This Is What Happens When a Finance Guy Gets Sucked Into the Pickleball Community with Ben Paquette
Dinks On Tap: The Happy Hour Pickleball PodcastShow Notes
What do you get when you mix a high-stress finance job, a family health scare, and a few curious visits to the local gym? If you're Ben Paquette, you get a full-on life remix served underhand.
In this episode, we sit down with the man who first taught us how to dink without overthinking: pickleball coach Ben Paquette. What started as a few casual games turned into a complete career pivot. Now he’s teaching pickleball, traveling for professional pickleball tournaments, and building a thriving pickleball community in Dallas—all while keeping that signature chill-coach energy.
We talk about:
The wake-up call that made Ben trade spreadsheets for spin serves
Why the pickleball mindset might be more important than your paddle
What those mysterious coaching certifications really mean
How to get through the dreaded YIPS (spoiler: it’s not just about your backhand)
And the true test of any partnership—pickleball doubles or otherwise
This one’s deep. It’s funny. It might even make you rethink your doubles partner.
And it’s a reminder that sometimes, the game is just the beginning of finding purpose.
So grab your marg, hit play, and meet the coach who changed our game—and maybe our lives (no pressure, Ben).
Cheers,
Casie and Lauren
Dinks on Tap
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Website: dinksontap.com
More from Dinks On Tap: The Happy Hour Pickleball Podcast
How did a game three grown men made up on a badminton court, because a 13-year-old was bored, turn into the thing your group text runs on? We found the kid who complained, and he still can’t believe it either. In this episode, we get into our summer vault, full of conversations, stories, and a little pickleball drama we never got around to airing. We sat down with Frank Pritchard, the bored kid himself, who can answer “When was pickleball invented?” because he was there when his dad, Bill Bell, and Barney McCallum made up the game on Bainbridge Island. We also cover Picklr’s Chapter 11 filing and the “is pickleball dying” headlines that followed, Genie Bouchard’s paddle-tap walkout and what it says about pickleball etiquette, and why the drinks after play keep the pickleball community together. You’ll learn: Why it's called pickleball, and the Pritchard family member who came up with the name A firsthand account of who invented pickleball, from the teenager whose complaining started it What the original pickleball paddle was made of, and which founder designed it The pickleball history most players don’t know, including how scoring and serving used to work Why Frank took a 30-year break from the game, and what brought him back What Picklr’s Chapter 11 filing means for your local club, according to the general manager of the Picklr in DFW How the pickleball business can struggle while the number of people playing keeps growing Why Genie Bouchard skipped the paddle tap, and whether we think she was justified How we won a tournament this summer by giving a screaming team a taste of its own medicine
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