Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi, I'm Shelly Maurer and I'm Cher Emrick. Welcome to Life.

Speaker 2: 0:04

Lessons from Pickleball where we engage with pickleball players from around the world about life on and off the court.

Speaker 1: 0:12

Thanks for joining us. Welcome everyone to Life. Lessons from Pickleball. Oh my gosh, we are really lucky to have been introduced to our guest today by a previous guest, twyla Adams. And Twyla Adams is an adaptive athlete and she's introduced us to Sandy Halkett. Sandy, you are the founder and head coach of Adaptive Pickleball. You've been an LPGA Class A golf teaching professional for over 20 years and you served as the head coach of the Greenville Special Olympics golf team since 2000.

Speaker 2: 0:50

In 2020, you founded Adaptive Pickleball, a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to teaching people with diverse abilities, including physical, cognitive and developmental challenges, all how to play pickleball.

Speaker 1: 1:06

So we definitely want to hear about pickleball, but first, sandy, how did you become involved with the Special Olympics?

Speaker 3: 1:14

So my involvement with the Special Olympics started with golf. I'm a golf instructor, as you said earlier, and I just wanted to reach out to our community. I was with a country club, a very elite country club, and I just wanted to kind of get back to to my grassroots people, and somebody um heard me over talking just in a conversation that I wanted to work with individuals with special needs or physical limitations or just you know, people with diverse abilities, as we call those, and Greenville did not have a golf team for Special Olympics. So they reached out to me and I became the first Greenville Special Olympics golf coach for this area and that was, yeah, 24 years ago. And so we started with a small team of about eight golfers and it's grown now to over 20 on my team each season, now it may look a little different.

Speaker 3: 2:15

You know like we'll talk probably about pickleball as well. Golf may look a little different to everybody depending on their ability, and so I had a lot of what we call skills players that would just chip, putt, pitch, irons, woods, um. So that's level one, is just skills. And then level two would be where they go out and play nine holes but they have a partner and they play alternate shot, um. And then another level would be that they go out and they play their own ball for nine or 18 holes. So it's a progression that they go through. Some stay in skills for forever and that's fine. That's their golf, that's their version of golf, and so we make it entertaining, exciting for them, competing for medals, just like you and I compete for anything else.

Speaker 1: 3:00

That's so brilliant.

Speaker 2: 3:02

So then how did you get into?

Speaker 3: 3:04

pickleball. Well, I've been playing pickleball right at 10 years now and I started coaching teaching pickleball about five years ago. And then one of my friends who also saw what I was doing with golf with special needs, he actually came out and was one of my volunteer coaches and he was like this is pretty fantastic, what you're doing with golf. He said have you ever thought about doing it with pickleball? And I was like I actually haven't until right this second. He says I think it could be pretty phenomenal and you've kind of got the outline through.

Speaker 3: 3:43

What Special Olympics has trained me in doing is making every athlete successful and that every participant is an athlete we actually call them athletes in our program and so I started to think about it and so then it became a conversation I had with special olympics, the state of south carolina, and they were like, oh my goodness, let's try it, let's try it. Um, so we, we ran a program, invited my golf team basically invited my golf team over, and nobody wanted to leave the gym. Everybody was having so much fun because, as you all know, pickleball can be very easy in the beginning to get your version of your game going.

Speaker 3: 4:31

And that's what we found with my athletes from golf is that now they could play another sport, so we started to come up with like a curriculum and a growth program for them. So we start, just like in golf. We start with skills. We start with paddle taps. How many paddle taps can you get on your paddle? Um, then they progress from paddle taps to serve to return a serve ground, strokes, volleys and occasionally some dinking, although that is that is a tough skill for some of our special need athletes um, it's a tough skill for anybody exactly right, like so.

Speaker 3: 5:12

It's like you hit, you have to hit something soft, and okay, you've got a, you know somebody with special needs, and they hear hit, and then they hear soft and it's like that doesn't make sense. Why would I hit something soft, right? So? So dinking is a skill that we're starting to develop with them, but it's not, it's not natural for them to dink so.

Speaker 3: 5:37

And then we have, when they graduate out of skills, we have what we call unified pickleball, and that is where they partner up with a unified partner. We call them an up. You're an up if you're a unified partner and you play alongside a person with a diverse ability and that also extends to our physical disability individuals that play with us. So not just cognitive, but also physical. We partner with them. And then we're playing against somebody on the other side of the court that may be in a wheelchair, sports wheelchair, they may be standing, it doesn't matter, it does not matter. We cross all barriers and we all are playing the game together.

Speaker 3: 6:19

And then, of course, if they graduate out of Unify, then they go and play singles or whatever that may look like. But what we've decided here in the last probably six months is that there's a huge gap between a skills player in pickleball and the Unified play. There's just a big gap that they're not quite ready for unified but they're ready to leave skills. So we've come up with a game. It's called Thunderball. Thunderball is just simplified pickleball.

Speaker 3: 6:55

We took all the hard rules and got rid of them, just got rid of them.

Speaker 3: 7:00

What rules did you get rid of, for instance oh like, okay, Well, there's no kitchen, yay, well, there's no kitchen, yay, yay, there's no kitchen. And so we call it simplified pickleball. But we didn't want to call it simplified pickleball to our athletes hey, you're going to go play simple pickleball? It sounded like a step down, right, yeah. So we came up up. We've asked our athletes what should we call this game? Do you like it? They're like yeah, we love this game. What do we call it thunderball? So we call it thunderball. So we, we've gotten rid of the kitchen. Um, as we do rally scoring, which is much, much simpler. Yeah, for some, these, some of these athletes and beginners, it's just like every point somebody's going to, every rally, somebody's going to get a point.

Speaker 1: 7:49

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 7:49

So we've gotten rid of the server one, server two. You say your score Um. So definitely rally scoring um. The serve can be anywhere from which the athlete has success. Oh, that's cool from which the athlete has success. Oh, that's cool. So we, we, we practice with them and we find out that, hey, you're, you need to be, maybe two steps in, maybe we put some chalk down for them to see, you're two steps into the court and that's where you're getting it over the net.

Speaker 3: 8:17

And they have to get it over the uh, the line on the other side, which of course there's no kitchen, there's no non-volley zone. So we call that the good serve line. You got to get it past the good serve line on the other side. You know cause it. So they see that line on the other side. Their serve has to go past that, but it can go anywhere in the court so any player can return serve. So they both better be on their game and focused.

Speaker 3: 8:42

And when that serve comes over, whatever player can get to that serve gets to that serve and there's no two bounce rule. So we've gotten rid of the two bounce, because that's extremely hard for some of them to grasp, because we also tell them, as a special Olympic athlete or one of our adaptive athletes, you get two bounces, you get an extra bounce to get to the ball. Okay, so we give them an extra bounce. Um, because some of them move very, very slow and you got to understand.

Speaker 3: 9:15

Sometimes it's hard for them to track the ball and get to the ball there's a lot going on there that we take for granted to get to a ball, the wheelchair players, um, some don't even. They're not even in a wheelchair, a sports chair, during their normal day, but they play in a sports chair for safety. Maybe they come to us on crutches or walkers or scooters, but then they get into a sports wheelchair so they're not really used to telling their hands to move their body before they hit a ball, so we give them an extra bounce too. So when you have the pickleball to bounce rule and then we tell our athletes, hey, you get another bounce, they just is like what? So we just get rid of the two bounce rule. You can volley at any time, you just have to let the serve bounce, that's it. So so you can see, we've just really simplified it. Brilliant and it's.

Speaker 3: 10:06

We played to 11 rally scoring and they, they have grasped it so fast and these are athletes that may have stayed in skills for a very long time. We've given them another opportunity to play their version, their game of pickleball it's called thunderball and then hopefully they grow out of that and they can play unified. You know, really more traditional other than the two bounce rule for them. They get an extra bounce, but then it's all the regular rules of pickleball. So you can see, we've got this gap and we filled it with pickleball, with Thunderball, and it's their game, it's their pickleball. We don't Thunderball and it's their game, it's their pickleball. We don't say anything other than it's their game. So it's been fantastic.

Speaker 2: 10:52

So empowering for all those athletes.

Speaker 3: 10:54

Absolutely, absolutely. And for us as coaches I take my coaches through a training program and to empower them to teach a new way, like we can do that, I'm like, heck, yeah, we can do that. What brings our athletes success? That's where we want to take a step back and say, rachel, she can flat serve it in, but she needs to be about two steps in until she gets stronger. Okay, we'll let her step in Two steps. You know deer and thunderball. And I'll tell you a game we've also brought on Did y'all ever play four squares, kids? Or at summer camp, you play four square, my favorite game in elementary school.

Speaker 3: 11:37

Okay, okay. Well, we play four square pickleball and every square is the kitchen. Now we're getting athletes that just you know the dinking thing isn't registering, but we get into four square and they have to let everything bounce. You know, every square is the kitchen, and so it's been really helping us getting athletes to learn how to hit it softer, because if you miss you're out of the game. Right, you go get in line.

Speaker 1: 12:07

Right yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:07

And we'll have a line of even the coaches are in line. They're like I'm playing and I'm like heck, yeah. So the coaches are in. So we'll have four play in and four in line. And you know, every rally somebody leaves the game and somebody comes in, so it's constant for them. Plus, if it's hot or cold it gives them a break. They can go, you know, wait in line and then come back in the game. Some don't like leaving the game.

Speaker 2: 12:35

You know what that's life.

Speaker 1: 12:36

Sorry, you mishit it.

Speaker 3: 12:36

It's tough. You got to get in line, sorry.

Speaker 2: 12:40

You'll get another turn.

Speaker 3: 12:40

You'll work up to the A-square. Still, yeah, the A-square. We've just layered on different things for our athletes to have success. That's adaptive pickleball and a true sense of the word adaptive.

Speaker 1: 12:55

So it's very inspiring and creative. I just love the creativity that you bring to this and that each individual. Your, your goal is that each individual is successful. It's not that each individual plays pickleball.

Speaker 3: 13:14

It's their version. It's their version of pickleball.

Speaker 1: 13:16

It is pickleball.

Speaker 3: 13:17

We help them find that. Yeah, we help them find that and that it's called Thunderball.

Speaker 1: 13:23

Very cool, cool name. That could actually take off.

Speaker 2: 13:27

That may become the new name for the game.

Speaker 1: 13:28

altogether, that may become the new name for the game altogether.

Speaker 2: 13:33

So I saw a quote where you said our participants are telling us about how literally we've saved their lives. Can you tell us about that?

Speaker 3: 13:44

I can. So we have a veteran who is an amputee and we didn't know it at the time. You know, we're just loving on him and welcoming him every time he comes. You know, hey, come on down, we've been waiting on you. He feels welcomed. And so then slowly his story started to come out, that he was homebound with fear, ptsd, social anxiety. You know, I don't really know all that it involved with him, but that was what we've gotten out of it and he will tell everybody APB saved my life. Because he says I don't know that I'd be out of the house and I was going downhill fast. So we, we, not, we're not saying that we saved his life. He's saying we saved his life, yep. And so then we were like, can we quote you? You know, like you know you want to be sensitive because it's his story. But he was like, absolutely, I'm not afraid I'll shout it from the mountaintops, you have saved my life.

Speaker 3: 14:53

And we've gotten stories from participants' parents. So some of our participants are nonverbal or very little language, where we're getting feedback from their parents because we're with this individual who's not, is not talking to us. He's nonverbal, she's nonverbal, um, but the parents are coming back to us and saying, oh my word, different child, different person, and we're like, really Like. Are you sure that's us Like? We don't want to be like she's like. No, that's the only thing that's changed in the last you know, four months is we've been coming to pickleball and how is that child different to them?

Speaker 3: 15:43

They seem more like you have to drag them out of the house to do anything. Come on, you've got to go here. It would be fun activities, but they just weren't into it. She said pickleball, he's. He's in the car waiting on her wanting to exercise more.

Speaker 1: 16:00

Interesting.

Speaker 3: 16:01

Finding that he wants to get out and go for more walks because he wants to. Maybe maybe he's feeling a sense of I want to be more in shape, I don't know. But just they say they want to exercise more, they, they. I don't have to beg him to get in the car. We're going to, we're going to pick a ball. He's in the car, he's just just. They say just the interaction when they the parents, watch from the sidelines and watch the interaction where he's never given more high fives, he's never his facial expressions have changed and that's just from them, watching him interact with me and my coaches and a place where he feels welcome and he looks on the other side of the court and he sees somebody like him.

Speaker 3: 16:44

He sees somebody like him, and so we're making friendships. Just like you and I go play pickleball, we make friendships right.

Speaker 1: 16:50

Yes.

Speaker 3: 16:51

These athletes. We may not know it and we send them home and we don't know, like, okay, I think we did a good job. I'm not sure Months later we find out, no, we're doing a fantastic job and we're changing, you know, their, their child, their maybe their adult child's perspective on a lot of things. So that's just kind of stories that we're hearing, um that we're giving them a place to come and be together and see folks that are similar to them how has this changed your life?

Speaker 3: 17:22

oh well, thank you for asking. Um, it's been great. I mean, if anybody would have said, hey, at age 50 you're gonna start a non-profit, I'd have been like you're crazy. Um, here I am, you know, into it almost four years, and you know, not just adaptive pickleball, but me working with special needs, working with my dad after his stroke. It's changed me, yeah, for the better, you know, more sympathy. I look at people and see what, what they can be doing instead of what they can't do yeah.

Speaker 3: 18:06

Um, yeah, so so hopefully that rubs off in this world.

Speaker 1: 18:12

Oh, already it is. And did your dad have the stroke before you started working with special needs?

Speaker 3: 18:22

So, it almost ran about the same time, my dad hadn't had the stroke yet A physical therapist, occupational therapist, reached out to me. I was a golf pro at a golf club and said, hey, I want to. I want to start this adaptive golf. Um, I know the person's disability, what they're capable of. You know golf. Could we work together? I said I would love that. And he heard about me starting special Olympics pickleball, which is different because he was dealing more with physical disabilities and I was dealing more with cognitive, but they all kind of intertwined. And I said, yeah, let's, let's try it. And maybe less than a year into that, my dad had a stroke.

Speaker 1: 19:08

Wow.

Speaker 3: 19:10

And that therapist became my dad's therapist.

Speaker 1: 19:14

Yeah, it's crazy. So then the man that taught me how to play golf hospital.

Speaker 3: 19:15

Yeah, it's crazy. So then the man that taught me how to play golf Now I'm teaching him because he's had a stroke, severe, paralyzed and cognitively challenged after the stroke. We're lucky he made it. It was so big, they don't know how he survived this big of a stroke. So so then my dad became my first student for golf, and so now you know, it just really changed me.

Speaker 2: 19:45

That's beautiful.

Speaker 1: 19:47

You have such a heart, sandy, that you have. I mean, you went through your own challenges in your own family, your own challenges in your own family and you some people can turn that into resentment and bitterness, but no, you expand it out to okay, there are others who need this as well, and now you're being creative and imaginative and loving and supportive of this whole community and the ripple effect is really impressive and I'm very grateful for the work you're doing.

Speaker 1: 20:25

So in all of these experiences you've had on the court, off the court, in golf, in life. What are some of the life lessons that you've gleaned?

Speaker 3: 20:37

I don't think you have enough time in your show.

Speaker 1: 20:40

We can take as much time as we need. I don't think you do. Okay, we'll take the time.

Speaker 3: 20:47

You know, I think it goes back to the original founders, 1965. They invented this game in their backyard so the whole family could play Grandparents to the grandkids. And whether they had, you know, a diverse ability, I don't know, but they made this game very easy to learn, hard to master, and we've taken it and we've molded it into something that we can share with folks that aren't like us, maybe physically or not, maybe not like us cognitively, but we all meet together and I think that's that's gotta be true in life. We all need to meet together, whether it's on the pickleball court or wherever it is, seeing people for who they truly are and not looking at their ability or their disability, and just that the game, you know, can be for anybody, at any time of their stage of life too, you know. So I think that's my biggest life lesson.

Speaker 1: 21:47

It occurs to me that oftentimes I want people to be and act the way I think one should be and act, instead of me adapting to whatever their need might be. And that's in life, not just on the court. So I really appreciate the reflection, the mirror that you're giving us in life on be conscious, be aware and adapt to whatever is needed on the person.

Speaker 3: 22:17

I think so. I think we use a term I'd like to share with you. We use a term that I've adopted from Special Olympics and we've we've brought it all the way into adaptive pickleball is meaningful involvement. And meaningful involvement is I'm going to play a game and I'm not going to, you know, necessarily target the weaker player. I'm going to, in this game, meaningful involvement, when I'm playing with my adaptive friends, that I want to keep the point going. I want to extend the point, not end the the point. I want them to have as many hits as I have. I want them to have winners. You know, and and just that meet.

Speaker 3: 23:03

What is your meaningful involvement during this game? You know and you can take that off the court too what is your meaningful involvement? Whether it's opening a door for somebody, something simple they're having trouble getting in and out of the car and you see that they're struggling to get their wheelchair and all their stuff, or they, you know, go and help. So I want to be a helper on and off the court. In life, I want to be a helper, wow.

Speaker 1: 23:36

Yeah, with people who have diverse abilities and people who don't have diverse abilities everyone in our life. It'd be awesome if we each thought, okay, what's my meaningful involvement? In this conversation. What's my meaningful involvement?

Speaker 3: 24:10

in this activity that I'm doing and how can I be present to this person night with one thing that you did for another human being? Well, I don't care if you're the same color or the same sex or the same whatever. They're a human being. They deserve everything we deserve. And if we're on the court and somebody's struggling, why do we go after that person in competitive play? If that's how you really want to win, well then you may need to find another partner, because I'm probably not going to partner with you. You want a lot. You want to lob the guy with the knee brace?

Speaker 3: 24:45

okay, we're probably not going to play together ever again, you know, like you know, let's win and be competitive and I get there's tournament play and rec play and then there's adaptive play and you got to mold that so that you're comfortable going to bed at night. So yeah, we we like that term, meaningful involvement, and it just it, it involves everybody. It involves everybody and we want everybody to enjoy the moment, you know so, even if it means losing it. If they, if we all enjoyed the moment, then it's a win for me.

Speaker 2: 25:18

That's just beautiful and you know, the exciting thing about your work is I saw where you're being asked by people worldwide about your adaptive pickleball.

Speaker 3: 25:29

And that must make you feel really good, I think. Kenya, africa. We were on a Zoom for over an hour trying to help him and all the challenges that he has in Kenya. To start this, he reached out to me A good friend of mine now we are now really good friends. She's from the Ukraine and all the devastation from injuries of civilians and military that lost a limb is a big one. Not only did we talk and zoom and call each other, she came over here in september. She had to get permission from her government. She, she and I had to write a letter on our behalf saying what adaptive pickleball is going to do, just for her government to let her leave and come over here and study what we're doing, so that she can go back to the Ukraine and start her rehabilitation of her, of her country, through a sport.

Speaker 3: 26:28

So not only did she, I mean she got on an airplane and came over here, but it took a lot to get her here and and the emotions of her leaving were really tough, wow, um, but um, so, yeah, and I'm getting you know, uh, people from Canada and all over the all over the United States, but even, um, australia and London. Yeah, I mean, is it crazy when I I never know who's calling me? And, um, it's exciting when I answer the phone to hear where these people are noticing what we're doing and they want to pick my brain, you know. So it's fun to counsel them.

Speaker 2: 27:09

Oh yeah, I mean, the videos on your website are just beautiful. To watch the joy in the faces of the athletes is just incredible, and you as a coach.

Speaker 3: 27:20

You know, my coaches are just like hungry for more. When can I help you again? When can I help you again? We, we take them through a coach's training program and this last coach's training program, Nobody wanted to leave.

Speaker 3: 27:33

We were teaching them Thunderball, we were teaching them four square. We were teaching them how to communicate with a nonverbal athlete. You know like they were? Just they were sponges. We were teaching them how to transfer somebody from their everyday wheelchair and help them transfer into a sports chair and giving them confidence that you can transfer this person. You're not going to drop them, you can transfer them. It's good, you know, we're going to teach you how. So the coaches are just. I couldn't do this without my coaches. Honestly, I could not do this without my coaches because it's it's a lot of hands on and sometimes you're one-on-one with an athlete for that whole session and sometimes you might have three athletes and you got to learn to balance that and give everybody what they've come for. So you know, I just can't thank my coaches enough and they love it, and their smiles are contagious too.

Speaker 1: 28:30

So how can people find you?

Speaker 3: 28:32

What is your website? Adaptivepickleballcom.

Speaker 1: 28:36

No spaces, no dashes. Adaptivepickleballcom. We'll put that on the screen and in the text as well, and you're a nonprofit, so people can support you with donations. And you are a wealth of information for those who are wanting to incorporate this amazing program in their own communities.

Speaker 3: 28:56

I'd be happy to help anybody get this started in their community. Donations are greatly accepted because a lot of people don't know that a sports wheelchair is around $4,000 per chair.

Speaker 3: 29:09

Whoa and they're size specific. So, you know, depending on the person that wants to be in that chair, that chair has to fit their hip, you know their hips, so, so they can't be too wide or too short. Um, because then I get somebody with a spinal cord injury trying to put them in a chair that's too small. They can't tell that it's, you know, rubbing them, and now they go home and they have a bed sore or something. So we're really conscious. So, um, the donations will, more than likely, this time of year, go toward a new, a new sports chair for us in 2025. So the goal, you know, right now would be to raise $4,000 so that we can order another chair. We do, um, borrow some when we need more chairs, but, um, yeah, we'd love to be able to have our own fleet and help those.

Speaker 1: 29:59

We want our own fleet, you know.

Speaker 3: 30:02

So yeah, so I appreciate y'all helping us with that cause.

Speaker 1: 30:07

Oh, it is absolutely our honor and you're in a car in Root somewhere I did get a chance to play a littleleball today, and then one of our sponsors.

Speaker 3: 30:19

Walmart is presenting a check for us for $500. We filled out a grant with our local Walmart and they're going to help us, so we're getting ready to go to a check presentation for that.

Speaker 1: 30:31

Thank you for taking time out in this very busy day to talk to us and, oh my goodness, and thank you to Twyla Adams for introducing us to you and thank you for everything you are doing. That started with one, and then two, and then three and now worldwide.

Speaker 2: 30:50

It's really remarkable.

Speaker 3: 30:50

Thank, you so much ladies, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1: 30:52

And thank you to everybody. Oh wow, yeah, adaptivepickleballcom.

Speaker 3: 30:58

Let's get that next year. Thank you to everybody. Oh wow, yeah, adaptivepickleballcom, let's get that next year.

Speaker 1: 31:00

Thank you so much Thank you all for watching and we look forward to a new conversation next week. Bye-bye.

Speaker 2: 31:09

If you love our podcast, we'd be so grateful if you'd take a few seconds to follow or subscribe to Life Lessons from Pickleball. This ensures you'll never miss an episode and helps us continue these wonderful conversations.

Speaker 1: 31:22

On Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you listen, go to the show page and tap the follow button in the top right corner, and on YouTube, click the subscribe button under any of the episodes.

Speaker 2: 31:35

Thanks, so much Hope to see you on the court.