Feb. 2025 | Vol. 35 Iss. 2
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MURRAY PICKLEBALL PLAYER INVENTS TRAINING BALL AND SEES NATIONWIDE SUCCESS By Bailey Chism | bailey.c@thecityjournals.com
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tah has been named the top pickleball state and for good reason. It’s a sport that anyone can get into no matter their age, strength or skills. Sixty-seven-year-old Ed Beazer took up the sport as it began to sweep over the state and fell in love with it. “You know, I was kind of good at it, and I kept getting better,” Beazer said. “It’s easy to learn. It doesn’t take a lot of equipment. You don’t have to be super strong, you can be older. It just attracts such a large segment of the population.” As he started getting better, he wanted to learn more, so he hired a training coach and they started meeting once a week. After a year of training sessions, his coach, Jake Ralphs, pulled out a little rubber ball and said they’re practicing with it that day. After using the rubber ball and transitioning back to a regular pickleball, Beazer immediately noticed a difference. He felt like he was hitting the ball better, Ralphs noticed he was hitting the ball better. Beazer said the rubber ball was something you have to focus on more, because it’s smaller than a regular pickleball. So, after focusing on the little rubber ball, a pickleball feels much bigger and it’s easier to hit it.
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“Since we saw that immediate improvement, we made it part of our weekly routine,” Beazer said. Every week, they’d start practicing with the rubber ball and then go into drills with a regular ball. “I call it this ‘wow moment,’” Beazer said. “It’s easy to hit and it just made everything so much more fun.” Beazer comes from a business background and he said a lightbulb went off in his head. He asked Ralphs if there’s anything like the rubber ball made specifically for training purposes. So, they did some research. After searching and talking to a patent attorney, they couldn’t find anything like it that’s been made. So, Beazer and Ralphs jumped in with both feet and decided that if it didn’t exist, they were going to make it. But that didn’t come without challenges of its own. “It took over a year of prototypes coming to us,” Beazer said. They were working with a company in California to help design, build and create the product. They kept sending Beazer prototypes, but they weren’t quite right. He said they’d Jake Ralphs, Ed Beazer’s business partner, demonstrates the Bzer Ball at Murray Park. Continued page 5 (Photo courtesy of Ed Beazer)
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