Why I Retired from Pickleball
I didn’t leave pickleball because I stopped loving it. After more than six years, I’m making a clean break—and carrying the friendships, focus, and perspective I earned into the rest of my life.
After more than six years, I’m stepping away with gratitude for what the game gave me—and making room for what I have yet to experience.
- I still love pickleball. Leaving is about choosing where my time and attention go, not losing appreciation for the game.
- Trying to play casually kept leading me back to training, higher goals, and the next level of competition.
- The friendships, the perspective, and especially the ability to focus are coming with me.
In this reflection
I retired from pickleball while I still loved playing it.
That is the part I most want to explain. This isn’t a story about a game that disappointed me. Pickleball gave me friendships, time outdoors, a connection to my community, and a challenging place to grow. I’m grateful for those things.
But loving something doesn’t settle the question of how much of your life you should continue giving it. For me, that meant being honest about a pattern I had already tried to change.
Why a smaller role never stayed small
During more than six years of playing, I tried once or twice to step back. Maybe I could stop taking it so seriously. Stop drilling so much. Stop trying to climb the ladder of stronger players. Just play for fun.
I would end up right back in it: training, setting a higher goal, finding another player whose level I wanted to reach. There was always someone better, another opponent, another part of my game to improve.
It never really ended.
I’m an all-or-nothing person, and I enjoy living that way. I’m not presenting it as the philosophy everyone should follow. Plenty of people can enjoy a few games and leave it there. My experience has taught me that I don’t tend to do that.
When I’m all in, I want to get better. I want to win. I work hard to be a gentleman on the court, and I don’t think that competitiveness needs to come at anyone else’s expense. But being respectful doesn’t make the drive disappear.
So this time, I’m not trying to negotiate a smaller version of the same commitment. I’m stepping away from playing altogether. A clean break is the choice that makes sense for me.
Why I picked up a paddle
I started pickleball without a tennis or racquetball background. What drew me in was the opportunity to experience more of the place where I live.
Pickleball is a big part of the Coachella Valley culture I’ve come to know. Joining in meant fresh air, friendship, socializing, and participating in something with other people—not simply observing it.
It also offered a kind of competition that felt different from work. My work is already competitive, and I have mixed feelings about adding more competition to my life. Yet there was something I genuinely enjoyed about being out there with a teammate, trying to solve the same problem and win together.
A friend calls it “simulated stress.” That description fits my experience. In the middle of a match, it could feel like we were going into battle together. But we were playing battle. We were friends, on a court, playing a game.
The effort and emotions were real. The stakes were different from the pressures of everyday life. I found that to be a healthy outlet, and it was fun.
The perspective you have to earn
I didn’t begin with the goal of casually learning the rules. I wanted to master the fundamentals.
At the time, the number I associated with that goal was 5.0. But the number was my shorthand for something more important: developing a real understanding of the game. Where someone draws a rating line matters less to this story than what I was trying to learn.
There is a beautiful reward in taking a skill seriously. Through practice, you start to recognize things you couldn’t see before. You understand why a choice matters. You notice a pattern instead of just watching a ball move back and forth. The experience becomes richer because you have done the work to understand it.
That is why the fundamentals matter so much to me. The reward isn’t only better performance. It is a different perspective.
Photography has always been the pursuit I never planned to stop. Growing my skills, developing my work, and building my portfolio have remained central throughout this journey.
Learning pickleball gave the photographer in me more to work with. I could understand the effort behind what I was seeing and tell a story with more depth than I could have without that experience. For me, participating deeply in the culture I photograph changes what I’m able to notice and articulate.
I’m not leaving that understanding behind when I leave the court.
The focus muscle
One of the most valuable things I earned through pickleball was the ability to focus.
That hasn’t always come easily to me. Even during my semi-professional hockey career, sustained focus was something I struggled with. I felt that challenge in my earlier years of business, too. It is something I’ve been working on for the better part of a decade.
Pickleball gave me a place to develop what I think of as my focus muscle. An hour or two of concentrated practice asked something of me. A tournament day that stretched to around five hours asked me to keep returning my attention to the task.
I don’t mean that I became perfectly focused for five uninterrupted hours. I mean that pursuing a difficult goal repeatedly challenged me to concentrate for longer, recognize when my attention wandered, and bring it back.
I’ve written about focus and competition, but the most meaningful part isn’t confined to sport. It is being able to apply that attention to the rest of my life and work.
That is a return on those years that I don’t lose by stopping.
Making room without devaluing the past
Going cold turkey has freed up more than hours in my schedule. It has freed up mental space.
When I’m pursuing a game seriously, the commitment doesn’t begin and end with court time. There are goals to think about, practices to plan, and players I want to learn from or reach. That attention has to come from somewhere.
I want to experience other parts of my community. I want new challenges that expose different weaknesses, introduce different perspectives, and take my life in directions I haven’t explored yet.
Continuing to improve at pickleball would still be worthwhile. I just don’t have to keep choosing it because the previous six years were worthwhile.
Stepping away doesn’t turn those years into wasted time. The friendships are real. The growth is real. The perspective is mine to keep.
Preparing for the next pursuit
My immediate focus is strengthening my body. As I write this, I’ve begun Pilates, returned to the gym, and been hiking. I’m giving that foundation my attention before taking on the next major pursuit.
Golf is something I want to explore when I feel ready. It is another important part of life here that I want to understand through participation. My ambition is to master the fundamentals and eventually become a scratch golfer.
That is a goal ahead of me, not an accomplishment I’m claiming. I haven’t begun that pursuit yet.
What interests me is the chance to earn another perspective: to experience the game, the courses, and their stories with a depth of understanding I don’t have today. The photographer in me sees the value in that, just as I did with pickleball.
But I don’t need to rush past the work in front of me to make this decision meaningful. Right now, making room and getting stronger are enough.
Five questions about my decision
Did I retire because I stopped enjoying pickleball?
No. I still love the game. I’m leaving because I want to make room for other experiences, and playing casually has repeatedly led me back to an all-in commitment.
Am I only stepping away from tournaments?
No. This is a clean break from playing, rather than a shift from competition to recreational games.
Was the goal simply to reach a 5.0 rating?
That was the number I originally associated with my goal. What mattered more was mastering the fundamentals and earning a deeper understanding of the game.
Have I already switched to golf?
No. At the time of writing, I’m focusing on strengthening my body. Golf—and the ambition of becoming a scratch golfer—is a future pursuit.
Do I think everyone should approach hobbies this way?
No. This decision reflects how I engage with a pursuit. Someone else can have an equally meaningful relationship with pickleball without making it an all-or-nothing commitment.
Thank you, pickleball
What I hope someone takes from my experience isn’t that they should quit a sport, chase a particular rating, or organize their life exactly as I do.
It is that there is so much to discover by participating in the culture and community around you. Choose something that interests you. Give yourself a meaningful challenge. See what you can learn by working toward something difficult.
For me, achieving hard things has forced growth and exposed weaknesses I needed to see. Pickleball gave me that opportunity, along with people to share it with.
To the friends, teammates, practice partners, and opponents who were part of those years: thank you. I’m leaving the game with appreciation for what we shared and for what it helped me develop.
Thank you, pickleball, for the friendships, the focus, and the growth I built by achieving hard things in my own backyard.
Continue exploring Pickleball With Mark: Mastering the Fundamentals for the practice guides and personal lessons behind those six years, or browse all my pickleball stories.
