Pickleball’s latest court? The prison yard.

BUSHNELL, Fla. - Paddle in hand, Roger BelAir shifted side to side as he was introduced to that day’s audience. He was eager to get started, to tell everyone about the game he felt could change their lives.

“Everyone know the rules?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“Well, I believe in following the rules, so let’s talk about that today.”

The prison was slowly coming to life, and BelAir could feel the morning temperature climbing. The closest he’d ever come to breaking the law: minor parking violations back home near Seattle. But this game, he was convinced, is a force of good, bridging gaps and offering life lessons. So here he was at the Sumter Correctional Institution, about 50 miles north of Tampa, talking to a couple dozen inmates about pickleball.

It was Day 7 of BelAir’s eight-day trek across Florida. Each day brought him into a new prison, with a new group of felons and a new chance to introduce a sport that has already gripped much of the population outside.

The Sumter prison yard is encased by barbed wire. Guard towers loom, corrections officers are ever-present. This group of prisoners had earned perks through good behavior, which on this day put them in front of BelAir, 76, who crisscrosses the country on his own dime and volunteers his time behind bars because he thinks pickleball has some answers these inmates need, a skeleton key of sorts to rehabilitation.

“Something like 95 percent of people are eventually released from prison,” he says. “If we can make them better people on the inside, it’s better for all of us once they get back outside.”

BelAir eagerly explained the game. It’s a cross between tennis, table tennis and badminton, he told them. It was invented in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Wash., and is now the fastest-growing sport in the country. He told them pickleball had a way of breaking down barriers and is accessible to players of all ages and backgrounds.

That resonated with the prisoners, a group surrounded by barriers. Everyone here wears a similar ID badge and prison-issued T-shirt and light blue shorts, but their backgrounds, criminal charges and prison sentences vary wildly. The inmates that circled the pickleball court included convicted murderers, sex offenders, drug dealers. Some would be out in a couple of years; others would never leave.

BelAir is convinced the sport could benefit them all, and it wasn’t long before the inmates started to understand why. After he demonstrated how to serve, the prisoners spread across two courts and began tapping the ball back and forth over the net. There was laughter, encouragement, some gentle ribbing.

“For a bit, it really takes your mind away from being in prison,” one inmate said.

That’s part of BelAir’s grander vision. He wants to make the game a staple of prison life. Not just in Florida, but everywhere. And he’s taking it upon himself to spread the pickle gospel.

(Pickle)ball is life

BelAir didn’t tell the prisoners his own backstory - how he’d found success in banking and investing, discovered pickleball late in life and, at 64, was instantly hooked. How he took up coaching and staged clinics and slowly started building his life around the sport.

Instead, BelAir told them about a night five years ago that he and his wife were watching an episode of “60 Minutes” that featured a segment on Tom Dart, the sheriff of Cook County, Ill., who oversees one of the largest jails in the country. BelAir was struck by footage of inmates standing idle and had an idea.

“I said to my wife, ‘They ought to be playing pickleball,’ " BelAir recalled. “They’d get exercise, learn life lessons - sportsmanship, learning from mistakes - so I tell my wife, ‘I’m gonna write him a letter. And I’ll go out there and I’ll teach them all pickleball.’

“My wife, of course, gave me the ol’ eye-roll,” he said.

But he did. Dart recalls receiving BelAir’s letter not long after. He didn’t know what pickleball was, but he shared the proposal with his staff. The sheriff was intrigued.

“He was offering something for free, which obviously got my attention in a hurry,” Dart says.

He did some research, made sure the equipment wasn’t likely to be used as a weapon and opened the jail doors to BelAir.

“It was full steam ahead,” Dart says. “He was very passionate about this. And there were no strings attached, which in my world is very rare. You just have this sort of altruistic person who just wants to do this.”

BelAir flew to Chicago and brought the game with him. Soon there were more letters and more prison visits. He went to Rikers Island in New York, Corcoran in California, and facilities in New Hampshire, Alaska and Washington state.

Covid slowed his efforts, but as restrictions began to subside, he was eager to get back on the road. Last year, he pitched Florida, where Department of Corrections officials considered his unique proposal. It’s not often someone offers to travel across the country on his own dime, hoping to interact with as many prisoners as possible.

From their perspective, the offer touched on a core tenet of the department’s philosophy, engaging inmates, reducing idleness and giving them purpose. Patrick Mahoney, the department’s director of Programs and Re-Entry, said inmate wellness “can be a predictive activity for recidivism.”

“So if we make a positive impact on somebody’s health and wellness, we have made an impact on the potential of reducing recidivism within our agency,” he said. “We know the importance of sports. It’s a structured way to teach people healthy competition, teach them how to work in groups, how to work together, teamwork. Just like in regular society, it works very well in a prison setting. "

‘No stigma’

While BelAir was introducing pickleball to many inmates for the first time, the game isn’t new in all of Florida’s prisons. At Sumter, the inmates assembled their own net and started playing a hybrid game on an old tennis court a few years back. They started with a racquetball, but whenever the ball touched barbed wire fencing, an alarm sounded and privileges were revoked. Volunteers eventually donated proper pickleball equipment, and a handful of players are out there every day now, even organizing occasional tournaments.

At the Lowell Correctional Institution, an all-women’s facility outside of Ocala, they’ve been playing for a couple of years. The inmates laid a cement slab over a grassy area and built their own courts. Every Wednesday, a local volunteer comes in to provide instruction.

“I found it was a great way to lose weight, it wasn’t hard on your joints. So we just started playing a lot and really fell in love with it,” said Sara Denn, 43, who’s serving time for drug-related offenses and credit card fraud.

The inmates have recreation time in the yard twice a day. They walk laps, do aerobics or mill around picnic tables. But the pickleball courts have become a respite for a handful of them. “It takes you out of the gates, you know,” said Jenise Ortiz, 40.

The prisoners say it’s both a distraction from prison life and something that connects them to the outside world. For many, it’s a glimpse of what their lives might be like when they’re released.

“A lot of times we hear about what we can’t do when we get out. We’re felons, maybe we have this stigma,” said Jolene Elkin, 53, who’s serving a life sentence for murder. “With pickleball, there’s no stigma. It’s all positive. Maybe we don’t have opportunities in other areas, but this is something we can try to excel at.”

Leslee Pippin, the warden who oversees some 2,000 prisoners at the Lowell lockup, says there have been no drawbacks: Pickleball hasn’t sparked fights or created divisions.

“When people are idle, they get bored,” Pippin said. “That’s when people get argumentative, they start looking for ways to break rules. When they have something positive to do, it keeps them out of trouble. And if there’s the temptation of doing something wrong, the thought of losing something like this serves as a deterrent.”

The Lowell inmates pass the day reliving points from their morning games and anticipating afternoon rematches. Many say they intend to continue playing the game long after their prison days are over. Ortiz has been locked up since she was 17, when she was convicted of second-degree murder and arson. She’s now 40 and has six years remaining on her sentence.

“I wish I had something like this when I was younger,” she said. “I was a kid of an incarcerated parent, and I know if we can get kids of incarcerated parents to be interested in something, they can unleash their frustrations and hurts. Introducing a new game to the inner city kids would give me an opportunity to mentor, something that would help them.”

For this group, BelAir talked a bit more about technique and strategy before sending them off to play games. “Any questions?” he asked first.

“When are you coming back?” one inmate asked.

A needed distraction

There is no research on pickleball’s effect on an inmate population, but BelAir notices the impact in every facility he walks into. In Chicago, pickleball is now a staple of the Cook County jail.

“Just like myself, we have to explain to people what it is at first,” Dart says, “but it has been wildly popular.”

BelAir was encouraged by what he saw as he journeyed across Florida, driving his rental car to prisons from Tallahassee to Orlando.

“This game I’m sure is great for the outside world. But it is something that’s very needed in here,” said 34-year-old Jhoan Cadavid, a convicted murderer and new pickleball convert.

The facility is like a mini-city with a chapel, dining hall, medical quarters, a line of inmates walking along the fence to report to their different jobs. The Sumter prison is an incentivized facility, so all of the prisoners had to earn their way here with a record of good behavior. There’s a variety of sports and activities to keep them busy - flag football, bocce ball, beach volleyball, horseshoes, softball - and the inmates keep track of sports schedules and offerings with their prison-issued tablet.

Randy Puryear, 62, plays pickleball seven days a week. Before prison, he was a dentist and an avid tennis player. He was convicted of second-degree murder in 2002 and given a 25-year sentence, and he found himself desperate for any hint of normalcy.

Puryear peppered BelAir with questions, eager to understand some nuances and learn how pickleball is played on the outside. BelAir told the group about “the kitchen” - the area near the net - and walked them through the scoring. And then he told the inmates his favorite part of the game - the “group hug,” in which players all tap their paddles together following a match. “I think it’s real simple,” BelAir told them. “The world would be a better place if we had more group hugs and less violence.”

David Colon, the Sumter warden, watched from the side of the court. He’s occasionally picked up a paddle and hit the ball around with the inmates. Some of the other prison sports are dominated by cliques, he says - the Hispanic inmates gravitate to soccer, for example, or many of the Black prisoners stick to the basketball court.

“This is for everybody,” Colon said.

BelAir liked the energy and camaraderie he saw on the Sumter courts. Even the newcomers seemed to pick it up quickly.

“You guys are pretty good. Just need more practice,” he told them. “Listen, do we have any final questions?”

Gary Tillman, 60, wiped the sweat off his forehead. “When they gonna bring that $2 million tournament in here? I heard about that,” said Tillman, who’s serving a life sentence for murder. “Tell them we got some players up in here. And we need the money.”

BelAir estimates that he’s introduced the game to more than 800 inmates. At the conclusion of a visit, he leaves behind the balls, paddles and nets. He wants facilities to make pickleball a permanent offering, as Dart did in Cook County.

On his Florida visit, BelAir taught the sport to more than 300 inmates. From the prisons’ perspective, the pickleball tour had been such a success that department officials were already brainstorming how to get the sport into all of the state’s facilities, which would make pickleball accessible to thousands of inmates statewide. “We’re absolutely going to explore the expansion of pickleball throughout our system,” said Mahoney.

BelAir returned home and was already lining up his next trips - eager to introduce the game to Ohio’s prison system and then back to California, where he’d take the sport into the San Quentin and Folsom prisons.

“I was asked the other day, how big is this going to get? And my answer is, I don’t know,” he said. “I take it one step at a time, but I remind myself that Johnny Appleseed started with one apple.”

Rick Maese is a sports features writer for The Washington Post. He has written about the NFL since joining The Post in 2009, including three seasons as beat writer for the Washington Redskins.