May 16, 2025
Barry is as fierce a competitor in pickleball as he was in basketball
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One of the greatest basketball players of all-time is one of the top five pickleball players in the world in his age group. He’s also as feisty on the pickleball court as he was on the basketball court and your TV screen.
“I’m not out there to make friends with you when I play,” 81-year-old Rick Barry tells me. “I’m out there to kick your ass, just like when I played basketball. If I’m doing something of a competitive nature, I’m out there to win. Afterwards we can be friendly.”
After Barry first said that to me last November (this blog is an updated version of that piece), many readers criticized him. I also heard from several fans and players who said they met Barry at tournaments and he couldn’t have been nicer, posing for photos and signing autographs.
I caught up with Barry yesterday. Speaking from his home in Lakewood Ranch, Florida, (he spends summers at his home in Colorado Springs), he is as opinionated now as he was when he worked as an NBA TV analyst, which many believe led to his firing. He wasn’t afraid to criticize players when they screwed up. These days he’s watching the playoffs and sometimes screams at his TV about what he sees.
“What the hell are these guys doing?,” he says when he sees players make mistakes right out of timeouts. “Whatever happened to drawing up plays for your best players?” He’s not thrilled with so many guys jacking up three-point shots with no teammates under the hoop. “They’re not good, high-quality shots.” He criticizes the frequent one-on-one play, and guys who hold the ball endlessly while their teammates stand around. “The more you move the ball around, the more decisions you force a defense to make, the better your offense will be,” Barry says.
He isn’t some cranky old guy who doesn’t appreciate the greatness of today’s players. He says they have advantages not available during his career.
“Players today have so much more sophisticated training tools and technology available to them. They have all kinds of analytical stuff, strength coaches, dietitians, so many things we didn’t have. If I played today, I would be so much better.”
It would be hard to be much better. Barry was one of the most prolific scorers in ABA and NBA history. He played 14 seasons and averaged nearly 25 points per game. He was a 12-time all-star and won two league championships. The 6’7 ½” small forward famously shot free throws underhanded and ranks fourth all-time in NBA free-throw percentage at 90 percent. “It’s been scientifically proven to be the better way to shoot free throws,” he says.
Barry retired in 1980, was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1987, named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996 and honored in 2021 as one of the league’s greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team.
For 40 years after retiring from the NBA, Barry spent much of his time golfing, playing tennis, and fishing. But there was a void. “I missed competing when I didn’t have basketball,” he says.
He won four world long drive golf championships between 2007 and 2013, but says, “They got rid of the old farts division. I didn’t want to get back into tennis at my age because it was harder on the body. My wife said, ‘Why don’t you try pickleball?’”
During his first pickleball session, Barry said, ‘Wow, this is really good.’ I loved the game pretty quickly, but I hated the kitchen when I first started. I had to learn about that forward momentum and not falling into the kitchen. I said, ‘Okay, I’m gonna learn how to play this.’ So I would drive two hours up to The Villages to play with top players.”
Barry honed his pickleball skills in The Villages, where he was mentored by nationally renowned senior player Dick Scott. Pickleball came quickly to Barry, who was a great high school baseball player, a terrific tennis player and golfer and still has high-level hand-eye coordination.
Barry has a singles DUPR (Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating) of 4.5. He says he’s shrunk three inches since his NBA days, and is now 6’4 ½ “, still taller than most pickleball opponents. “Lobbing [against me], although I can’t jump like I used to, it’s not a great idea. I haven’t played anybody my age that’s my size in height or as mobile as I am.” He says his weight is between 209 and 215 pounds.
Barry won the so-called “Triple Crown” in two major pickleball tournaments last year in the 80+ division. At the US Open in Naples, Florida, in April, he won gold medals in men’s singles, men’s doubles and mixed doubles. He repeated the feat at the Huntsmen World Senior Games in St. George, Utah, in October. He took gold in mixed doubles and mens doubles at the US Open last month. In all three tournaments, his men’s doubles partner was a top 80-year old player, Fred Shuey.
“I would say Rick is one of the five best pickleball players in the country who is 80 and older,” Shuey says from his home in LaJolla, California. “He’s extremely competitive, he does not want to lose. I’m used to being around alpha males. When I first saw Rick play, I said, ‘This guy has soft hands and he loves to dink.’ He’s a dream type of player for me to partner with.”
Barry’s partner in mixed doubles at the Huntsmen World Senior Games was Alice Tym. Barry reached out to Tym when he first started playing. As with Shuey, Barry teams up with great players. Tym, 81, is a legendary tennis player, once ranked 13th in the world among women.
“Rick has obviously worked very hard at pickleball,” Tym says. “I’d play with him anywhere because he’s dead serious about winning. His serve is one of his biggest strengths. Because of his height he gets an angle that other people can’t.”
Tym and Shuey say Barry is intense on the pickleball court but never criticizes them, that he’s hard only on himself, occasionally cursing himself out quietly after an unforced error. Barry does not suffer fools easily though. When asked if his height and fame intimidate opponents, he says, “I don’t know, you have to ask them.”
Barry’s wife, Lynn, is also a great athlete
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Sports are a major part of the Barry family DNA. All five of his sons played basketball professionally, three in the NBA. His father was his high school basketball coach in Roselle Park, New Jersey. His wife, Lynn, was a star college basketball player at William & Mary, where her jersey was retired like Rick’s was at the University of Miami. Rick says Lynn is also a 4.5 pickleball player who prefers to play only recreationally.
Barry says the key to being a great pickleball player is, “You can’t have a glaring weakness. If you’ve got a glaring weakness, I’m going to exploit it. The strategy of the game, like in any sport, is exploiting your opponents’ weakness.”
Barry’s immediate goal is to win more pickleball triple crowns. His long-term goals? “To be 100-years-old and play pickleball and go fly fishing.”
Thoughts of the week, not all pickleball
· I don’t think Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame. He gambled on baseball as manager of the Cincinnati Reds and lied about it for 15 years, until he had a book to sell. Commissioner Rob Manfred announced this week that he’s lifting Rose’s permanent ban from baseball, and for the first time the game’s all-time hit leader, who died last September at 83, will be eligible for election into the Hall. Manfred said the permanent ineligibility of players ends upon their death. He also cleared everyone from the Chicago White Sox team who threw the 1919 World Series. The late commissioner Bart Giamatti permanently suspended Rose in 1989. Giamatti’s son, Marcus, told USA TODAY, “It’s a serious dark day for baseball. For my dad, it was all about defending the integrity of baseball.” Giamatti added that he doesn’t believe the White Sox players, including the great Shoeless Joe Jackson, or steroid users, should be allowed in. Giammatti said, “The floodgates are now open. Sure, why not let all those guys in, too? Rose [didn’t do] anything to reconfigure his life. He was never seriously remorseful or rehabilitated himself by going to Gamblers Anonymous. He did none of that.” Rose committed baseball’s cardinal sin by betting on games and continually lied about it. Americans generally are forgiving, and I believe if Rose came clean much sooner he would have been inducted years ago and would have been alive to enjoy his induction into the Hall.
· Why do so many pickleball players tense up even in friendly rec play when their team has 10 points? I have been in games or watched matches when the team up 10-3 suddenly commits unforced errors and the score is soon 10-9 or 10-10. I try to pretend the score is 0-0 and not change the way I play or go for the home run when a single will do. I am a 3.5 and not good enough to always succeed, but I at least try to play that way.
· A terrific, feel-good movie on Netflix is called Nonnas and it’s based on a true story. Vince Vaughn plays a man in a dead-end job with a dream to honor his mother. The film has some cliches and at times is cheesy and corny and I still loved it.
· Will miracles never cease? I not only found a phone number for Amazon customer service this week, I actually spoke with a live human being. The number that worked for me is 888-280-4331.
Hudef gives away a new paddle to the first person who emails its sales department the correct answer to one question at the end of my first blog of every month. The question in last week’s column was: “What is the full retail price of the most expensive paddles that Hudef sells?
The answer: $169.99.
Taryn Lamm was the first person to email the correct answer. Taryn won the Hudef Viva Pro Gen 3 paddle. We hope you love the Viva Pro Gen 3, Taryn, as much as so many players and reviewers do.
Remember, if you buy any Hudef paddle that costs $169.99, use my discount code MS30 to knock down the price by 30%, to $119.99. Any less expensive paddle, the code is MS15, giving you 15% off.
