Joyce Jones is in the Guiness Book of World Records as the oldest female competitive pickleball player in the world. She’s 96.
Joyce is not, however, in the Pickleball Hall of Fame. Yes, the Guiness World Book and the PBHOF have vastly different requirements. That aside, this woman deserves to be in the pickleball Hall. But 75% of the seven-member selection committee has not voted Joyce in.
The lifelong Seattle resident played pickleball with one of the sport’s inventors. She has 46 years of competitive pickleball participation. She has been an ambassador for the sport for decades, longer than some Hall members have been alive.
Joyce has been a terrific player. She has won 71 national and international tournaments, including 32 Huntsmen World Senior Games, 16 National Senior Games and several USA Pickleball national tournaments.
The fact that Joyce is not in the PBHOF begs two questions:
1) What the hell does someone have to do to get in?
2) Why even have a Contributors category if someone with Joyce’s impact on the sport is not a Hall of Fame member?
Joyce is not campaigning to get in, but makes no secret that she feels slighted.
“I want to be inducted while I am still alive to enjoy it,” Joyce told me over the phone, still sharp as a tack, her voice sounding like a woman decades younger. “At 96, I don’t have that much time left.”
It would be wonderful if Joyce is still around to be able to share the honor with her four kids, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Many people who know about Joyce’s contributions have nominated her for induction. I have read some of their nominating forms and a few take five pages to list Joyce’s achievements and impact. Her future son-in-law, Matt Cannard, is among those who have nominated her.
“For Joyce, this wouldn’t just be personal validation of a lifetime of championships,” Matt says, “it would recognize four decades of relentless advocacy for players of all ages and acknowledge the foundation she helped build so the sport could thrive as it does today.”
The Hall has separate categories for players and contributors. The requirements to be considered in the Contributors category state in part: “A candidate should have impacted the sport of pickleball on the national or international level for at least 5 years.”
Read that last sentence again. Then read the following four paragraphs and see what you think.
When Joyce was the Washington State Coordinator for the National Senior Games, she worked tirelessly to get pickleball added to the Huntsman World Senior Games. She had competed in those games in tennis and badminton. She also led the effort to get pickleball into the National Senior Games.
“They held an annual meeting in St Louis which I attended. I requested that they include pickleball in their sports offered, but they wouldn’t even discuss it,” Joyce said. The general consensus at that time was that it was just a fad and wouldn’t last. So, I went home and in 2008, contacted the National Senior Games State state coordinators in all 49 other states, and asked them if they included pickleball in their state qualification tournaments. And if not, would they consider including it the following year.
“I took the results of my survey to the 2009 meeting to no avail. They still thought there weren’t enough players interested in the sport to include it. So, I recontacted all 49 coordinators and asked them to include pickleball in their Games the following year. Most of them did give it a try, but said the sport wasn’t big enough yet, but would still offer it. The consensus was that it was going to grow. I took my new results to the 2010 meeting, and it was still rejected. I then asked them if they would consider letting us try holding it as a spectator sport. This they agreed to.
“So, at the 2011 National Senior Games, Nancy and David Jordan [friends from Utah who ran other senior games] and I spent all of our time when we weren’t competing, teaching athletes the game. No sightseeing that year, or watching friends compete in other sports. But it worked, and we had huge crowds of players giving it a try and really enjoying it. With only one court, there were long lines of athletes wanting to give it a try. When the National “powers that be” saw how popular it was, they finally included it in 2013.”
A reasonable person would think that someone who worked tirelessly, while in her 70’s and 80’s no less, to get pickleball as an official sport in the National Senior Games and the Huntsman World Senior Games would be in the Pickleball Hall of Fame in the Contributors category.
The HOF has a rule that up to two inductees in the Contributors category can get in every year. Why? It’s not like it has a lack of space, because the Pickleball Hall of Fame has no building, just a website and annual induction ceremony. Members get a plaque, a ring, a jacket and a bio on its website.
“When the Hall's induction criteria were originally established, the Board discussed this issue at length and researched the practices of other halls of fame,” says Melissa McCurley, the HOF’s Interim President. “The decision was made to limit the size of annual induction classes in order to maintain the selectivity and significance associated with Hall of Fame induction, particularly in a relatively young sport.
“The maximum is therefore intentional,” McCurley said.
I don’t think putting Joyce in waters down the Hall’s membership one bit.
The Pickleball Hall of Fame should at least have a “Lifetime Achievement Award” like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Emmys, Tony’s and Grammy’s.
All I know is Joyce Jones deserves to be in the Hall. So does a legendary pickleball instructor, 86-year old Richard Movsessian, better known as “Coach Mo,” who has conducted free pickleball clinics for more than two decades nationally and internationally. I wrote about him in August.
You can nominate Joyce by filling out this form. You will need to fill-in her place of birth, Holtsville, California, and date of birth, April 4, 1930.
Joyce, meanwhile, when not playing pickleball continues another longtime love, singing. She has has sung for decades in groups and choirs and now sings at the Independent Living facility where she’s a resident. She has also been writing a book.
“I’ve always loved writing, so I’ve been in the process of writing my life story for the past 20 years or so,” she says, “I’ve got to get back to it! I have a folder about 5” high of notes.”
Hopefully, her book will be finished and maybe the final chapter will be about Joyce being inducted into the Pickleball Hall of Fame.
This is not meant to slight the Hall’s 41 members or their accomplishments. I know a couple of them and have written about them. That Joyce and Coach Mo are not members is a stain on the institution and its credibility.
It’s an embarrassment for the Hall if you ask me, if you know anything about pickleball, its history, its real movers and shakers.
It’s a damn shame for the so-called Hall of Fame.
Thoughts of the week, not all pickleball
· Grocery store shoppers who leave their cart by their car instead of walking a few feet to the cart area are lazy. Maybe it’s understandable if the shopper has a baby with him or her. It is another why reason why, according to the CBC, that 74% of Americans are overweight or obese.
· Speaking of store parking lots, it’s sad to see so many drivers who don’t know you’re supposed to yield to pedestrians.
· There was a hit song released in 1983 called “Sunglasses at Night,” by the Canadian singer-songwriter Corey Hart. Regarding those who wear sunglasses indoors to public events, discounting those whose eyes have issues with bright lights, what’s up with people who wear shades indoors? Did I miss the memo on it being hip?
· Iowa’s last-second touchdown to beat Michigan in the Big House was exhilarating for me. I have rooted for the Hawkeyes since I was a kid and my dad told me he graduated from Iowa in 1936. He was the first college grad in his family.
· One of the most touching sights I have seen on a baseball field happened when Justin Verlander’s young daughter ran onto the mound and hugged him after he was pulled from his final career game. If you were not moved, check your pulse.
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