Pickleball player paddles her way to all 50 states
Sep 16, 2024 02:37PM ● By Jet Burnham
Lorraine Rupper’s map shows the people she played pickleball with in all 50 states in the last 5 years. (Photo courtesy Lorraine Rupper.)
Lorraine Rupper played pickleball in 33 states in just 19 days this summer to finally complete her goal to play a game of pickleball in all 50 states. The 59-year-old endured bad traffic and parking challenges, heavy rain and flooded roads, excessive heat and closed courts, and long drives and fast food, but said the biggest challenge was finding people to play with.
“I definitely wanted to quit a few times when I couldn't find people to play with,” she said. “I had to wait and wait and wait or decide if I should go to another part of the town or go to another town in the same state to play. In Vermont, I definitely wanted to quit! If home had been an hour away, I would have quit. But being 2,000+ miles away from home, I had to make it work.”
After trying a few pickleball courts in one Vermont town and not finding a game, she drove to another town. When she finally found a group of players there, they had just finished three hours of playing and didn’t want to play one more. She tried at other courts, until eventually, she caught a break while waiting around the high school courts.
“All of a sudden, I saw someone bringing out a pickleball net,” she said. “So I went over there to help put up the net and they're like, ‘Are you Karen?’ I'm like, ‘No, but I can be.’”
Lorraine Rupper documents a pickleball game played in Kansas City, Kansas. (Photo courtesy Lorraine Rupper.)
Rupper ended up playing with Karen and her group and finally checked Vermont off her list.
Sometimes she was just so happy to finally find someone to play with, she would give away a pair of custom-made earrings from her Etsy shop, Pickleball Love as a thank-you.
When she had difficulty finding someone to play with in West Virginia, she drove another 60 miles to try her luck at another court.
“I felt like a stalker, waiting for people to show up, and nobody's showing up, and nobody's showing up,” she said.
Finally, she approached a group of people in the park, but they’d never played pickleball before. However, when she told them about her goal, one of them agreed to play with her.
After a quick tutorial, they played a game and snapped a selfie together. Rupper was so grateful, she gifted the man with pickleball paddles and also earrings for his wife (who’d run his errands so he could stay and play.)
Pickleball players are rated by skill level 1.0–5.0. The most welcoming players, Rupper said, were beginner or intermediate level.
“Most of the great 4.0 or 5.0 players, they keep to themselves, and they don't let a stranger off the street come and play with them,” she said. “You want to get your game better, and so to do that, you want to play with people who are your level or higher, if you can.”
Rupper is an advanced player with a 5.0 rating, but she didn’t always tell people that at first.
“I don't go, ‘Hey, I'm almost pro, people, you want me on your team!’” she said. “Once in a while, I’d say, ‘Hey, you know, I don't suck’ and sometimes they look at you skeptically, because this was all pretty random.”

South Fargo, North Dakota Lorraine Rupper has played pickleball in all 50 states in the last 5 years. (Photo courtesy Lorraine Rupper.)
In Providence, Rhode Island, one of a group of four volunteered to sit out a game to let her play, even though the others were reluctant to let her join in.
“One of the guys looked at me with this look ‘Really, you're gonna barge in here?’” she said. “I played, and then the guy says, ‘You can be my partner next time, okay?’ He was really happy, because I didn't suck, and I was good.”
Most of the time, Rupper could convince people to let her join a game, but in Maine she was rudely turned away from a pickleball club during the hottest part of the day, and when she finally found two people to play with at an outdoor court, they refused to have their picture taken with her, which is how she was documenting her goal.
“Maine is a disappointment,” she said. “The pickleball community is, in general, very welcoming and wonderful. That was not the case in Maine. I felt like I was riff-raff or something. I just felt like dirt, the way I was treated.”
In contrast, the players in Alabama and Louisiana were the friendliest; they invited her to lunch after their game.
When she isn’t playing pickleball, Rupper is a counselor at West Hills Middle School, where she encourages students and staff members to play pickleball to improve their physical and mental health.
“When you're feeling down or it's been a rough day, I think anybody can go out and play pickleball and feel better, because exercise is one of the things that helps your body and helps your mind,” she said. “It can take your mind off your troubles, because you're out there, you're just on the court, you're hitting a ball back and forth, and you're having fun, you're moving, you're getting your steps and so I think that can help a lot.”
The map documenting her 50 games of pickleball is displayed on Rupper’s office wall, where she hopes it inspires her students.
“This could be a way for students to see that lofty goals can be reached with lots of grit," she said.