Pickleball

Washington named pickleball its official state sport in 2022, honoring a game invented within its own borders. Governor Jay Inslee signed the bill on March 28, after it passed the Senate 46 to 1 and the House 83 to 15. State law now states simply that pickleball is the official sport of Washington.

Two or four players face off across a low net on a court about a third the size of a tennis court, hitting a perforated plastic ball with solid paddles shaped like oversized ping-pong paddles. A seven-foot no-volley zone next to the net, nicknamed the kitchen, keeps players from smashing the ball out of the air too close in. Points come from placement and patience more than raw power, which lets players of very different ages share the same court.

Washington has built dedicated pickleball infrastructure to match the sport's origins. The Founders Courts at Battle Point Park on Bainbridge Island opened in 2020 as the island's first purpose-built pickleball center, honoring the three men who invented the game there. Courts have since spread across the state, from Seattle city parks to retirement communities east of the Cascades.

Pickleball began on Bainbridge Island in the summer of 1965, when state representative Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell, and Barney McCallum came back from golf to find their families with nothing to do. They tried to set up badminton but couldn't find a full set of rackets, so they lowered the net and improvised with ping-pong paddles and a perforated plastic ball. Pritchard's wife, Joan, named the new game after the pickle boat in crew rowing, where oarsmen were pulled together from the leftovers of other boats.

Pritchard went on to serve as Washington's lieutenant governor and later in the United States Congress, carrying the sport's origin story into the state's political history. McCallum kept refining the rules for decades and remained the last surviving founder until his death in Seattle in 2019. Washington lawmakers cited that homegrown history directly when they wrote the sport's designation into law.

The game Pritchard, Bell, and McCallum built for their bored kids has grown into one of the fastest-growing sports in the country, with more than four million players nationwide and clubs in 67 countries. Washington chose pickleball because no other state can claim to be its birthplace.

State Senator John Lovick introduced the bill designating pickleball as Washington's official sport, joined by nine co-sponsors from both parties. The Senate passed it 46 to 1, and the House followed 83 to 15, sending the measure to the governor with wide bipartisan support. Governor Jay Inslee signed it into law on March 28, 2022, and it took effect that June.