Pickleball is big in Jefferson County, said Jim Berger, who has spent the past decade promoting the sport.
Berger, 78, of Crystal City got interested in pickleball in 2014 and began advocating for the city of Festus to convert an old recreational site for people to play the game the following year.
That spring, Festus officials agreed to allow pickleball players to turn a Jokerst Memorial Park facility that originally was built as tennis courts and later was used as a skateboard area into pickleball courts, and the game started to take off in Jefferson County, said Berger, who was an official USA Pickleball Association ambassador in the Midwest for 11 years, promoting the game in that position until earlier this year, when he stepped down, tired of the travel involved.
Since 2015, the sport has continued to grow in the county, as well as around the rest of the U.S., he said.
“We started playing pickleball in 2014 at the YMCA in Festus with about four players,” Berger said. “That number jumped to 60 in about six months.”
He said the pickleball players needed more courts and someone suggested they try to create what they needed at the idle tennis courts-skateboard facility at Jokerst Park that runs along south Mill Street.
Those were the first public pickleball courts in Missouri, Berger said.
“I had played pickleball in Indiana at an old court they fixed up,” he said. “I knew they could do it at the Jokerst skateboard area. We went to the Festus City Council in May of 2015.
“Larry Crites (the Festus parks director at the time) was there. He saw the possibility. He said he didn’t have money in the budget, but we could have the courts. The next day we (pickleball playing volunteers) were patching the cracks. We had it playable by June 15 (that year).”
He said the patchwork courts drew the public’s attention right away.
“People immediately started playing pickleball there,” Berger said. “It had six courts.”
Over the past decade, the city of Festus has completed improvements to the Jokerst courts, and city officials named the facility after Berger and his wife, Michelle, 77, also a supporter of the game. A plaque was commissioned and hung on the facility’s fence calling it “Jim and Michelle Berger Pickleball Courts at Jokerst Park.”
Later, Festus City Council members authorized the complete renovation of the Jokerst Park pickleball facility, to the tune of $526,800, and the new facility opened in June 2024.
The facility now offers eight courts and has new, better lighting and parking, along with some other improvements.
“These are state-of-the-art pickleball courts,” Berger said. “You can’t make them better than this as far as outside courts. And, they’re free to play.”
Strong winds on March 14 damaged a portion of the facility’s new fencing but did not harm the new courts, he said.
Berger noted that people may play pickleball at several other sites around the county, including the previously mentioned Jefferson County YMCA in Festus, as well as the Arnold Recreation Center. Those both offer inside courts.
In addition to the ones at Jokerst Park, other outdoor pickleball courts can be found at the High Ridge Civic Center and in Melkus Park in De Soto.
In addition, various groups offer pickleball on portable courts at senior centers and other locations, he said.
Jim Berger of Crystal City, left, and fellow pickleball enthusiast Brian Bass of Festus with framed newspaper clippings of previous pickleball stories, which Berger uses when promoting the game.
Brian Bass, 67, of Festus, one of Berger’s friends and a fellow pickleball lover, said the Jokerst Park courts get almost continual use, except for during bad weather.
“They’ll play from 7 a.m. to noon on warm days, then at night,” Bass said. “They’ll be here the first warm day of the year. Sometimes they’ll play all day and into the night.”
Berger noted that the Jokerst courts attract people from far away.
“There are groups that come from Ste. Genevieve, Cape Girardeau, Jackson, even Carbondale,” he said. “They’ll come for the competition.”
Just for tournament play alone, the courts drew people from 28 states last year, he said.
“It had 25,000 visits in 2024 (based on tournaments),” he said. “I expect there to be 30,000 this year.”
Berger, who previously served on the Crystal City parks board, also helped with the effort to create a place to play pickleball at the tennis courts in Crystal City.
One day in early March, Berger and some of his pickleball friends gathered at the Jokerst Park courts, and other people were there playing.
Players said that while the Jokerst courts are a draw, they enjoy the game itself and the people who play it.
“I think pickleball is still popular because anybody can play and it’s a nice group of people,” said Daisy Shepard of Desloge, adding that she is 80-plus years old.
On that early March day, she was playing against Hatti Walter of House Springs, who said the sport is popular because people of virtually all physical abilities can play it.
“It’s great for everyone,” Walter said.
Tim Werner, 68, of Barnhart and Mike Lawhorn, 76, of Festus played against each other on another court at the facility that day and talked about why they like pickleball.
“I think the social aspect of it, meeting people,” Werner said. “I moved back to this area after 25 years. It helps you make friends.”
Lawhorn said pickleball is not as taxing a game as some others.
“I think it allows all the age groups to play,” he said.
Tony Hoang, 51, of Crystal City honed his pickleball game at the Jokerst Park courts and has become a top player, getting drafted in 2024 into the professional National Pickleball League.
Berger said players must try out for the league each season, and Hoang plans to try out again for the upcoming season.
Berger said he believes pickleball will have more staying power than the game of racquetball, which had its heyday in the late 1970s and 1980s.
“I was a racquetball player, but that could be expensive” because people generally needed to join clubs to play the sport, he said. “With pickleball, there are so many unused tennis courts where you can play pickleball. It’s not as expensive as racquetball to play.”
While many credit Berger with sparking interest in the game in Jefferson County, he likes to point to Crites, for whom Larry G. Crites Memorial Park (formerly West City Park) was named after he died suddenly in 2020.
“If it wasn’t for Larry, (the pickleball boom in the county) would not have come about,” Berger said.
He said the Jefferson County Pickleball League is sponsoring free pickleball lessons and clinics from 6-8 p.m. on Tuesdays this month at the Jokerst Park courts, with all equipment provided. Upcoming sessions are set for April 15, 22 and 29. Reservations are required and may be made by calling 314-541-4152.
Berger, continuing his quest to promote pickleball, is helping to organize the Twin City Firecracker Festival Larry Crites Memorial Pickleball Tournament coming June 25-29 to Jokerst Park.
In addition, the Spring in Pickleball Round Robin tournament will be held this weekend, April 11-13, at Jokerst Park and will feature top players from far and wide. The tournament starts at 8 a.m. each day and continues until play finishes in the afternoon, Berger said.
Registration is closed, but spectators are welcome to attend for free.
For more information, visit pickleballtournaments.com.