By The Herald Editorial Board
Sometimes we need a reminder that just because something is fun, that doesn’t make it less important or less necessary than the serious, even controversial issues in our lives.
“Sometime we need to do things that are just fun,” said state Sen. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek, recently during a hearing of the state Senate’s government committee.
Lovick, the 44th District senator, who recently joined the chamber after a move from the House, was introducing his first piece of legislation there; naming pickleball the official sport of Washington state.
The legislation, Senate Bill 5615, joins a House bill, each seeking to add to the list of official state designations, such as the coast rhododendron (flower), Pacific chorus frog (amphibian), Olympic marmot (endemic animal) and “Roll on, Columbia” (folk song). House Bill 1067 hopes to add the name Suciasaurus rex as the state’s official dinosaur.
That bit of fun is necessary, Lovick noted, especially during a short 60-day session, further compressed by the limitations forced on lawmakers by pandemic precautions.
Such designations are rarely controversial, the exception being the campaign to name “Louie, Louie,” the state’s official rock song. But, all the same, why spend the time and effort of state lawmakers and their staffs on a recreational activity and a hunk of fossilized femur bone?
Because the fun inspires important issues that are found beneath the surface.
“We need some fun things happening in this state and country. This is one of those fun things,” Lovick, who has taken up pickleball himself, told The Herald, last month.
Played on a court a little smaller than a tennis court, pickleball uses paddles and a hollow plastic ball. The sport originated more than 50 years ago on Bainbridge Island at the home of Joel Pritchard, a former state and federal lawmaker and state lieutenant governor, who invented the game with friends after tiring of hearing their kids’ complaints of boredom.
From those simple beginnings, Lovick said in introducing his bill, pickleball has grown to be played across the world. A pickleball player from Kent wrote Lovick to predict that Washington state “would someday be known as the birthplace of Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks and pickleball.”
Katy Van Gent, a Mill Creek resident who introduced Lovick to the sport, told the committee pickleball already is well on its way to that popularity. The sport, she said, is played by more than 5 million people worldwide, with 68 member countries in the International Federation of Pickleball.
“Think of that; a sport created in a backyard on Bainbridge Island now has an international federation with members devoted to seeing it becomes an Olympic sport,” Van Gent said.
Naming pickleball as the state sport, said Dennis Poppe, an Issaquah resident who serves on the board of the U.S. Senior Pickleball Association, spoke to the game’s attraction as inclusive, affordable and multi-generational, adding that it’s helped him increase his level of activity, lose weight and gain hundreds of friends.
The designation could also have significant economic benefit for the state, Poppe said. Some 700 tournaments were held in the United States in 2021, and the Pacific Northwest regional championship, involving 900 players, is scheduled for Spokane this July, and is expected to bring about $500,000 in business to that city.
Already enjoyed by 4 million in the United States, pickleball is rivaling other sports in participation. While there are 17 million active tennis players in the U.S., the sport’s recent growth tracks to exceed tennis by 2030, he said.
And Washington’s connection to the sport, Poppe said, already is well understood by players, as Poppe learned during an exchange with players at a national indoor championship in Birmingham, Ala. “While warming up for my first match, we asked our opponents, who were from Florida, along with our Alabama-based referee, ‘OK, who serves first?’ They answered without hesitation, ‘The side closest to Bainbridge Island, of course.’”
The bill has advanced to the Senate floor for a vote.
The arguments for naming a state dinosaur turn on issues no less important, including children’s education in science and in civics.
A fourth-grade glass in Parkland, near Tacoma, led by Elmhurst Elementary teacher Amy Cole, was studying the workings of state government, using the example of Kent students who had proposed naming a state insect. Researching the list of state symbols, the students found no official state dinosaur and began a search, which led them to Suciasaurus rex.
There were no other candidates because, to date, no other dinosaur fossil has been found in Washington state. All that scientists with Seattle’s Burke Museum had found on Sucia Island is a hunk of fossilized bone, about 17 inches by 8 inches, from a 4-foot-long femur of a two-legged 80-million-year-old theropod. The relatively small portion of fossil means that scientists have yet to determine its genus and species, so Suciasaurus rex remains a nickname rather than an official dinosaur name.
But naming S. rex as the state’s dinosaur is about more than what’s known about it, said state Rep. Melanie Morgan, D-Tacoma, who was contacted two years ago by Cole’s students, asking for her help. Morgan returned last year with a packet for each student that included the proposed bill.
“The students were so amazed that their work had been turned into a bill,” Morgan said at a recent hearing before the House state government committee.
Last year, the legislation passed the House with 91 yeas, but did not move forward in the Senate. The bill has returned and is up a floor vote in the House.
More than what students might learn about S. rex and other dinosaurs, Morgan said, “this is about our recognition and appreciation for the hard work, preparation, creativity and drive of these students.”
Whether the subject is pickleball or dinosaurs, interest in something fun can lead to much more.
“Showing our young people that government is here for them is never a low priority,” Morgan said.
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