Senior Staso starts Costa’s first pickleball club

Emma Gonosey

Executive Sports Editor

Senior Staso starts Costa’s first pickleball club

Costa senior Nathan Staso recently started his own pickleball club, which meets biweekly on Costa’s new pickleball court that Staso helped to develop.

Although the club just started recently, Staso is not a new pickleball player. He has been playing on his own for several years both in local leagues and some tournaments.

“I’ve been playing pickleball for around three years now,” Staso said. “I play locally at the Manhattan Country Club or in Santa Monica.” 

“I finished making this court in early November, and I had to get a lot of approval to actually use the court,” Satso said. “We needed to have a teacher to watch us, and it was tough when we had to wear masks too.”

During the later parts of last summer and fall, Staso worked alongside a contractor in order to get the new court up and running. According to Staso, finishing up the court took longer than he initially expected.

“I wanted to get the court done in the summer, and it was a tough process,” Staso said. “I had to find a contractor who helped me paint it. He was super busy and only had two weekends available, so the process got pushed back a lot. Then, we finally finished it early in November.”

Since the club started in late 2021, it has become more popular, and more students have joined, especially after the mask mandate was lifted.

“We’ve been using the court consistently for about a month or two,” Staso said. “Now we don’t even need a teacher watching us because of the no masks, and we’ve been consistently playing enough that [the school] trusts us now.”

Since the startup of the pickleball club, many consistent members have attended both of the clubs weekly meetings. The club meets twice a week, once during AM Office Hours on Wednesdays, and another time during lunch on Fridays.

“We have a GroupMe with around thirty people in it, but they don’t all come super consistently,” Staso said. “I probably have around ten or fifteen super consistent members in the club right now.”

According to Staso, the club members have high hopes for the future of the pickleball club, and are hoping to play in a more competitive nature sometime in the near future.

“Right now it’s just casual play, [but] I’m trying to contact ASB,” Staso said. “Hopefully we can get a tournament going like the basketball and spikeball tournaments that have happened.”

The members of the pickleball club are all extremely enthusiastic about the club’s meetings, according to senior and club member Dylan Engels. 

“My favorite thing about pickleball club is that it’s just a great time to get together, get active, and get outdoors,” Engels said. “I love playing at office hours; when all you want to do is take a nap, it’s super great to get active.”