Welcome to *Beyond the court*

It’s pretty fascinating watching a sport grow from the ground up. Seeing passionate, everyday people put together community clubs, leagues, coaching sessions, podcasts and so many other elements critical to spreading the word and getting as many humans involved as possible.

Pickleball has become this almost overnight sensation in the US, and Australia is slowly starting to follow. From spending the last eight years living in Austin, TX to now building a life and getting involved with the sport in Australia, I’ve somehow found myself in a prime spot to watch it all unfold.

Life has a funny way of playing out sometimes. Somewhere over the course of the last few years we went from living average people lives with average people activities (sort of…) to planning our year around tournament dates and testing paddles in the spare room??

We’ve only known about pickleball for a few years, but in that time I’ve watched Joey go from playing a few times a month at a local park to now traveling together as he competes around the world. And through it all, tagging along to tournaments ~just for the vibes~ I became fascinated with both the sport and everything that happens around it. 

The chats I’ve had while dragging a camping chair around from court to court, slapping on sunscreen every 2 hours, keeping visual track of the score because the referee never says it loud enough, reloading the brackets online, trying to squeeze in a bite between matches, cheering on friends, and sharing in the highs and lows of victories and losses with the other partners, friends and family… there’s just nothing else like it.

At every tournament and between every match there are stories unfolding that deserve to be shared. Stories about culture, community, leagues and all of the life we live outside of Friday to Sunday.

So, welcome to Beyond the Court, a home for people, places and life on and off the pickleball courts.

I can’t make any promises about what this space will be. In reality, it’s a bit of a passion project to document the world of pickleball (and life in and around all the happenings) from my point of view. But, like any good onion, this gal has layersss. So, here are four types of posts you can expect to see:

My hope for this blog is that it’s flexible to our life and everything happening in the pickleball space. Sometimes posts could be dedicated to tournament coverage and other times it might be conversations with the people making this sport what it is. And a big part will be just Joey and me, trying to figure out how to balance life and work with competitive pickleball and finding fun in the process.

I don’t know exactly where this journey is heading. But I do know that every tournament, road trip, and “how did we get here?” moment is adding another chapter to a story that feels too special to keep to myself.

I guess it’s true how they say life’s best moments often come from saying “yes” to something that makes no sense at the time. Hopefully we can make sense of it together. 

Welcome 🙂