Remembering Joe Parnell
On February 22, 2016 the pickleball world lost one of its best ambassadors. Joe Parnell, a young 86 years old played out of the Cypress Creek YMCA. He had been recovering from a recent bout of pneumonia and was, hopefully, on his road to recovery. Even though not an official ambassador, he was that and more to the game. He would help anyone with their game. Over the last couple of years his main involvement with pickleball was facilitating play in the afternoons at the YMCA, which involved setting up and taking down the nets.
At the YMCA he would occasionally play but his main role was to manage the courts to keep games going and players playing. He was always there to advise players with strategy or shot selection. He would ‘evaluate’ the players to motivate them and to hand out the occasional jeer to that player who kept missing an easy put-away shot. The best tip he had for an unnamed player was to take up fishing! That was our buddy.
Joe was so competitive that he had pretty much given up playing because he was a proud man. He did not want to feel like he was letting his partner down if he missed or couldn’t get to a shot. Almost every game that we partnered he would tell me, ‘Let’s beat these guys’ and we usually would because of his inspiration. Joe loved to play and he loved to beat some of the ‘good’ players. He carried the same vigor and desire to the archery range. In his limited time in that sport he won his share of medals and competed as hard as he could. His first archery tourney did not go too smoothly as he wound up not being permitted to participate with his camouflage shorts or some of his ‘illegal’ arrows. Who knew?
Joe just wanted to compete – that’s all. But Joe got a laugh out of the situation and felt a little better about the whole thing after he got some coffee and pie at Luby’s Bottomline, we lost one of the most loved, that’s right, I said loved, one of the most loved people I had ever had the pleasure of meeting. He endeared himself to all of us at the YMCA and those at the Fonde Rec Center. Players from all over Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana knew Joe and were as amazed as most of us were as to how he could move around a court. He was an inspiration to any athlete or gym rat that saw him in action. He made a lasting impression on all of us. A person of small stature but with a heart as big as Texas. We will miss him so but his memory will live with us forever.
God Bless Joe Parnell.
