In September of 2022, a new pickleball commissioner, Tony Carabello, arrived on the scene of league pickleball in The Villages. Working closely with the previous Commissioner, Phil Assaley, the new commissioner formed a small group of volunteers to build on the excellent foundation Phil had already created. His vision was a single league, organized by divisions, to increase parity and expand inclusion. In the fall of 2022, the volunteer team, dubbed “The Vision for Divisions Team,” organized performance play dates for all league players, after which each team was assigned players of similar abilities. Play was determined to be more balanced at the end of the fall season when compared to the previous season. While the “Vision Team” was able to place 240 players on teams for the leagues, some players were placed on the substitute list due to court limitations.
Still striving for inclusion and parity, the team decided to use the Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating (DUPR) System to assign players to teams for the winter season. This required several more on-court play dates to obtain DUPR ratings for all the players and substitutes. On January 23, 2023, The Villages Competitive Pickleball Club’s league launched its first season, with 304 players assigned to 5 divisions according to their individual DUPR ratings.
We named our group The Villages Competitive Pickleball Club TVCPC because, as Phil always said, “our league is our family” and we feel that way about it. We want this to be more than just a competitive league. Of course, we want to see balanced competition, but we also see this club conducting social activities and raising funds to support charitable causes in the future.
This project has been a labor of love. The “vision team” members believed in Tony’s idea and worked tirelessly to approximate the parity and inclusion he envisioned. Today we have over 1000 club members, many are full-time league players and over 100 are substitutes. Every vision team member contributed multiple hours of their individual expertise to reach the goal. We have sincere gratitude for all the players who believed in this vision with us, showed up to play on the play dates, and waited patiently as we worked through the process. We hope you find improved parity and balanced competition.