Welcome And Book Announcement

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Hi, I'm Shelly Bauer. And I'm Cher Emmerich. Welcome to Life Lessons from Pickleball, where we engage with pickleball players from around the world about life on and off the court.

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Thanks for joining us.

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Before we get started, we have something really exciting to share. Our book, Life Lessons from Pickleball, is now available on Amazon, and a portion of every sale is donated to Operation PaddleLift. Your purchase helps deliver paddles, nets, and resources to underserved communities around the world. Thank you for being a part of Growing the Game We All Love. Now let's jump into today's episode.

Meet Melissa McCurley’s Impact

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Welcome everyone to Life Lessons from Pickleball. Oh, today we are so honored to have with us Melissa McCurley. Melissa, you are a United States Navy veteran, a former hospital corpsman who served during Operation Desert Storm, and someone whose life has clearly been shaped by service leadership and staying steady under pressure.

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And what is so remarkable is that after your military service, you went on to lead major technology and crisis response work, including supporting the Navy after 9-11 and restoring communications after Hurricane Katrina. Then you brought that same calm, capable leadership into pickleball and helped shape the sport in extraordinary ways.

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You took over pickleballtournaments.com in 2014 and helped transform it into the backbone of tournament pickleball, supporting the growth of more than 1,200 events and hundreds of thousands of players. And you also helped launch the sport's first data-driven rating system. And you became the first woman. Hey, this is big. You became the first woman in broadcast pickleball on CBS Sports. And now you serve as executive vice president of competition for the Association of Pickleball Players or APP.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Wow. And there's more. There is more. And in 2025, you were inducted into the Pickleball Hall of Fame as a contributor, which feels like such a fitting honor for someone who has done so much behind the scenes for to help the sport grow. And recently you were featured in the documentary The Power of Pickleball. Wow, Melissa, thank you for everything you've done. So how did someone with your amazing background find your way to pickleball?

Leaving IT After A Calling

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Well, pickleball found me. I wasn't looking for it. Wasn't looking for it at all. So the um I had spent several years, almost 20, building a pretty strong uh career in information technology. I worked for Ross Perau's company, uh EDS, and then I uh went on to work for American Express. And uh so when Pickleball found me and I decided to walk away from almost 20 years of building that IT career, I know my my family thought I had lost my mind. My mother and my stepdad wanted to send me to a psychologist. And so people will always ask me that I had a vision for that. And I let people know I had no vision for it at all. Um I wasn't looking for it. All I know, uh, and it's been still, it's unit was unexplainable at the time. I better I understand it better now. Um, but I was just being pulled and what I call refer to being called to do something. And um I just did went forward. Um sure there was I was scared at times, but uh at the same time I just felt like this is what I'm supposed to go do, and and so I did. So no vision could not have told you this is where pickleball was gonna go, and that the sport was gonna explode into the phenomenon that it is on a worldwide scale. Um, I just said I'm this is I'm supposed to go uh serve in this way, and off I go, and it's been the best decision I ever made in my life, and it's been a life-changing journey, a lot of sacrifices. Um, I tell people I suffer from PTSD for a lot of different reasons. Um, but uh I would go and do it all again if I had the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Had you did you even play pickleball before you made this decision?

Discovering Early Pickleball Culture

SPEAKER_03 4:18

Yeah, um, so pickleball was introduced to me and my family in 2007. One of my relatives brought a pickleball set to Christmas because we always played games, it didn't matter, darts, some, you know, ping pong, you name it. And so I just thought pickleball was a game we played at Christmas in our driveway. So when I was transferred with my job to Phoenix, Arizona, and a girl on my tennis team mentioned something about her dad being a national pickleball champion, um, I was like, you've got to be kidding me. Uh so she told me to check it out the west side of Phoenix, um, that there was this large national tournament that ran every November. And so I went and did that very thing, and I couldn't believe what I saw. I saw all these uh active adults and seniors uh playing on real pickleball courts and having a blast. And you know, back then not many people knew what pickleball was. Um, you know, in the tournament scene, there were about 93 tournaments nationwide, uh, only about three or four of them, if you were under the age of 50, that you could play, and 80% of the players that were playing pickleball then were 60 and older. And there were two paddle manufacturers that existed at the time, so um about 15,000 tournament players, and so it wasn't uh a well-known sport. So um the way I ended up, so yes, I did play some pickleball not often, um, but my mom and my stepdad ended up relocating from Texas out to Phoenix when I called them up and said, You guys aren't gonna believe this. You gotta come out here and see what's going on. So they did and they went home and put their house up for sale after being in Texas for over 40 years. Um, so my mom was a big um part of my transformation uh and trans into pickleball, and because she did uh eventually, she was a tennis player as well. She eventually started playing pickleball, uh, got involved. I filled in for her uh pickleball partner who was gonna be on a cruise to play in a tournament with her. And so I didn't play much pickleball, but I stepped in. We did win a silver medal that day. Um yeah, but but the tournament director, Hall of Famer Mark Friedenberg, did let me know as he was presenting me the medal, right? That my mom usually wins gold.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

So it sounds like Yoda.

SPEAKER_03 6:32

Uh yeah, that was Yoda. So Yoda's certainly a good friend, and um, and and he's also a Hall of Famer complainer, which um I don't which he's is he's he's very proud of that title as well. Uh so and but because of that tournament, there was some of my mom's friends who played on Sunday asked if I would come out and play with them. Uh, and so I went with that group to play. And they're the their playing, this was May 14th, 2014, was uh Jetty Lanius, and I'd never met Jetty. I thought she had a super cool name, um, but

Buying PickleballTournaments.com

SPEAKER_03 7:06

her husband Bob had developed pickleballtournaments.com to help him run um club events and and um but then some senior games uh decided Arizona Senior Olympics, the Huntsman World Senior Games uh wanted to use it, nationals wanted to use it, and so something that Bob had built to help him was now starting to become a business, and they weren't looking to become a business, and so they uh um my brother and I came along and they asked if we'd be interested. We took a look, we evaluated the program for about three months, and then um in August of 2014 we bought pickleballtournaments.com and life literally changed forever.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Oh, yeah, I can only imagine, and I can only imagine how busy you are. So, what what were you what were some surprises when you took it over and you were managing this?

SPEAKER_03 7:55

Uh well so one of the surprises um was I I went to my job at American Express and I explained what I wanted to go do, and I could not have been prepared for this. Uh they said they would really like me to be successful. Um so they asked if I would stay on with the company in a part-time position, and I would be paid my full-time salary. Um, that was huge. Um, you know, so for three years I continued to work at American Express and I um started up this new pickleball tournaments.com. So it was a lot. Um, so so that was a pleasant surprise, right? Um the other surprise was I thought we were gonna be coming in and just um providing software uh to tournaments. But what happened was um people wanted to put on tournaments, they didn't want to run them in what I'll call pieces that you handle inside the lines. They didn't want to manage people's registrations, they didn't want to do the customer service around that, they didn't want to brack do the bracketing, they didn't want to do running the brackets and assigning the courts and creating the schedules. So now all of a sudden I found myself not only being a software business, but also being a services business, um, providing services. So now I'm going around the country myself and running tournaments for people or teaching them to run tournaments in those early days. Um, I was doing that for free because I was really just determined to build brand reputation and um really had a desire just to you know help them be successful.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Wow. I so when you did the services part, that must have expanded. Now you have a team, or how because this is all over the country, how are you managing all the different events?

SPEAKER_03 9:35

Yeah, so the the first, so initially, you know, it's just my brother and I. I remember I was on the phone, there was uh a lady by the name of Kelly Jen, because I lived in Arizona at this time, and she was out in North Carolina. I'd met her once, and I was telling her, hey, I'm sitting out here in my motorhome. I then I rented my home, I got a motor tomb, I'm living in it full time. I was in the parking lot at a Surprise, Arizona, getting ready to run the uh USA Pickleball Regional Tournament, and the US Open was opening its first registration ever. And so I called up a couple of my friends, I said, Hey, can you help me out run this regional tournament? I'm gonna sit out here in my RV, I'll be available, and I'm gonna open up the registration for US Open. And Kelly called me and and I'm telling her everything that's going on, and she's like, Could you use any help? And I'm like, because I I was, you know, I was so protective of the brand. And I mean, I literally when I tell people I work 20 hours a day, seven days a week for like the and that went on for like three years solid, I'm not lying about that. Um and so I said, you know, Kelly, I said, I think I do. So she came on board to help me, and and so she was doing a lot of my back office stuff, she was helping me run some tournaments, and then Dee Ann Davison um came on to uh help help me as well. And Dee was in and out for a couple of years, but she eventually came on full-time, and I had her lead starting up what I'll call the pickleballtournaments.com uh pro team. So PT Pro Team is what we called it. And Dee led that, and we ended up having 20 to 25 individual contractors that were uh supporting us that were we were then able to um you know hire out to tournaments to help run events.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

Wow. How big is that it?

SPEAKER_03 11:17

Well, so that was with pickleballtournaments.com. Um, so when so in 2018, so I'm gonna step back a little bit in the timeline. In 2018, we were growing so big uh and we could just we really weren't uh we were doing our best to just you know keep up with the demand and the technology. And uh so I was being um pursued by many investors and and different people wanting to buy pickleballtournaments.com or partner. And um, I had a real uh desire to make sure that I represented what Bob and Jetty had built

Software Turns Into Full Service

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in a way that would make them proud and carry their legacy forward in a thoughtful way. So I just wasn't willing to sell to anybody. Uh there were people really wanting to buy it that had the means because back then it was hard to get into a tournament. You know, I mean everybody got on at midnight and was trying to get registered, and so team wait lists became a thing, right? There were people that just never could get off the wait list, and um so uh anyhow, the um I don't even remember knowing now where I was going with that thought. That's a senior moment.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

We love our senior moments.

SPEAKER_03 12:27

Oh my gosh. This is a huge senior moment, so I'm not even sure I can get back on the track with it. But um anyhow, oh, I was stepping back in time. And so we were growing so fast, and then Pickleball Central, um, they had approached me and they had been trying to help us be successful by exposing our brand to other tournament directors. So if someone signed up with us, then they would send them a tournament director kit, and in that kit would be things that they could access for free that would give um benefit to their players. And so, anyhow, I was getting ready to leave the 2017 National Tournament in Casa Grande, and I went by to say bye to Anna Copley, who uh was one of the founders with her husband David of Pickball Central, and Anna asked if I happened to have a moment to talk to their CEO about a partnership or maybe acquisition. I said, okay, sure. I absolutely so I did that, was in November in December of 2017, in November, I flew up to Seattle, um, did a whole presentation to Pickleball Central, they did a presentation to us, and then uh in February they acquired the um majority ownership of pickleballtournaments.com, and I stayed on uh to continue to run the company. And uh so, and then in 2021, at the end of 2021, um, well, before I say that, that allowed us to continue to invest resources people into pickleballtournaments.com, and then that's when the PT services team really came together as well. And then we, you know, we I had taken on a lot of uh big brands before then. I had taken on uh the US Open, for example. I started consulting with them in 2015, ran that event for um nine years, commentating for them for seven years, and then Pickleball, uh, when Pickleball Central piece came along, then we launched other big brands, the APP, the PPA. I mean, we were, you know, we had been building, I call it, we had been planting the seeds for others to be able to harvest in the future. And had we not been doing what we were doing, it would have been very difficult for those pro tours to come along. Uh, and so in 2021, um, then Pigball Central and Pickwall Tournaments were both acquired by Tom Dundon, you know, out of uh with Dundon Capital Planning. And um and then some of it like Edward Hector, who was the CEO of Pickleball Central, he had uh retired, David Johnson, he retired, and then I stayed on uh another couple of years um uh continuing running. We brought on pickleball brackets, we tried we basically sunset pickleballtournaments.com, made that transition, and then I retired for a full three months.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

So that's what what I use now, pickleball.com.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

That's how that evolved all evolved to pickleball.com. Right, yeah, yeah. So pickleballtournaments.com is uh a part of the pickleball.com ecosystem. That is correct. Okay, wow.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

Yeah. So you were retired for three months and then uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

So Ken Herman, uh who founded the APP tour, um, he was a customer customer of mine for many years. And so when I announced my retirement, I mean, people came out of the woodwork. Um, you can only imagine. And I just said said, you know, I have to take a break. I mean, I have been all consumed in a way people may not ever be able to understand for a full decade. And so I don't know. I said, I just need to take a step back. Well, Ken stayed a touch. He just really wasn't gonna take no for an answer. And um, you know, ultimately I really had a you know um a connection to his vision, the passion uh within their company, and I felt, you know what, I I still have something left to give, and so I will come on to the APP and and work with Ken and uh his uh amazing team of folks uh that came from InnerSport, who's now part of the APP, and um and yeah, so I've been there now two and a half years. Wow. And are you still working?

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Sorry, Shell, I just have to know do you are you still working 20 hours a day?

SPEAKER_03 16:29

No,

Pickleball Central Partnership And Growth

SPEAKER_03 16:30

so I'm glad you asked the question because one of the things I said to to Ken is I said, I will agree to do this, but that under these conditions, uh, I'm not going to move and I'm not gonna be all consumed again. And so certainly there's moments of all being consumed, um, but it's no longer 20 hours a day, seven hours, seven days a week. Goodness.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Yeah. I was curious what excited you the most about this new venture? You said you guys were uh in alignment.

SPEAKER_03 16:56

Just oh, um, yeah, just kind of the the when I say in alignment, it's like uh a real passion for um growing the sport through all different um, I guess, uh all different um demographics. So so from the juniors in the youth to the professionals to the adults to the seniors to the masters, you know, um really being able to service that wide uh you know community was um you know something that uh I that matched with the things that I really enjoyed. And um I knew at one point I would venture off, you know, because everything was amateur pickleball when I started at some point there would be this venture, you know, amateur or pro. And so naturally, because of what I had built and the foundation, I was pulled into the pro side of the game. And um, you know, so I did that for a number of years, and now this was an opportunity for me to kind of go from grassroots and um, you know, come back and kind of build a pathway um to professional play and be a part of that, and I just was really bought into that vision.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

In 2025, you deservedly were inducted into the Pickleball Hall of Fame. So, what did that recognition mean to you given all of the background work you had been doing, all the behind the scenes?

SPEAKER_03 18:19

Yeah, I think it for me, I just really felt um extremely blessed and overflowed with joy that you know what I had spent um what felt like a lifetime uh building was being recognized at that level. Um, because there's a a lot of people that make what I'll call Hall of Fame contributions who may never receive Hall of Fame um recognition. And so I just uh get overwhelmed by it sometimes. Sometimes it feels surreal as well. Um, and uh but um just grateful and full of gratitude and and certainly honored to be there's 36 of us in the Hall of Fame currently, and extremely honored to be part of a group of pioneers that have uh been so important to the history and to building and paving the path for where the sport is today. Um, and certainly I'm excited for the things I can still contribute. I am the vice president as well of the Pickleball Hall of Fame, and so having the opportunity to continue to you know lay uh foundations and pave the path for uh future Hall of Famers is something that I call it being a bridge, you know, from one place to another. When I was in corporate America, I was a bridge to millennials and you know, baby boomers, and uh being in the middle there, and so I kind of feel this the same way, bridging history with future and uh continuing to grow and build the game that way.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Beautiful. Yeah, what an honor. And I'm curious, what did it feel like to be the first woman announcer of pickleball on CBS Sports?

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Yeah, that's yeah, no, that was super cool. Uh, you know, I I was uh thinking about this the other day. It's like myself, Dave Weinbach, and Stephanie Lane were like the first commentators of any kind for pickleball, and is when Facebook just went on with Facebook Live. And we used to take our phones at major events and we would just put the phones up at the championship court and we would just commentate, right? And so um the so when I just remember it was a US Open, Chris and Terry, so Chris, Yvonne and Terry Graham were the founders of US Open. Um, they just said in year two, they're like, hey Melissa, they're like, uh do you know who would be good at commentating the US Open on Wagyu, you know? And they're like, you. Okay. And they felt that way because at the time I knew so many of the professional players. Um, you know, I own pickleball tournaments.com, so there was a lot of data that I had access to that I could provide insights that you know other people just didn't have the opportunity to do that, and it culminated on this big stage. So um one of the biggest compliments that, and I'll I'll can sum up the commentating piece this way. I one day I thought I wanted to be Katie Courick at one point, so on the today, you know, take her place on the today show. So this was a way for me to kind of scratch um that dream that never came true. Not yet.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

You just go.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

Uh so when that opportunity came along, I was super excited. But um, to sum that piece up, um, I got a huge compliment. I don't know if you guys know Mary Carillo or not. Um and so I sh I've never met Mary, but we have a mutual friend, and um, that mutual friend told me that Mary had been watching the US Open, I think it was my last year, to commentate, and she had told uh this friend of mine that she said she's the best commentator I've ever heard. She says she's just a natural. And so um, you know, I certainly had to learn over time. Uh, and you know, if I go back and listen to some of the things that I've been a part of, I'm like, uh, I I guess uh like, you know. Why I'd still have a little bit to work. To me, that was the highest compliment. Um, you know, we're always our biggest critics, and um, I had so much fun with it, and you know, another uh part of my journey that uh I'm forever grateful for.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

So if you had time in your busy world, would you do more of it?

SPEAKER_03 22:20

Uh oh, the commentating?

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:22

You know, uh I I don't I don't think so. It was fun while it lasted. Yeah, it was fun. I had other opportunities, um, but I just wanted to do the one event a year. I mean, commentating is no joke. So for the people that are doing that now, um, like you know, Dave Fleming, for example, uh, I mean,

Transition To Pickleball.com Ecosystem

SPEAKER_03 22:40

he's on all the time, he's having to travel everywhere, Chad Edwards, Dominique Catalan, they're on air for a long time, and the mental um um conditioning and strain of that is significant. So um I had the opportunity to take that path as a career as well, um, you know, and I just I I chose that I was like, I I chose not to do it, but I enjoyed the opportunities that I had when I did it.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

So cool. So you have a Navy and emergency leadership background. Have any of those experiences influenced how you went about all your work with pickleball?

SPEAKER_03 23:18

Uh probably only in the sense that uh you know, pickleball are just brackets. Um, you know, my Navy experience uh was when when things uh were not working from a communications perspective, people's lives could actually be on the line. Um, and then when I was at American Express, if um there were communication issues, I mean the company was losing a million dollars a minute. I mean, that's serious pressure. Um, so I would say that all of those um years that I lived under pressure um allowed me to um, I don't know, work through problems and and and and uh stay calm and really be able to see through to solutions as opposed to being part of the chaos. And uh and so I really think um you know some of those things helped me from an operational perspective of executing events, but certainly my background coming up when I was on the corporate track of I had a business coach, you know, I had an executive coach, I had an image coach, I mean, um, you know, I worked in sales, I worked in delivery, I worked in operations, and so all of those uh things really helped um position me and ready me uh to become an entrepreneur and own a business of my own.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Jeez. I just can't, I mean, uh we didn't even cover, we just covered a just a thumbnail of your life and what you've done. But in all of these experiences that you've had, what are some life lessons you might share with us?

SPEAKER_03 24:52

Um don't I well one of the things don't don't be too hard on yourself, you know, just always take forward progress, keep moving. Um, you know, sometimes it feels like uh the pressure can be too much, but as Billy Jean King says, pressure is a privilege, right? And pressure is usually what we feel when we don't know what's going on. And and probably the biggest advice, and my um people around me have heard me say this a lot put yourself in uncomfortable positions because if you're not uncomfortable,

Joining The APP Without Burnout

SPEAKER_03 25:20

you're not growing. And if the you know other side of uncomfortable is where the magic really happens. And if you uh are not a if you are afraid of being judged, if you're afraid of making mistakes, if you don't have the courage to put yourself out there to experience failure, to ever get to picking yourself up so that you can see success, then you're going to limit yourself in your own life. So no matter how uncomfortable it feels, um put yourself out there anyway and challenge yourself to continue to go forward even through the failures because you have to go through them to ever experience success.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

That's beautiful. Wow, that one needs to go on a t-shirt.

SPEAKER_03 26:07

There's your merch. There's your merch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I used to tell people hope's not a strategy either. Um, you know, and so yeah, and you know, I also had um another, you know, lesson is to for me is like, and I maybe I get this from you know, the pickleball journeys uh allowed me the um privilege of being around a lot of seniors, you know, 20, 25 years older than me. And and I learned a lot from them and I've taken their advice to heart. And some people can't take advice to heart unless they have the experience themselves. So, you know, if you can take somebody else's experience and wisdom and actually apply that to your own life, then there's uh a lot less opportunity for regret. And so, you know, I also had the opportunity to be on this journey with my mom. I mentioned she's the one who uh really got me the pickleball connection, if you will. Uh, and she was right along with me for the entire journey.

Breaking Barriers In Broadcasting

SPEAKER_03 27:00

She worked just as hard. Um, she did my introduction to the Pickleball Hall of Fame, which was super special to me. But I mean, she was she did check-in, she did every job. I mean, she traveled all over the country with me, and um, so you know, I would just say if whatever opportunity that you get to spend with the people that you love, um uh take them, you know, because uh you never know when you won't have those opportunities again.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Wow. Yeah, good reminder too. Oh, especially with Mother's Day coming up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll have a good time.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

So, where can people find you and follow you?

SPEAKER_03 27:40

Oh, geez, I guess. This is I know the the young kids are gonna be like, Melissa, we don't go on Facebook, that's for old people. But uh, you know, certainly I have my personal page on Facebook. I also have an Instagram page, and um what is my Instagram? Hold on, I'm gonna tell you real quick. I have to look. Uh but uh Instagram, because that's where the cool kids go. I don't have TikTok yet, so I I can't help you with that. Uh all right, I'm at paddle up underscore pickleball.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Paddle up underscore pickleball. That's cute. Oh my gosh. You have uh we are so indebted to you, Shelly and I, and all of us who love this game, we are so indebted to you for how you have made this day of pickleball so possible, and that we can watch other players and learn from them because of everything that you've done to make tournaments happen and all the other work that you've done. Really just great gratitude. Thank you. Yes, thank you. And thanks for being on our show.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

Yeah, this is fun. You ladies, you guys are good at this. I know.

unknown 28:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

I mean, it's my I mean the I don't know. We've been on the this call for what uh 38 minutes or so, and it feels like like eight minutes. I mean, it's been so much fun.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Our audience is gonna feel the same way because man, you are chock a block full of great experiences

Life Lessons And How To Connect

SPEAKER_02 29:05

and wisdom. Yeah, gal. Senior wisdom. There it is. So thank you, and thank you all for tuning in and share this episode. Oh my gosh, chocolate full, and reach out to Melissa and tell her thanks. Because she's one who has made this day possible in Pickleball. Thank you all, and we look forward to a new conversation next time. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Bye-bye. 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_02 29:44

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