How to Start an Idaho Youth Pickleball Club
Who Can Play
We have been working with The Picklr in Utah to create a unified Minor League Pickleball (MiLP) youth league that sets kids on the pathway to compete at the collegiate level. Our rules of play and matches will allow for as much player experience as possible with a culminating regional event in November and multi-state tournament at the Kaysville Picklr in Utah. The regional and multi-state events will be sanctioned MiLP events.
We are following the Utah participation model where teams can be defined as encompassing several school districts, a single district, or a single school as coaches decide. Students from the 7th to 12th grade can participate.
Getting School Approval
- Identify a student who would work with school administrators to complete an application to be a club. Included in this application would be a request for an advisor. This could be any teacher or administrator.
- The paperwork may need to be submitted to school administrators and accepted at school board meetings.
School Participation
Most schools do not have pickleball equipment, courts, or lifetime sports classes that cover pickleball. Students will need to organize outside school to play. Spitfire Pickleball can accommodate all Idaho Falls teams. Rigby practices at RTAP and we hope to utilize the fieldhouse in Rexburg.
Schools may offer avenues for to advertise and recruit students to play. Hanging posters at school, submitting photos to the yearbook, and participating in fundraising tailgates and parades are great ways to spread the word!
Parent Volunteers
We found two main parent volunteer roles:
- Club Parent: Communication (managing social media), scheduling, equipment management, and hosting practices and open gyms. Collected and paid all club fees.
- Club Assistants/Coaches (2): Helped set up drills and games for students during practices. May be a paid position.
Clubs will likely need to be financially independent. All fees are collected and managed by parent volunteers. We recommend a $175 participation fee with a team t-shirt included in that fee that is collected at the start of the season.
Practices
Pickleball is fun and kids love to play. Having a coach to teach more games like speed or net and wall like games will be helpful. Kids only liked to drill for max 30 minutes and then were most interested in ladder play and games. After a few practices we could identify the beginner to intermediate players and the students tired of not playing students at their level of play. We encourage clubs to focus on recruiting and maintaining female players.
Merch
We have a standard Pickleball league logo that other schools can use for their uniforms. A small order for shirts/hoodies was $15 per shirt and $25 per hoodie.
Matches
Matches will be on Thursday's from 6pm to 8pm. Clubs will pay $20 for each team that plays in the match directly to Spitfire. We are hoping each match will have 4 advanced (3.5+), 4 intermediate (3.0-3.5), and 2 beginner (2.5+) teams play. Coaches will submit there teams on Wednesday night by 8pm and the match ups will be posted by Thursday at 9am. There are 5 courts and each court will be scheduled as follows:
5:45 Warm Up
6:00 Women’s Doubles
6:15 Men’s Doubles
6:30 Mixed Doubles One
6:45 Mixed Doubles Two
7:00 ReMix Doubles One (partnerships do not change)
7:15 ReMix Doubles Two (partnerships do not change)
7:30 DreamBreaker Shoot out if 3-3 game tie
DreamBreaker Exhibition if time allows
Each game will be rally scoring played to 15, win by 2. Right side serves on the even, left side serves on the odd. Time out and end change after the first team reaches 8, players can then switch positions. First team freezes at 14 and then can only score on the serve. Second team freezes at 13 and then can only score on the serve. Dreambreakers will be played 3 points at a time with the first team to 15 as the winner. Teams could be scheduled as home or away with the visiting team presenting their players first and the home team responding. You will see the match schedules update on our website HERE.
Season
Our season calendar has been published and you can find it HERE.
We encourage all players to pursue other singles/doubles play as it will improve their game outside of the school-based MiLP format. Our clubs will not facilitate those opportunities and we wish our players the best. If any schools or parents have any additional questions or need help I would love nothing more than to have more opportunities for our kids to play.
Insurance
We ask all coaches and students that play outside the Spitfire Pickleball Facility to register with our club for insurance with the AAU. The Idaho Youth Pickleball League's organization number is RSA737F4.
Summer Elrod
208-206-4854
rigbypickleball@gmail.com
