Home-Grown Pickles: Homeschooled Youth Find Success in Pickleball

September. Most minds go to images of Back-To-School, cooler weather, apples, and pumpkin spice. But this September at the Southern Pickleball Academy, our minds were on pickleball classes for homeschoolers!

Volunteer Jessi reviews some rules of the game.

Every Wednesday morning in September, a group of homeschooled youth gathered at the Gregg Park Civic Center for a session of Intro to Pickleball. Taught by volunteers with the Southern Pickleball Academy, these kids learned the rules of the game, scoring, backhand and forehand techniques, serving options, and court positions. Even more importantly, they had fun, motivating them to continue on with the game. "If you had fun, you won!"

Serving practice

Parents overwhelmingly praised the program. One parent posted "So thankful my son had the opportunity to participate! Wonderful coaches and their focus on fun kept him excited to show up each week." Another parent spoke of her son's reluctance to play traditional sports that focused on cut-throat competition, saying that her son really liked pickleball because of the low stress and fun factor.

Forehand Fun!

At the Southern Pickleball Academy, success is not gauged by the number of third-shot drops, the quality of your backhand backspins, or the number of games won. We call it a win if we get kids hooked on this sport, wanting to play more and more.

And by all accounts, this has happened. Several of our homeschooler participated in our Dinks & Donuts and Pickleball & Pizza events and a couple have signed up for our First Paddle series. They have even started their own Team Reach group to organize games among themselves, calling their group the Home-Grown Pickles! These homeschoolers have found success in pickleball and will continue to grow their skills.

It won't be long before these Home-Grown Pickles are giving us Grown-ups a real dill of a time on the court!