The best-kept pickleball secret in Long Beach
Lighthouse resort hosts
indoor leagues, clinics
and tournaments
If You Go
Cape Columbia Pickleball
Lighthouse oceanfront resort
By NIKKI DAVIDSON
12417 Pacific Way, Long beach
CoasT WeeKeNd
On Thursday evenings, dozens of peo-
ple lace up their shoes, grab their gym
bag and make their way to a resort in a
heavily-wooded spot on the Long Beach
Peninsula.
The rural facility remains under the radar,
yet attracts more people than it can han-
dle on a single night. As of late, its name is
slightly deceiving. Although it’s labeled the
Lighthouse Oceanfront Resort’s Tennis Cen-
ter, it’s become the epicenter of a surging
pickleball movement on the North Coast.
“This is my strong league tonight, there
are people from all over the place,” said
Roman Sada, director of racket sports, as
players of all ages filed into the facility to
warm up.
Sada takes his position at the resort very
seriously. The long-time coach has fully
immersed himself in the tennis world since
he started playing when he was 5 years
old in Prague. He worked his way up to
the Czech national junior team and toured
professionally.
When he came to Washington as a tennis
coach four years ago, he decided to include
pickleball lessons in his agenda, a choice
that has now taken over his usual gig of ten-
nis pro.
“When I started I had maybe six or eight
pickle ballers here,” Sada said. “Years later,
I have 20 to 30 on a regular basis. It’s just
skyrocketed here.”
The trend is not unique to the North
Coast. Pickleball is the fastest growing sport
in the nation. According to a report this year
from the Sports and Fitness Industry Associ-
ation, from 2019 to 2020 there was a 21.3%
rise in pickleball participants.
Pickleball can be described as a hybrid
of tennis, badminton and ping-pong. Play-
ers use paddles that look much like some-
thing from a ping-pong match but are bigger
and made out of different materials. The ball
is plastic, and similar to a whiffle ball. The
game is played on a badminton-sized court
with a slightly modified tennis net.
Sada believes it’s obvious why pickleball
is taking off. He’s noticed the sport is much
easier to learn than tennis and requires less
physical endurance.
“Usually you have fun when you know
something,” said Sada. “If you don’t know
open pickleball noon to 2 p.m., $5 per
person
day camps (15 hours of instruction)
Three-day clinics (6 hours of instruction)
capecolumbiapickleball.com/
Nikki davidson
Roman Sada, director of racket sports at Lighthouse Oceanfront Resort, speaks to a group of
pickleball players before they begin their Thursday night league games.
it, or are not very good at it, you don’t feel
comfortable and you don’t play. That’s why
tennis is so hard because you’ve got to run
a lot, it takes a lot of conditioning and eye
coordination. You’ve really got to be on top
of the game.”
Witnessing this new sport eclipse his true
passion has been bittersweet for the coach,
who admits he’s “sad that tennis is dying,”
but he’s ready to embrace the demand for
pickleball. He has started hosting tourna-
ments, clinics, leagues and open play hours
at the Lighthouse Oceanfront Resort.
According to Sada, tournaments fill up
quickly.
“I have to cut it at 120 people, unfor-
tunately,” he said, filling the tournament
according to the amount of court space
available. “I have a lot of people on the wait-
ing list.”
The resort’s indoor facility has six pick-
leball courts, which are open for public use
from noon to 2 p.m. daily for a fee of $5.
The evening leagues are also popular, with
demand so high that not just anyone can get
in. Sada approves members and matches
them based on their skills.
“I try to keep it at the highest level of
competition because it’s good when people
play their own level,” Sada said.
The facility has been a game-changer for
players like Steve Mcphil. He quietly cre-
ated a pickleball court on his property up
the road 17 years ago and is happy to have
more direction from a professional coach
like Sada.
“We played without any knowledge of
the pickleball world, we were just locked
away in my barn playing, we played every
Tuesday night for the last 15 years,” he
said. “I was playing the wrong way for 15
years. So the last couple of years I’ve been
unlearning and relearning here, figuring it
out.”
While the courts have filled up fast at the
resort, Sada hopes to see more younger play-
ers in the mix. The coach has a staunch anti-
video game philosophy and is dedicated to
getting people off of the couch and into the
game.
In the past, he’s received local grants to
create sponsored programs allowing kids to
play for free, but he says it’s been more diffi-
cult to get funding because of the pandemic.
“My dream is to have a junior program
on a regular basis,” said Sada. “Maybe Tues-
days and Thursdays with a bunch of kids.
It’s a tough community here moneywise.
It’s hard, but I’m trying to do it for free or
charge minimum money, like $5 an hour or
something like that.”
While it’s hard to see participation in ten-
nis decline, Sada said there are quite a few
things he enjoys about the pickleball crowd.
“No fights, no problems,” he said. “I
gotta say, pickleballers are really nice peo-
ple. Tennis players are a little bit more
snobby I would say, more ego. Pickle ballers
are really nice.”
Thursday, November 4, 2021 // 7