While the name might conjure images of vinegar-marinated cucumbers, pickleball is a sport similar to tennis, played on a smaller court and with light plastic balls that are more like whiffle balls than tennis balls.
Over the past few years, pickleball’s rise has been meteoric; according to the Associated Press, the number of players nationwide “soared from nearly nothing to 13.6 million” from 2021 to 2024.
With the sport taking hold in localities across the United States, Brookfield has been no exception. Luke Gundersen, the village’s parks and recreation director, said his department has adapted to the trend.
“I want to say we started offering pickleball last year,” he told the Landmark. “It exploded, and with that popularity, our response was offering more pickleball programs. … A lot of our programs are filling up, which is great.”
He said the village offers classes for adults of all skill levels as well as competitive leagues for adults and teenagers. He said the offerings take advantage of the four pickleball courts at Ehlert Park, which were added within the existing tennis courts when the area was redone in 2023.
Resident Julie Narimatsu, who is a village trustee and the village board’s liaison to Brookfield’s parks and recreation commission, said she plays pickleball regularly.
“I actually usually play with my teenage son, who has gotten into it as well,” she said. “Over the winter, we did the pickleball class with the village at S. E. Gross [Middle School], and that was a really great community.”
She said she started playing with a group of moms in 2021 on Mother’s Day and has maintained the hobby since then.
“It’s a relatively simple game to pick up. I think the hardest part about it is the rules, which can be a little bit complicated … It’s not as difficult as tennis and a little bit harder than ping pong,” she said. “I’ve seen a lot of people who are very competitive, especially in the surrounding areas, and they’re really good at pickleball, but for those of us who just like to do it recreationally, it’s a great way to get outside and play and move our bodies a little bit in a way that’s not super taxing.”
Narimatsu is a board member of the Brookfield Parks and Recreation Foundation, a nonprofit that covers up to half of the cost for low-income families to enroll in village recreation programs.
The foundation is hosting its second annual pickleball tournament on Saturday, June 21. President Kyle Whitehead described it as the “brainchild” of board member Beth Damon.
“We’ve only been around for three years, so we’re constantly looking for new ways to get out in the community and promote ourselves and find ways to fundraise in the meantime. Ehlert Park had just redone the tennis courts,” Damon said. “We had been trying to think of something to do within the parks for a while. We had thought about throwing a kickball tournament, anything like that. When the tennis-slash-pickleball courts were finished … We thought, ‘Oh my gosh, let’s do a tournament!’”
Registration for the tournament is still open online. It costs $70 to register a two-person team. Each team will play at least two matches before the herd is culled up to a semifinal and final round.
Last year, the tournament was comprised of eight teams of two players, but this year, the roster has grown to 16 teams. Damon, who started playing pickleball in the same group as Narimatsu, said she decided to expand the tournament after hearing feedback from last year’s winners.
“We were very concerned about maximizing people’s playing time because they were donating and being there, but the feedback we heard was, ‘It’s OK to give breaks. We don’t need to play eight games; we’re fine with four,’” she said. “That actually helped immensely for us to be able to include more teams this year.”
But overall, she said the participants, many of whom have competed in other tournaments in the area, lauded the foundation’s efforts.
Damon agreed that pickleball’s adaptability is one of its strengths.
“It’s just fun. You can play with a partner. You can play with a group. It’s a great way to get outside, and you can tailor the level of effort you want to put in,” she said. “It’s also a really fun way to meet other people in the community. I know, myself, playing at Ehlert, playing even at the LaGrange Park courts, you meet people. Everyone wants to share tips, tricks, how you learn the drill … You get what you put into it.”
