What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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FEATURE 8 WHAT'S UP! JULY 21-27, 2019 FYI Play Pickleball In Fayetteville — 6:30 p.m. Tuesday & Wednesday at Walker Park, 10 W. 15th St. In Rogers — 10 a.m. Wednesday, Thurs- day & Friday at the Rogers Adult Well- ness Center, 2001 W. Persimmon St. Coming Soon — The $14 million Mount Hebron Park in southwestern Rogers is currently in the design phase. City officials hope to see much of the 70-plus acres ready for use in around 18 months. Pickleball combines the best of tennis, ping pong Pickleball players keep the tennis courts at Walker Park in Fayetteville busy on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. BECCA MARTIN-BROWN NWA Democrat-Gazette F ans of theater in Northwest Arkansas most recently saw Kate Taylor Williams in turn- of-the-20th century bustles and brocades for her role in the Arkansas Public Theatre production of "A Doll's House, Part 2." But what Williams wanted to pitch when she had the ear of an arts writer was something completely different. Williams is a USA Pickleball Association ambassador, referee and referee training coordinator for the Midsouth Region. Her enthusiasm about that side of her life is regularly met with a blank stare and the same question: What in the world is pickleball? To help answer it, Williams recruited two other players, Kathryn Hotchkiss and Hector Sanabria, to explain the allure of a game Sanabria says is "on the spectrum somewhere between tennis and ping pong." The history According to the USA Pickleball Association, pickleball was invented in 1965 on Bainbridge Island near Seattle. "Three dads — Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell and Barney McCallum — whose kids were bored with their usual summertime activities, are credited with creating the game," the USAPA website explains. And the name? It's a little unclear historically, but it might have been based on the name of Pritchard's dog, Pickles. Over the ensuing half a century, pickleball went from backyard fun to a sensation in both the United States and Canada. According to the USAPA, there are more than 15,000 indoor and outdoor pickleball courts in the United States — at least one in each of the 50 states — and the Sports & Fitness Industry Association reports more than 2.5 million pickleball players in 2016. NWA Democrat-Gazette/J.T. WAMPLER