaments to date in 2010

Wisconsin Senior Games, Sun Prairie WI Wednesday June 9th. Singles,Doubles, Mixed Doubles.

Minnesota Senior Games, Alexandria MN. Monday July 19th. Singles, Doubles, mixed doubles. mnseniorgames.com

Willmar Minnesota YMCA Tournament. August 21-22 TBA troy@kandiymca.org

Wisconsin Senior Olympics. Milwaukee WI Saturday September 11. Doubles and mixed Doubles http://wiseniorolympics.com

Wisconsin Pickleball gets a blog site

2010-04-18T19:08:00.000-07:00

Hello all, my name is Dave Lukoski and I am the USAPA Pickleball ambassador for Fond du Lac and Green Lake County located in East Central Wisconsin. Our pickleball group has been playing regularly for two years and we love the sport. We currently have 22 members of our group and we have a total of 8 USAPA members within our group.

USAPA tells me that currently there are 25 USAPA members in America's Dairy land. To have 8 members in Ripon, just under a third of all in the state, tells me that right now at least, Ripon is the Pickleball Capital of Wisconsin.

I am attempting to somehow unite Wisconsin pickleball through this blog. It is my goal to somehow, some way make Wisconsin Pickleball as big as it is in our neighboring state of Michigan.

If anyone would like to contribute articles, tournament announcements or anything of interest to Pickleball players, please contact me at dlukoski@charter.net and I will update this blog.

If interested check out the Ripon Pickleball page at http://riponpickleball.blogspot.com/

Thanks much for checking this out and please help me grow pickleball in the great state of Wisconsin.