Gary Haas

I lost my wife right before the pandemic. The next year was a particularly isolated period for me and I didn’t really have much contact with other human beings. A little later, I saw a YouTube video of people playing Pickleball. I thought ‘you know, I think I can play that game!’.

So I looked into it, and I knew somebody who played Pickleball. He took me out for one instruction session to show me the ropes and I still thought I’d enjoy playing. I called Rye Rec in April 2021 and they told me that they did have Pickleball classes starting and that they were run by the Y.

I signed up for a class and it was really a terrific experience because it was played by a bunch of people (none of whom I knew), it was outside (no Covid worries), and it had a terrific instructor—Tatum, who was great at making everybody feel like they belonged in the class, whether you’re just a first beginner or intermediate. In the winter, I signed up for the classes that were held in the Y gym and those were enjoyable too.

This past summer, I joined the league on the Y team. It was a very humbling experience. We played all these country club experienced tennis players who had taken up Pickleball. I think we won one match the whole season! But it was still fun.

The best thing about the whole thing was that I met a lot of people that I wouldn’t have met and I’ve actually become really close friends with some of them. And it’s the Y program that made that possible. I’m very happy that I was able to find that.