Find Your Ride-or-Die Partner: Because You’re Gonna Be Playing Pickleball at 80, with Jeanne Koepke and Pam McCurry
Dinks On Tap: The Happy Hour Pickleball PodcastShow Notes
What happens when two big personalities collide on the pickleball court?
You get a duo that turns the game into chemistry, rhythm, and unapologetic energy!
Today, Casie and Lauren sit down with Jeanne Koepke and Pam McCurry, a duo who found more than just a partner. They built a rhythm, a routine, and a friendship that reshaped this stage of life. What starts with pickleball tournaments and mixed doubles opens into something deeper.
Jeanne and Pam bring equal parts of competitive fire and self-awareness. They share how they improved, built a strong partnership, and found their place within a growing pickleball community, especially in pickleball for seniors.
In this episode, we talk about:
The moment when they realized power alone would not carry them through higher-level play
What it means to compete in their 60s, and how expectations shift
The psychology of partnership, including how they manage energy and mistakes together
Why the social side of pickleball matters more than people expect
The unspoken rules of match etiquette, from line calls to tone
How friendship and humor can matter just as much as skill for any pickleball player
For those who play for fun and those who take it more seriously, there is something familiar in how this kind of connection shapes your days.
So, pour something cold, settle in, and spend time with two people who remind you that the best part of pickleball might not be the game at all.
Cheers,
Casie and Lauren
Dinks on Tap
Let’s keep the conversation going! Connect with us:
Instagram: @dinksontap
Facebook: @DinksonTap
Website: dinksontap.com
For those wanting to fortify their mental game on the court, check out Lauren’s Mental Caddie offerings on her website or book a Chemistry Call.
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
Making friends as an adult can be surprisingly hard, but the pickleball community has a way of bringing people together fast.
Have you ever made it to the front of the paddle line at pickleball open play, only to have your partner dis you because she didn't want to play with "a beginner"?
We all love a Gail. We've met her at open play, we've been her on a bad-line-call day, and we've absolutely texted the group about her afterward. We love her enough that we tracked down the woman behind the Gail character in the movie, The Dink, and brought her to your favorite pickleball happy hour podcast.
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