Profile of The Regional Ambassador of The Atlantic South Region

Neal Nightingale - Regional Ambassador

Neal Nightingale has been active in the sports world for over 65 years. His past experiences include an extensive variety of sports involvement, both in the sports participation and sports education arena.

Neal has won championships by himself, as well as with fellow team players, through competition in Football, Basketball, Tennis, Lawn Bowling and Pickleball. He has won State Championships in Pickleball Men’s Singles and Doubles and holds the title of World Champion in both Men’s Single’s and Doubles Pickleball. He is a four time World Champion.

Neal was Pickleball Club President at Sun City Center in 2004 showing his great fondness and dedication to the sport of Pickleball.

Neal was involved in the Tennis world, winning the 4.0 Tournament in Tennis at Naples Bath and Tennis Club and playing with U.S. Open and Australian Champions, such as Neale Fraser. Neal has shared the Tennis Club Champions title with Tucker Smith at the Sun City Center Racquet Club and Neal also held the Club Champion in Lawn Bowling in 2000 at Sun City Center.

Neal’s fond memories of baseball include not only the pitching of a perfect game but also include hitting the winning home run for the All Star Game.

Neal’s coaching expertise drove his Toledo, Ohio Basketball team to the State Championship. He coached Women’s Softball teams, and was a successful and beloved coach to his high school Tennis Team.

Neal’s background as a teacher and Physical Education Coordinator in the Michigan City, Indiana school system included writing the Physical Education Curriculum. This was written to enhance the reading readiness program while emphasizing hand-eye co-ordination for his physical education students.

With respect to his mandate with the USAPA, Neal states, "to show leadership of the highest quality in not only working with all Ambassadors, but to make every attempt to encourage and give assistance in every way possible in the execution of their activities. Now, my time as Regional Ambassador, to my knowledge, has no time limit. When they feel I should be replaced, I shall accept it gracefully. We have some awfully good Ambassadors in our region. A number of them would do a great job as R.A." This quote says an awful lot about Neal's dedication to the USAPA and his unselfish dedication to the game of pickleball.

Neal has been giving clinics for most of his six years in Pickleball, and has loved every minute. These workshops gave participants the ability to improve their skills and all players have progressed to a higher playing level. Neal has always shown all Pickleball players, especially newbies, respect, patience and great kindness in learning the game of Pickleball. Neal often plays with new players giving them guidance and tips on learning the game, while building confidence. He states, "It is very rewarding to see the progress of all players"

Neal’s list of accomplishments, his true dedication to the game of Pickleball, and his great desire to help others learn the game, make him an excellent Regional Ambassador.

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A Good News Story

Something happened to me yesterday that I would like to share with you.

I run lessons and structured play for beginners on Thursdays at 3:00. I arrived at the courts yesterday not knowing whether we would have any new players or not. I had three new people who were interested in finding out about the game. Two residents brought their grand children along to see if it would be possible for them to join in. They said that their grand son had learned about the game in school. I thought for a second, observed that the kids were wearing appropriate footwear and said sure.

It turned out the young lad was in grade 7 in a middle school in the Chicago area and his sister was in elementary school. They were 10 and 12. The boy told me his teacher had taught pickleball in his physical education class in a school gymnasium using nets held with water ballasts.

One of the older players had just celebrated his 80th birthday, so I had a generation gap of seventy years between the oldest and the youngest player. To make a long story short, the lesson went extremely well. The kids helped the older people and the more experienced were amazed that kids were enjoying a game that they thought only old people played. This just proved to me that this is really a game to be enjoyed by all generations.

At the end, I ask the young lad to go back to his school next week and tell his teacher that he had actually played pickleball in Florida. I also told him to tell his teacher to keep up the good work. He got the biggest smile on his face. I told his sister to go home and teach her friends but she didn’t think they would find it as “cool” as she did.

I plan to invite residents of our community to bring their grand children who are visiting next year to take a lesson as long as the kids wear proper shoes and the grand parents or parents stay to watch. I feel that teaching children the correct rules of the game is better than have others teach them incorrectly. I want to stress court safety and court etiquette in particular. There is nothing worse than seeing children on the courts wearing flip flops and chasing a ball across a court of experinced players.

I congratulate teachers for introducing pickleball into their curriculum. I hope I supported that in some small way yesterday. These young players will continue the legacy of pickleball for many years to come.

Submitted by:
Wayne Roswell

One of Newest Ambassadors From Sebring, Florida

Wayne Roswell, Ambassador from Sebring, Florida

Wayne Roswell is one of the newest ambassadors in the USAPA. Wayne represents the Sebring area of Florida. Wayne is also one of a small number of ambassadors who originates from Canada.

Wayne moved to the community of Tanglewood in Sebring, Florida exactly one year ago. The final criteria for Wayne buying was the fact that pickleball was started. Wayne started playing pickleball at The Villages in 2005. He had the good fortune of taking lessons from George Brewer, Mr. Pickleball. Wayne remembers lining up with close to 40 other players to get on the courts to learn the rules. George’s sense of humour made the game fun since day one. He continued to go back to The Villages for three years and each year he started over in beginners’ structured play.

When Wayne arrived here at Tanglewood, he immediately went out to join eight to ten others who were playing on a cement pad that had been poured as a dance floor in a picnic area. Wayne says "we had to chase balls under picnic tables and make sure we didn’t run into the band shelter at one end and picnic tables on the other sides". Charles Kuehn had introduced the game here the previous November and he along with some ingenious residents had built the nets out of PCV piping from Home Depot.

Wayne joined a delegation that met with the owner last April to present a proposal to build pickleball courts. Mr. Greytak, the owner, ended the meeting by asking, “what the heck do you guys want?” The delegation replied, “two courts for sure, three would be great”. Wayne left at the end of April, not knowing whether anything would come of the meeting or not, and returned mid November to find the finishing touches being put on four brand new courts.

Those new courts opened late November and in a little over a year and half the Tanglewood Pickleball club has gone from eight to ten players playing four mornings a week to eighty players playing seven days a week. Last Monday, the club honoured Charles Kuehn for bringing pickleball to Tanglewood by naming the courts after him. Wayne would like to think he may have been a small part of helping get that many players involved in the game so quickly.

Tanglewood recently hosted the Heartland Senior Games that several of your clubs participated in. This was the first year for pickleball in these games and it turned out to be the single largest subscribed event. With this blog to inform you, a lot more of you will be here next year.

When Wayne considered becoming an ambassador, he thought, "what do I have to offer pickleball. I did not inherit all those athletic genes from the maternal gene pool so I am a very average player despite what George taught me, but I did inherit some organizational and communication skills".

Wayne decided to become an ambassador because he enjoyed the game for the recreational and social aspects it provided rather than the competitive side.

Wayne worked in education for 34 years so he had a few teaching skills to offer the game. Wayne had also written curriculum at the local and provincial level in Ontario. He also did some work writing for educational publishers particularily in the area of developing Internet lessons for students. He thought these skills would come in handy in both teaching and promoting the sport.

As an ambassador, Wayne teaches beginners the rules of pickleball, the basic strokes, stresses safety first, and most important teaches newbies to have fun. He has organized play for ladies, mixed, and beginners.

Wayne has also established a blog that is linked to the Tanglewood Resident Times webside, http://www.twrtimes.com/. This blog is linked to the USAPA website thanks to the assistance of Bill Booth. When Neal Nightingale and Earl Hill asked Wayne if he would help set up a similar blog for our region, he said sure.

Wayne hopes you all agree that this is another way we can see this fantastic sport grow. Every ambassador is working hard to promote this great sport at his or her own club; now they have a vehicle to share those ideas with every one in the region. This blog can be a great opportunity to promote pickleball if everyone in some way contributes ideas to Neal Nightingale.

Submitted by:
Wayne Roswell
Ambassador, Sebring FL