For Paralympic Swimmer Morgan Ray, The Social Aspects Of Pickleball Provide A Welcome Respite
Ray, who helped Team USA win a relay silver medal in Paris, learned of pickleball from his grandpa and has developed a passion for the sport.
By Drew Silverman
Red Line Editorial
Swimming can be a lonely sport.
Long days in the pool. Hours in the gym. For competitive swimmers, it can be a challenge just to keep their social life afloat.
Morgan Ray has experienced the solitude of swimming for much of his life — but he also craves the social interaction that typically accompanies athletics. That is just one of the reasons he loves to play pickleball.
“With my swimming career, a lot of it is inside my own head,” explained Ray, an elite Paralympic swimmer who helped the United States win silver in the 4x50 meter medley relay in Paris last summer. “The competition is just me vs. the clock. Yes, I’m going against people, but I’m really just racing the clock. It’s not the most social sport.
“With pickleball, I can interact with people while the game is going on — build relationships, joke around. In that sense, it’s been great.”
Ray’s grandfather, Emory Washington, introduced Morgan and his three brothers to pickleball back in the 1990s. Washington picked up the sport in Seattle and “brought it here to Jacksonville,” said Ray, who is from St. Augustine, Florida — about 40 miles south of Jacksonville.
While Ray and his brothers played pickleball with their grandfather as children, they didn’t resume a more consistent passion for the sport until recently, as the pickleball boom continues to take over America.
“We re-found it last year because it’s growing so fast around the country,” Ray said. “It’s a really fun thing to do outside of my swimming.”
Available hours can be few and far between for Ray. But after the 2024 Paralympics, he took a physical and mental break from the pool — and pickleball was there to fill the void.
“Coming home from Paris, I took a six-week break from swimming and picked up pickleball heavily,” Ray said. “I was doing it almost every day. It’s something I love doing. I love getting better.”
Ray admits that he is a “developing” player at this stage of his pickleball career, acknowledging that his brother Michael — who just made the University of North Florida pickleball team — is “much better than me.”
Ray attends UNF as well, so between his education and his commitment to competitive swimming, his opportunities to play pickleball are relatively limited. He plays once a week or so, as his schedule permits, but cherishes the opportunities to take the court with friends and other local players in the St. Augustine area.
But mostly, with his siblings.
“It really helps with my brothers, seeing them and keeping in touch with them, and it will help down the road when we’re much older — like (the bond) we had with my grandfather,” said Ray, who also played soccer, basketball and flag football as a kid and enjoys playing guitar these days. “We’re super competitive. We’ve picked up any sport we could to compete against each other.”
Pickleball also offers an element of accessibility that, say, tennis doesn’t offer to Ray, who stands 4-foot-5. The 22-year-old was born with achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism. While being shorter can at times be an advantage in pickleball, allowing players to get low to dig balls out or use their lower center of gravity to help their reach, Ray acknowledges that he also has to overcome certain obstacles on the pickleball court.
“Being shorter than everyone else can be a challenge,” said Ray. “I can’t chase the ball certain times, I can’t hug the front, I think that’s probably the biggest challenge, just having to plan a shot and then plan where it’s going to be returned to me, and if it’s not there, I’m not going to go get it because I don’t need to get hurt.”
For sure, an injury would not be ideal for Ray, who is gearing up for the World Para Swimming Championships later this year with a distant eye on the Summer Paralympics in Los Angeles in 2028.
“I’m always trying to get better at swimming, of course,” Ray said. “I’m still new to pickleball, but I think building my game up has really helped with swimming too because it’s unlocked another drive. It is that escape outlet — after practice, if I have enough energy, it’s something to look forward to and it kind of brings me back to swimming. I think it’s great for elite level athletes to have other outlets to rely on, because just mentally you need to open the door to other opportunities.”
Of course, Ray isn’t the only one looking at pickleball as an athletic opportunity these days. When he and his brothers venture over to Veterans Park to play the sport, they quickly observe its popularity in the Jacksonville area, not to mention its obvious impact across the state and the entire country.
“It’s caught on heavily down here,” said Ray, noting that his grandfather still plays at age 90. “So many neighborhoods are opening pickleball courts. In the last year and a half or two years, it’s picked up immensely. Everyone’s playing down here. It’s awesome.”
Drew Silverman is a freelance contributor to USA Pickleball on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
