Pickleball – The Fastest Growing Sport in the World
by Costa Chan
All of Mr. Horneck’s medals along with two balls and a Paddle used to play.
Have you ever heard of Pickle-Ball? It’s a very interesting sport that is a combination of Badminton, tennis, and ping pong. Players use a hard paddle similar to a ping pong paddle, but larger with a hard face as opposed to rubber like a ping pong paddle. The ball is like a wiffle ball, about the size of a baseball. On top of that did you know that NorthStar’s very own Mr. Noel Horneck is very accomplished in said sport?
Mr. Horneck’s career began a few years ago because of a simple Christmas gift from his wife. Mrs. Horneck bought and gifted Mr. Horneck a set of paddles and balls. They began playing at their local health club which closed. After the closing, Mr. Horneck began going to a rec center with some friends where they would play a few times a week and they still do to this day. “We normally play for about 3 hours two or three times a week. We normally play doubles and we like to get our four best players together for a private session so we can play at an advanced level.”
After playing with his friends at some local places, Mr. Horneck began to compete. In his very first tournament he was able to place second. “My first tournament experience was in the Arkansas Senior Olympics in the fall of 2018. I was only able to enter singles in that competition, but I was able to earn a Silver medal in my age division (55-59 at the time).” That’s quite impressive for a first tournament. The following year, he began to compete some more and accomplished very much. “In 2019 I entered numerous tournaments in singles, men’s doubles as well as mixed doubles. I have 2 gold medals in mixed doubles, 1 silver and 2 bronze in singles and 2 gold and 3 silver in men’s doubles.”
Safe to say that he has done very much and with all the competing comes lots of travelling. He has competed in Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, and California. The tournament in California was the Pickleball Nationals tournament with over 2,200 competitors. What drives Mr. Horneck to play is the fact that he just loves the sport and has a desire to improve as a player.
Mr. Horneck has held two NED talks for NorthStar students where he talked about Pickleball and accumulated a total of 119 attendees. Several students were interested in playing the sport and only a few had ever played. If you ever want to give the sport a try and you have the opportunity to play then definitely attend a NED talk of Mr. Horneck’s.
Seu Chan, or as he prefers to be called Costa Chan is a 17 year old at NSA. It is his second year with NSA. he began with NSA because his family had moved overseas and currently lives in Germany. In his free time he enjoys pleasure reading, writing short stories, playing sports such as soccer and football and he loves spending time with friends.