The Godfather of Pickleball
He’s called “The Godfather of Pickleball” by many of the sport’s historians, acknowledged as one of the game’s most influential leaders in its 60-year history. Yet, at 73, after decades of accomplishments on and off the court, reaching his current goal would be the most significant.
Seymour Rifkind is doing everything in his power to make pickleball an Olympic sport.
“Rif,” the nickname he prefers and is better known as, believes it’s going to happen.
“When I first made that statement to the top 20 players in the world in 2015, everyone thought I was crazy,” Rif told me. “Today they think it's a foregone conclusion. I have a number of friends that are members of the IOC [International Olympic Committee] and the US Olympic Committee who have been coaching me over the past couple of years on what needs to be done. I believe pickleball is in a great position to get accepted by the IOC and be a participating sport at an upcoming Olympic Games.” He thinks it could happen as early as the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Rif stands 5 feet three and weighs 123 pounds, yet he’s also been a giant on the pickleball court. He’s a 5.0 player who won multiple medals at the US Open, as well as other national and regional tournaments.
Rif founded the Pickleball Hall of Fame in 2017 and was inducted as a member last year. In 2018 he founded the World Pickleball Federation. Its mission is “to direct pickleball’s future as a globally recognized sport.” In 2015, he started the first professional teaching organization for pickleball instructors, the International Pickleball Training Association. When we spoke on the phone recently, he was packing for a trip to Asia to conduct workshops for would-be instructors.
“I've been going to China since 2018 introducing pickleball, donating paddles, certifying teachers and doing exhibitions,” he said. “Last September, WPF got pickleball accepted as an exhibition sport in conjunction with the Asian Games. We did three exhibitions, one at the Olympic Badminton Arena which was nationally broadcast and had 4.8 million views. The government loved the fact that pickleball has proven to be a healthy recreational sport which can help combat heart disease, diabetes and many of the diseases citizens worldwide suffer from.”
Rif gave Chinese government officials a statistic aimed at providing incentive to put pickleball in the Olympics. “Their eyes lit up when I informed them that I was aware over half the Olympic Medals over the past five Olympic Games were won by China in table tennis and badminton, and I was confident that with the government support they could win the first Olympic gold medals when pickleball is accepted at the Olympics. I continue to go to China and other countries worldwide to certify new teachers.”
Rif grew up in the Chicago suburbs, the first born son of four kids. His father was a Holocaust survivor who lost most of his family and was deeply affected by the deaths of his two brothers. The youngest one was named Seymour. Rif is named after that uncle he never knew.
“I always felt an obligation to try and make my dad proud and happy. I often told him there was a reason he survived and it was to have me and eventually two sisters and a brother. A great deal of my willpower and dedication to succeed in all things was to make my dad happy. I never felt pressure from my father. It was always from within myself, but nevertheless the love of a son for his father burned deep within me. Hearing stories from him of what it took to survive the [concentration] camps always motivated me to work harder than anyone else, never give up or complain.”
His determination paid off in sports and life. He was small but strong, an ideal combination for a gymnast. He worked out hard into the night in the family’s basement gym lifting weights and doing gymnastics routines, so much so that his father would tell him to “go to bed already.” In 1969 Rif was the Illinois State High School Champion in the parallel bars. After graduating from the University of Nebraska with a master's degree in business in 1978 he coached gymnastics in high school and was an assistant coach for the Cornhuskers.
Rif got married, had two sons and knew a coach’s salary wasn’t enough. He moved into advertising and eventually owned a successful ad agency for 23 years. He started playing pickleball in 2013 while visiting friends in Florida. A longtime tennis player, he quickly became very good. He plays pickleball three or four days a week, weather permitting, on one of the three courts at his home in Riverwoods, Illinois, 25 miles north of Chicago.
The “Godfather of Pickleball” answered my questions on some hot pickleball topics:
On the trend toward banging: “Power is nothing new in pickleball. When the game was first invented and probably for the first 10 years of its existence, the game was played much like tennis with everyone driving their third [shot] and volleying the ball from the transition area. It wasn't until some of the top players in Washington State figured out that if they did a soft third shot drop, they could get to the line and remove the advantage that the rules of the game give the returning team since they can come to the NVZ line after their return. For the next 20 years or so everyone was doing third shot drops and now there is a healthy balance between drives and drops.”
On the new power paddles: “What I am very concerned with is the change in paddle technology where the velocity of the ball coming off the paddle has increased so dramatically that a lesser skilled player with a Gearbox (for example) can beat a higher skilled player without one. That should never happen. All technology is not good for the sport and this is where governance needs to step in and curb the amount of power both to maintain the integrity of the game but also to prevent injuries from occurring. I recently had a friend suffer a detached retina because a ball struck him in the eye. We need to require eye wear on the court and we need to limit the velocity of the ball coming off the paddle.”
On rally scoring vs. traditional: “I see rally scoring being the scoring method in all major international televised competitions because the length of matches can be accurately accounted for, which is essential from a media perspective. The more media coverage our sport gets with higher quality broadcasts and camera crews the more attractive it will be for major sponsors to jump on the pickleball bandwagon. It is inevitable that rally scoring occurs.”
On sandbagging: “Sandbagging needs to be eliminated, period! Tournament software and a better and universally accepted rating/ranking system should be able to take care of this. When a player has a 4.5 rating and they sign up to enter a tournament at 4.0 they should automatically be rejected, thus eliminating the problem. Presently, tournament directors need to do a better job policing this!”
Now, though, the “Godfather of pickleball” is focused on the Olympics. He’s hoping to sell officials on why pickleball would be a popular Olympic sport.
He’s hoping to give them an offer they can’t refuse.
My thoughts of the week, not all pickleball
-I delete and block trolls on Facebook. You know the kind. They make negative comments about everything. They live to argue and are thrilled when you take the bait. What a sad way to live.
-Facebook did provide me with a funny line recently. A senior pickleball player posted: “I use so much Icy Hot, my wife think’s it’s my new cologne.”
-RIP Abdul “Duke” Fakir. The last surviving original member of the beloved Motown group the Four Tops died last week of heart failure at 88. The group was known for such hits as “I Can’t Help Myself, “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” and “Standing in the Shadows of Love.” The Four Tops was one of two groups who performed at one of the best concerts I’ve attended (and I’ve attended many). It was in a Broadway theatre in New York on Easter Sunday in 1987. The Four Tops opened for another Motown group you may have heard of: The Temptations. The entire audience stood and danced the entire time.
--Judging by the numerous, breathless reports I’ve seen recently on ABC’s World News Tonight about airplanes nearly colliding, losing a door or a tire or encountering turbulence, you’d never know that flying is the safest mode of transportation. I realize that when you’re on a plane and one of the aforementioned things happen, it’s frightening. They just rarely happen.
Also, ABC’s frequent reporting on recent shark attacks makes one feel that the movie Jaws is playing out now in real life. According to the Florida Museum, your odds of getting bitten by a shark are one in 11.5 million. I like swimming in the ocean so I’ll take my chances.
-Pharmaceutical commercials dominate many television shows, especially those with an older demographic. Pills and procedures are the moneymakers, not healthy eating. I did a television report in 2019 detailing how medical schools’ curriculum included minimal nutrition training. It hasn’t changed much. Recent studies show that med schools typically provide less than 20 hours of nutrition education over four years, which is less than one percent of total lecture hours.
Of course it’s bad business for the pharmaceutical and medical industries when more people healthy.
-My profile in this space last week of Professional Pickleball Association analyst Jim Kloss stirred the pot among the sport’s fans on Facebook. Kloss is an outspoken, polarizing figure whom critics call “an arrogant know it all.” And that’s among the milder descriptions. Others enjoy the former attorney’s well-constructed arguments and candid opinions. That’s why I chose to profile him over some milquetoast who’s afraid to offer honest, strong opinions.
- Hudef’s two newest paddles are getting excellent reviews. If you buy the all-court Mage Pro Gen2 or the powerful Viva Pro Gen3, use my discount code, MS30, for 30 percent off the retail price of $169.99, knocking it down to $119.
-If I’d spent as much time studying in college as I do on Playtime Scheduler and TeamReach, I would have been class Valedictorian.