One of Newest Ambassadors From Sebring, Florida

Wayne Roswell, Ambassador from Sebring, Florida

Wayne Roswell is one of the newest ambassadors in the USAPA. Wayne represents the Sebring area of Florida. Wayne is also one of a small number of ambassadors who originates from Canada.

Wayne moved to the community of Tanglewood in Sebring, Florida exactly one year ago. The final criteria for Wayne buying was the fact that pickleball was started. Wayne started playing pickleball at The Villages in 2005. He had the good fortune of taking lessons from George Brewer, Mr. Pickleball. Wayne remembers lining up with close to 40 other players to get on the courts to learn the rules. George’s sense of humour made the game fun since day one. He continued to go back to The Villages for three years and each year he started over in beginners’ structured play.

When Wayne arrived here at Tanglewood, he immediately went out to join eight to ten others who were playing on a cement pad that had been poured as a dance floor in a picnic area. Wayne says "we had to chase balls under picnic tables and make sure we didn’t run into the band shelter at one end and picnic tables on the other sides". Charles Kuehn had introduced the game here the previous November and he along with some ingenious residents had built the nets out of PCV piping from Home Depot.

Wayne joined a delegation that met with the owner last April to present a proposal to build pickleball courts. Mr. Greytak, the owner, ended the meeting by asking, “what the heck do you guys want?” The delegation replied, “two courts for sure, three would be great”. Wayne left at the end of April, not knowing whether anything would come of the meeting or not, and returned mid November to find the finishing touches being put on four brand new courts.

Those new courts opened late November and in a little over a year and half the Tanglewood Pickleball club has gone from eight to ten players playing four mornings a week to eighty players playing seven days a week. Last Monday, the club honoured Charles Kuehn for bringing pickleball to Tanglewood by naming the courts after him. Wayne would like to think he may have been a small part of helping get that many players involved in the game so quickly.

Tanglewood recently hosted the Heartland Senior Games that several of your clubs participated in. This was the first year for pickleball in these games and it turned out to be the single largest subscribed event. With this blog to inform you, a lot more of you will be here next year.

When Wayne considered becoming an ambassador, he thought, "what do I have to offer pickleball. I did not inherit all those athletic genes from the maternal gene pool so I am a very average player despite what George taught me, but I did inherit some organizational and communication skills".

Wayne decided to become an ambassador because he enjoyed the game for the recreational and social aspects it provided rather than the competitive side.

Wayne worked in education for 34 years so he had a few teaching skills to offer the game. Wayne had also written curriculum at the local and provincial level in Ontario. He also did some work writing for educational publishers particularily in the area of developing Internet lessons for students. He thought these skills would come in handy in both teaching and promoting the sport.

As an ambassador, Wayne teaches beginners the rules of pickleball, the basic strokes, stresses safety first, and most important teaches newbies to have fun. He has organized play for ladies, mixed, and beginners.

Wayne has also established a blog that is linked to the Tanglewood Resident Times webside, http://www.twrtimes.com/. This blog is linked to the USAPA website thanks to the assistance of Bill Booth. When Neal Nightingale and Earl Hill asked Wayne if he would help set up a similar blog for our region, he said sure.

Wayne hopes you all agree that this is another way we can see this fantastic sport grow. Every ambassador is working hard to promote this great sport at his or her own club; now they have a vehicle to share those ideas with every one in the region. This blog can be a great opportunity to promote pickleball if everyone in some way contributes ideas to Neal Nightingale.

Submitted by:
Wayne Roswell
Ambassador, Sebring FL