Dinking and Driving Across America
October 15, 2024
Lorraine marked the location of every court she played on
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Her story is, in a word, amazing.
Like many of you, I try to read about pickleball as much as possible. A few months ago I read a post in a Facebook pickleball group that grabbed my attention. A woman wrote about her dream of playing at least one pickleball game in all 50 states. I said to myself, Now this is a story that should be told to everyone who not only loves pickleball, but has a goal they think they cannot reach. Maybe it will inspire someone, whether they play pickleball or not.
I pitched the piece to my boss at Pickleball Magazine. She loved it and it ran in the magazine’s September issue/October issue (for information on subscribing to the magazine go to pickleball magazine.com). The version that follows is similar but with some details that were not in the magazine story.
She played pickleball on an ice rink in Alaska and a wooden church floor in Hawaii. She dinked in Delaware, lobbed in Louisiana, sliced in South Dakota.
She was shocked in South Carolina, scared in Maryland, mad in Maine and got pulled over in Wyoming.
Life is an adventure. Playing at least one pickleball game in all 50 states was the adventure of a lifetime for Lorraine Rupper.
Giving it a shot topped her bucket list for years.
“The pickleball community is a welcoming one and I wanted to meet people who loved pickleball as much as I do,” Lorraine said.
She drove alone to 45 states. In 19 days in June, she played at least one game in 36 states. That is not a typo. Thirty-six states in 19 days. She put over 8000 miles on her 2014 Honda Civic. She estimates the trip cost her at least $3000.
Lorraine started playing pickleball in 2014 at her local rec center in Orem, Utah. She went there to go jogging. “I love sweets, but also like to stay thin, so I exercise. I heard noise coming from the gym and I said, ‘What’s this?’ A lady said, ‘It’s pickleball, wanna play?’”
She played. She was immediately addicted.
Ten years later, Lorraine has a 5.0 DUPR and 200 medals and trophies from 250 tournaments.
The thought of playing at least one game in every state was on Lorraine’s mind since 2016, after meeting a couple who accomplished the feat, but they had an RV. Since then, her motto could have been “Have paddle, will travel,” because she brought it with her on family vacations, knocking out a few western states before the epic journey in June.
She estimates that on her trip across America she played 150 games and lost a grand total of…one.
“I’m very competitive,” she wrote in an email. “In fact, I know I need to tone it down a bit.”
Her husband, Ron, a 3.5 player, accompanied her to only four states. “He would be bored out of his mind because he doesn’t really play pickleball that much,” she said. Besides, Ron had been to many states when he worked as a truck driver. Their son, Devin, 25, is a 5.0 and went with her only to Nevada. “I did get lonely,” she said. “I listened to a lot of murder mystery books along the way.”
Lorraine Rupper turned 59 in August and has lived in the same house in Orem for 33 years, the same number of years she and Ron have been married. They have three children. She’s a former math teacher turned middle school guidance counselor and traveled the country on an educator’s salary. No five star hotels (or even three or four stars) or fancy restaurants were on her itinerary. She ate a lot of fast food and stayed at some motels she calls “sketchy.”
There were frightening moments. While walking alone late at night in a dark motel hallway in Maryland, she thought she was being followed by a man. She saw another guy, engaged him in some disingenuous conversation, and the apparent follower split. Large spider webs hung from the ceilings of a couple of motel hallways, including one web she had to knock down to get into her room.
There were frustrating moments. She claims a private pickleball club in Maine denied her request to play just one game because she’s not a member.
Her phone battery died twice so without GPS she took the long route to some destinations. She got pulled over for speeding while driving in heavy rain in Wyoming. “I was super happy when he let me off with a warning. I’m sure it looked like I was living out of my car,” she said with a laugh.
There were surprising moments. She met a couple in their 50’s in Pineville, West Virginia (population: 619) who had never heard of pickleball. She wasn’t sure if she was in West Virginia or an episode of The Twilight Zone and a time machine had sent her back to 1960.
But the pull of pickleball even came into play in Pineville. The husband who never heard of the sport agreed to let Lorraine give him a lesson. The guy loved it. “His enthusiasm was contagious and I could see that he couldn’t wait to play again,” Lorraine said. She gave the man and his wife a couple of paddles and pickleballs. “Maybe I can plant a seed in this small town and hopefully pickleball can grow there,” she said.
There were emotional moments. She reconnected with a sister in Nebraska from whom she was estranged for 20 years. “That made my heart happy,” she said. For the first time she visited her brother and sister-in-law’s home in Pennsylvania and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
“I wanted to spread the love of pickleball to [people in] places that might not have heard of or played pickleball before,” Lorraine said. “My trip was more of a whirlwind and I know I didn't see the best parts of many of the states, but I had a wonderful trip and met so many great people along the way.”
Lorraine didn’t want to delay her dream because she has some eye problems and isn’t sure how long she can play at her current level. Her eyesight may be diminishing but her determination is not. “If someone says something can’t be done, I say, ‘Why not’? What is stopping this from happening?’”
To say that Lorraine had a hardscrabble upbringing would be an understatement. The third oldest of 10 children, her parents divorced when she was seven and she lived in foster homes from age 12 to 17, when she was adopted. Her biological and foster families moved every year before she graduated from high school. Eighteen moves in 18 years.
“My upbringing had a lot to do with how I am today,” Lorraine said. “I have had to fight for everything I have. I was a pretty feisty kid.”
Sports became her refuge.
At Pahrump Valley High School in Nevada, Lorraine played tennis, volleyball, basketball, softball and ran track. She was the school’s Female Athlete of the Year. She made time to study: She was her class co-Valedictorian.
Her last name rhymes with “super.”
“So much was out of my control when I was young. I like to set and reach goals,” Lorraine said.
Jackie Nelson met Lorraine at work 40 years ago and is her best friend. “She’s amazing,” Jackie said by phone from her home in Idaho Falls, Idaho. “Lorraine is a survivor. She has overcome so much from her childhood. To stay focused and raise her kids to be education driven, she is just an amazing person.”
During her trip across America, Lorraine wanted to mix in with local residents at every stop, many of which were new to her. “I had never traveled to the south except a few airports and wanted to visit there.” She said the “Pickleheads” app and a Google spreadsheet sent from a pickleball player she met in Facebook’s “Pickleball Forum” group were “invaluable” tools for finding places to play.
She called Opelika, Alabama “One of the best and most welcoming places. They invited me to their once-a-month picnic. And their pickleball facility was huge.”
While playing in Greenville, South Carolina, in June she ran into a woman who was her doubles partner in a tournament in Colorado two years earlier. “Seeing her again [thousands of miles away] was the most fun. We hugged and laughed.”
Lorraine wanted to visit some eastern states she hadn’t been to before. “It was such a delight to meet people in New Jersey and I loved their accents, too,” she said.
“If I was going to rank friendliness, I would say, #1 Opelika, Alabama, #2 Slidell, Louisiana, and #3 Providence, Rhode Island. I would love to go back to all three places, maybe when it's a bit cooler, though.”
Weather was occasionally a problem. “There was the heat in Kansas City, Kansas. I played too long there and experienced heat rash for the first time.”
Lorraine loved that she played pickleball with and against people of all nationalities and ages, from 13-year-olds to eighty-year-olds.
On June 25th, at 9:03 a.m., Lorraine finished a doubles game at Brunsdale Park in Fargo, North Dakota. It was the 50th state in which she had played at least one match.
“My first thought was, ‘Wow! I did it! Let’s party!’ There was a feeling of elation, and to have a goal like that accomplished. [I thought to myself] ‘Yes!’ I was so happy to finish, and in some ways, I was like, ‘Did I really get all of them?’ and ‘I'm exhausted, I'm going home.‘“
First, she played six more games.
“I realized it was a lot more fun to drive 15 minutes and play for three hours rather than drive three hours and play for 15 minutes,” she said.
She took a lot of photos and met many pickleball players she plans to keep in touch with. “It’s a trip I will never forget! I can't wait until I can go back and visit the people that I met for the first time at the courts. It's an awesome game.”
Her goal accomplished, elation wasn’t her only emotion. “There was also a sense of loss, kind of like when your last child leaves home. What do I do next? “
All she did next was go with her husband in July from Orem to Bainbridge Island, Washington, where, as pickleball aficionados know, the sport was invented in 1965. On the way they stopped in Idaho and Oregon to visit family and friends.
After the end of a whirlwind two months, during a life and a trip full of rough roads, that was a comparatively easy round trip.
Only 2427 miles.
Thoughts of the week, not all pickleball
- Heartfelt thanks to the hundreds of readers who emailed me condolences over the loss of our dog, Bear, and concern over our safety and home near Asheville, North Carolina, in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene. Starting September 27th, we had no power for six days, no running water for 12 days, spotty cell phone service and as of this writing no internet for 19 days. We are fine now and as I wrote last week, we are lucky, especially considering the tragedies and devastation many others had to deal with and are still facing.
- Several days after the storm, volunteers were giving out water and supplies at our town’s community center. A woman complained to a volunteer about people playing pickleball at the nearby courts. Seems to me that when you’ve done all you can to ensure that your family and home are safe and you’ve offered help to neighbors and strangers, playing pickleball or getting any type of exercise is good for your mental and physical health.
- I’m no prude but Diadem can do better than use the F word in ads for one of its paddles. I guess Diadem is trying to appeal to the young, hip, bangers. But while trying so hard to be cool the company has turned off some potential buyers I know.
- Like a pitch timer, Fox baseball “over-analyst” John Smoltz needs a talk timer. The Hall of Fame pitcher obviously knows the game but talks almost the entire time between every pitch. Let the game breathe, please.
- We take for granted certain everyday things until we don’t have them. Like electricity, running water, cellphone service and internet.
And pickleball.