A podcast highlighting pickleball pros, community leaders, and business professionals. The show spotlights how special and unique the pickleball community is on a worldwide stage. Don't forget to follow us and leave a review!
Contact: kitchentalk.pickleballedition@gmail.com
Episode 86: Couple Sold their first pickleball club to build a new club triple the size
Russ Johnson and Deb Cohen’s pickleball journey began with Pickleball Citi, a smaller club that gave them the experience and insight to dream bigger. After selling their first facility, they’re taking everything they learned and putting it into Rally Haus Sports, a much larger, community-focused pickleball destination coming this winter. We talk about how their backgrounds in higher education and golf led them to pickleball, the lessons they learned from their first club, why they decided to make a bigger bet on the sport, the challenges of opening a new facility, and their vision for creating a welcoming community built around competition, connection, and friendship. Russ and Deb also share how pickleball has impacted their lives and their advice for anyone looking to build a club of their own. Like the page if you like what you're listening to.
17 Sept 2026
Episode 85: Transforming Pickleball Through Faith, Community, & Ministry
Mark Stephens leads the Pickleball Ministry for SportsLife Leadership, an organization dedicated to building sports communities for kingdom impact and infusing life into sports leaders around the world. Mark shares how he is using pickleball as a platform for ministry, bringing professional players, collegiate athletes, coaches, and others together through worship, fellowship, events, and shared faith. With professional pickleball players spending much of the year traveling from tournament to tournament, Mark is working to create a stronger sense of community and connection for athletes who can often experience loneliness on tour. Through SportsLife Pickleball, he is helping unite players who may have rarely interacted before, while also creating opportunities for college players and programs to build relationships beyond the court. The conversation explores how faith and sports can be a powerful way to build community. Listen and subscribe to learn more.
11 Aug 2026
Episode 84: Building Pickleball’s Most Iconic Venues
What happens when a two-sport Division I athlete at Harvard with an accomplished career in finance discovers pickleball for the first time and sees an opportunity to completely change the game? Mary Cannon, co-founder of CityPickle, shares the story of how one game sparked an idea that would bring pickleball to some of New York City’s most iconic locations. From launching the first-ever pickleball pop-up at Hudson Yards in October 2022, when many New Yorkers were still just discovering the sport, to winning the bid to operate Wollman Rink in Central Park for the next 20 years and opening a flagship location in the Paramount Building in Times Square, Mary has helped put pickleball on the map in NYC and beyond, with CityPickle expanding into new markets and destinations. She opens up about taking the leap into entrepreneurship, building CityPickle from the ground up with Erica Desai, and why creating opportunities for women has been such an important part of the company’s culture. Listen to find out how CityPickle got started, what it took to bring pickleball to some of the most iconic places in the country, and what new ventures are on the horizon that could be just as groundbreaking.
Inside a recent episode
Episode 22: Double Trouble: Dominating the Courts as Sisters
Published 8 May 2024 · Transcript excerpt
[…] We know we bounce each other out while I think you said that. And yeah, I don't know where we have we kind of compliment each other's strengths and weaknesses. So where like I'm lacking she makes up for it. You're never lacking, but if you were, you know, I think that we compliment each other in that way. I'd say like, yeah, like she said, like I can be like super fiery and she can like be the calm steady one. So this is yeah, we're we're very complimentary of each other and our personalities. And what would you say like you're each of your roles are on the court when you guys play together? Um, so I'd say that just because I've been playing longer, I'm kind of maybe the strategizer, like I'll look ahead at the draw and I'll kind of like create a game plan for us. […]
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