Where There’s A Wheel, There’s A Way: Jamie Elliott’s Pickleball Journey
Elliot, 74, continues to play pickleball following multiple procedures to treat chondrosarcoma
By Drew Silverman - Red Line Editorial
For the past decade, Jamie Elliott has served as a USA Pickleball Ambassador, sharing her passion for the sport with countless people.
Much has changed in her life during that time.
About seven years ago, doctors discovered a tumor on one of her ribs from chondrosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. In 2018, she underwent a procedure and had four ribs removed. A year later, doctors removed another tumor from her spine, which left her legs paralyzed.
Elliott has undergone four additional procedures on her lungs and three on her liver in recent years.
While her body has changed drastically, her enthusiasm for pickleball has remained a constant.
“I’m still active. Nothing’s going to get me down,” beamed the 74-year-old Elliott. “Some people whine about a splinter, but you’ve just got to keep moving. You might as well live life to the fullest.”
At many of her appointments and procedures, Elliott arrives carrying her pickleball medals. The hardware serves as a bit of a reminder of how tough it is to defeat the former stuntwoman — on or off the court.
“I was told most likely that I would never walk again,” Elliott said, reflecting on the aftermath of her 2019 surgery. “Of course I looked at the doctor and said, ‘I’m going to prove you wrong. I’m a pickleball player.’”
She stuck to her word. Four months later, Elliott was able to stand and walk slowly.
Elliott returned to the pickleball court in 2021 as a wheelchair player. She competes in a sports wheelchair that she named “Barney” after Barney McCallum, one of the original founders of pickleball.
It isn’t uncommon for Elliott to come up with names for various things in her life.
For instance, she named the tumor on her rib “Earl” after the song “Goodbye Earl” by the Chicks. And the tumor on her spine? That was “Jack” after the Ray Charles classic, “Hit the road, Jack.”
“It’s just to keep laughter going and keep the smiles going,” Elliott said.
During her time as an ambassador, Elliott has co-founded three pickleball clubs and helps run multiple pickleball Facebook groups, including one for wheelchair players called Para Pickleball Program. The program offers regular court space to wheelchair players in the Dallas area and provides them with sports chairs if they don’t have one.
She does most of this work at her home club in Fairview, Texas, where she helps run a “Dink for Pink” event each October to raise money for breast cancer research. For part of the year, she lives in Angel Fire, New Mexico.
Elliott has worked closely with standing players and wheelchair players, having herself reached a high level of competition both on her feet and in a chair. In short, she connects people to pickleball resources to enhance their passion for the game — and their quality of life. Much of her time and energy these days is dedicated to wheelchair players.
“I love seeing the smiles on their faces, when maybe a lot of them have lost hope or never thought they would ever be anything else besides being in a wheelchair in front of a TV set,” said Elliott, who acknowledges that she battled depression following her paralysis. “But now I have a motto that you can quote me on: Where there’s a wheel, there’s a way.”
And for Elliott, pickleball is that way.
“It gives me a purpose,” Elliott said. “And I want to give other people a purpose in life. I want to change their lives.”
Particularly people in a wheelchair. Elliott knows the challenges of playing with a paddle between your hand and a wheel. And she understands the difficulty in adjusting to the seated game. But mostly because Elliott knows the struggle of getting other players to accept wheelchair opponents.
“The hardest part is going to a venue where nobody knows me,” Elliott said. “Sometimes they don’t want to play with me because they think they’re going to hurt me or hit me with the ball. And it’s not because they think you’re too weak of a player. They’re just not educated, or they don’t know how to play with someone in a wheelchair.”
Elliott played pickleball for the first time in 1990, but she didn’t play again for a decade and didn’t truly get into the sport until 2009.
“Even back then, we were just out there whamming the ball,” she said. “We didn’t know how to dink. We just served and hit the ball back and forth.”
In time, though, Elliott learned how to play at a high level. She eventually became a 4.5 player. And in 2014, she officially became a USA Pickleball Ambassador.
Elliott’s main goal is to grow the sport of pickleball. She encourages people to attend local clubs and helps them learn the basics of the game. Even as a certified instructor, she never charges anyone for lessons.
Thanks in large part to pickleball, Elliott has found peace and purpose in her 60s and 70s.
“I say to people, ‘It isn’t the journey I would have chosen. But it’s the journey He chose for me,’” Elliott said. “This became something for me to help others. It’s devastating to anybody to have any type of injury, whether it’s a stroke, or falling and being paralyzed, or a car wreck. It’s devastating. But to know that I can possibly get them out there to the court, hearing the laughter, seeing the smiles. It’s so exciting to see that happen. That’s what it’s all about.”
July is Sarcoma Awareness Month. For more information and the importance of early detection regarding chondrosarcoma and other sarcomas, please head to smashingsarcoma.org.
Drew Silverman is a freelance contributor to USA Pickleball on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
