New Founder’s Legacy Cup Will Honor Pickleball’s History
The trophy, which will be presented at nationals, has elements tying into the sport’s 1960s foundations.
By Stephen Hunt
Red Line Editorial
Championship trophies can perfectly honor a sport’s history and those pioneering individuals who got it all started. Each summer, for example, the winner of the National Hockey League playoffs receives the Stanley Cup, named for early hockey advocate Lord Stanley of Preston and adorned with the names of each winning team etched onto its silver bowl.
USA Pickleball is looking to create its own championship tradition with the Founder’s Legacy Cup, a new trophy that will honor the sport’s history and be awarded to champions at the 2024 Biofreeze USA Pickleball National Championships on Nov. 9-17 at the Arizona Athletic Grounds in Mesa, Arizona.
Several elements of the trophy tie into the sport’s 1965 founding on Bainbridge Island near Seattle.
The trophy’s base is walnut, a wood that was popular in architecture and furniture during the 1960s that bears similarities to Maldon, which is prevalent in northwest Washington and was used to make the first pickleball paddles. Even the font on the cup is representative of the 1960s.
The front of the trophy bears the names of the sport’s founders—Bill Bell, Barney McCallum and Joel Pritchard. Meanwhile, the image on the front of the trophy honors USA Pickleball’s ties to the desert landscape as 13 of the 14 national championships have been held in that setting.
Jennifer Lucore is a professional pickleball player, author, blogger, historian, influencer, pickleball ambassador and 2019 inductee into the Pickleball Hall of Fame. As a part of the sport’s history, she feels honoring pickleball’s past on the hardware handed out at nationals is a perfect fit.
“I think it’s fabulous,” Lucore said. “(Honoring) the history is very good for the game, and it makes the players and visitors, especially at nationals, go, ‘Wow, we’re really part of something that has been around for a while. How cool is that?’ Maybe players will stop and think, ‘Oh wow, 1965, how cool is that? Bainbridge Island off Seattle. How cool is that?’”
Lucore fondly remembers attending the first nationals in 2009 to watch her parents, Bob and Bev Youngren, play in the event. And seeing how the event has evolved in the years since to become so high-profile brings a huge smile to her face.
“It makes me so happy because those that play, we know how great it is, we love it, but when you think of these new people from all over the world playing, they get to have the (same) fun,” Lucore said. “The growth of the sport makes me so happy because I think everyone deserves to have fun. That’s what the sport brings.”
Sitting atop the Founder’s Legacy Cup is fittingly, a cup with pickleballs in it, meant to tie the champion’s experience on the court to the game’s traditions. Champions will be invited to add their own championship-clinching ball to their trophy.
Learning that McCallum’s name appears on the trophy was especially meaningful for Lucore, as they had a 10-year friendship prior to his 2019 passing.
“It’s very cool I’m part of the history because I have such fond memories of hanging out with Barney McCallum for 10 years, visiting him at Bainbridge Island, and to really know the founder of a sport,” Lucore said. “It was kind of like a grandpa. He didn’t have computers or cell phones, so he didn’t really know what was happening in the pickleball world."
“We’d talk once a month on the phone. I’d tell him there’s this new magazine out, Pickleball Magazine, it’s full color. He was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ He’d been to Indian Wells (in California) watching tennis there. He got to come to Indian Wells when they painted over all the courts to pickleball. He was blown away because Indian Wells is a big deal in the tennis world, and the fact that we did nationals there and took over the place for a week and a half or two weeks was huge. He couldn’t believe it and he would say it was one of the happiest days of his life.”
In fact, when Lucore became the first pickleball player to be sponsored, it was McCallum’s company, Pickle-Ball Inc., that sponsored her.
“I got to wear a little Pickleball.com (logo) on my shirt before anyone was doing that because there wasn’t really any sponsorship because and there weren’t the deep pockets like there is today,” Lucore said.
For longtime picklers like Lucore, incorporating pickleball’s history into the trophy handed out at nationals is a win-win.
“Everyone deserves to have fun, and the ease of (play in) this game, no other sport’s like it,” she said. “The ease of it and you can play with different generations and family and really be competitive is the coolest thing ever.”
Stephen Hunt is an accomplished freelance writer and sports statistician who has been blessed to cover many subjects and sports in his time. He is a freelance contributor to USA Pickleball on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.