This is a relatively new take. It hasn’t been refined yet, but I think it’s good enough for publication, and it goes like this:

Too many young people are turning to pickleball. It’s a sport for seniors and nobody under the age of 50 should be playing it.

For starters, my dad plays pickleball. He’s 72 years old and does a great job staying in shape. Pickleball is good for him because he builds fitness and gets in a lot of good reps without having to move around too much. It’s a quality, low-impact exercise for hand/eye coordination, but also not a lung buster, so really if you think about this, it’s an age-appropriate version of tennis on a smaller court (i.e. it’s glorified ping pong).

There’s a philosophical tilt to all of this. At age 35, can you still hang with the 25 year olds in basketball? Probably. But you definitely aren’t gonna be able to do it at age 45 unless you’re Jamal Crawford. That’s why I always say you play the high-level, demanding sports as long as you can, because they aren’t always going to be feasible, whereas you’ve got the rest of your life to slow it down, to play golf and pickleball and swim at the YMCA pool. When you retire from your flag football league at age 39, then you turn to your country club casual stuff.

If you give up the sports of your youth when you’re still young, you’re just quitting on yourself. Play soccer and basketball until your legs fall off. There will be a point in your life where you wish you had tried to push yourself harder, and so it’s bothersome to see 31 year olds out here playing pickleball and golf when I know you can still hack it doing higher intensity activities. You were the high school captain for God’s sake! Surely you’re not that fat and out of shape.

Like Frank Costanza in Seinfeld, I’ve got a lot of problems with these people right here:

These four are incredibly fit. They have excellent vigor and mobility, which is the problem. They are TOO GOOD for pickleball. Move the baseline back and extend the court. Just play tennis. What you’ve got in that video clip is four Patrick Rafters all volleying at the net. You’re only playing half a sport here and selling yourself short.

I can’t speak for the female population, but it seems like a lot of men become dads in their early to mid-thirties, gain their 10-15 pounds, and just give up on team sports entirely. Dad bod, which is supposed to be temporary, ends up becoming permanent. And people who should be capable of still playing flag, basketball, volleyball, soccer, etc – they instead come out of dad mode with golf clubs and a paddle, and they’re never the same. Put that shit down. You can turn to the low-intensity sports when you hit 40. Throw your kid in the carrier and go hiking. Ask your wife to watch the baby so you can play pickup. Strap the toddler into the bike trailer and hit the park. Figure it out. Stop being a bum.

In conclusion, young and middle-aged people must stop playing pickleball. It’s a senior sport. You’ve got the rest of your life to shrink the court and play glorified ping pong. We must not normalize this.