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<\/p>\nFor brothers Boone and Ford Casady, pickleball is more than just a game, it is a passion. The 16-year-old twins are among the top junior players on the planet, but more important to them than trophies and medals is a desire to spread the fastest-growing sport in America to high schools and colleges.<\/p>\n
Their vision, combined with the persistence of fellow Crossroads sophomores Samantha Leeds and Hannah Carey, has birthed the L.A. High School Pickleball League, the first of its kind in California. The first match will be Jan. 24 at the Santa Monica Pickleball Center.<\/p>\n
Teams from Crossroads, Brentwood, Windward, Palisades, Notre Dame and Santa Monica Pacifica Christian will participate, and possibly several more.<\/p>\n
Matches will be biweekly with all schools competing at the same shared location. The match format is loosely based on high school tennis with three doubles lines, one singles line and \u201cfriendlies\u201d \u2014 ensuring that beginners, alternates and developing players all get playing time. The season culminates with semifinals and a league championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy brother and I grew up playing competitive tennis and baseball,\u201d Boone said. \u201cWe\u2019d been playing tennis since we were about 3 and in eighth grade we moved to Barcelona to train at the Emilio S\u00e1nchez Academy for tennis. We were first introduced to pickleball earlier while we were in Mexico playing with friends and we immediately fell in love with it. We entered our first tournament in Palm Springs and realized we\u2019d found something special. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe noticed that so many juniors were training and competing individually but there wasn\u2019t a school-based structure like you have in other varsity sports. We decided to change that. We wanted girls to be involved from the start \u2014 it was important to us that the league be coed and inclusive to reflect how competitive girls pickleball already is. We\u2019re also co-founders of the Crossroads Pickleball Club along with Samantha and Hannah and we\u2019re working to grow participation on campus and across L.A.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The four founders of the L.A. High School Pickleball League play mixed doubles.<\/p>\n
(Steve Galluzzo \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n
Unlike most youth sports initiatives, the league was not created by adults or administrators, it was built entirely by students. Over the last two years they have coordinated with the Southern Section for recognition and guidance, worked with Crossroads administrators to establish pickleball as a school-sanctioned varsity sport, organized early intramural and inter-school tournaments, built communication networks among local high schools and helped other schools begin turning their club teams into varsity programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn high school sports, students usually join a system that already exists,\u201d Leeds said. \u201cWith pickleball, we had to build the system ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boone defeated Ford to earn the No. 1 seed at the 2024 Junior PPA National Championships, but they met again for the gold medal and this time Ford won. They also took the gold in doubles and finished No. 1 and No. 2 in the country in the 14s division.<\/p>\n
At the 2025 Junior PPA National Championships, the brothers took silver and bronze in the Boys U16 singles and partnered for silver in doubles. They were also presented the Community Assist Award to acknowledge their initiative in starting the Los Angeles High School Pickleball League. They are straight-A students and play shortstop and third base on the varsity baseball team.<\/p>\n
So far, their toughest competition in pickleball has been each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoone and I practice together all the time and we play against each other constantly,\u201d Ford said. \u201cBoone knows the part of my game to attack and I know what to do against him so we always have great matches. No matter who wins, we hug it out at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
The siblings played in their first pro event of the year Saturday \u2014 the Masters Tournament in Palm Springs.<\/p>\n
Leeds and Carey were introduced to pickleball in eighth grade.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember leaving PE after playing pickleball, heading to soccer practice and honestly feeling kind of bored,\u201d Leeds recalled. \u201cAll I wanted to do was keep playing pickleball.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSamantha and I got randomly paired to do pickleball in PE,\u201d said Carey, who lost her home in the Palisades fire. \u201cMost kids would sit out, look bored, or try to skip but as the pickleball nets went up our peers were engaged, exhilarated and connecting over their love of pickleball. So Samantha and I started making petitions to create a league.\u201d<\/p>\n
The girls, then 13, had a meeting with Anthony Locke, head of school at Crossroads, and made a pitch deck. Using her skills as a filmmaker Leeds created a short sizzle video to help show what pickleball could look like as a real school sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were told that forming school-based teams and leagues is a necessary first step towards eventual CIF recognition,\u201d she said. \u201cI created a Varsity Team Starter Kit, outlining the steps we used to establish pickleball as a school-sanctioned varsity sport. Leaders at other schools are actively using it to establish their own teams.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Carey: \u201cWe connected with Boone and Ford, which was such an honor considering their talent and passion for the sport. We decided to join forces and use our resources together to further our process of creating a league.\u201d<\/p>\n
The inaugural season runs from January to March but beginning in the 2026-27 school year the plan is to move to the traditional winter sports window, November through January.<\/p>\n
\u201cPickleball has the potential to become a true varsity sport at both the high school and college levels,\u201d Boone said. \u201cWe\u2019re so excited to help push it forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For brothers Boone and Ford Casady, pickleball is more than just a game, it is a passion. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[66592,66598,66596,35755,66597,66595,951,48,52,51,66593,62758,47,50,49,18158,9549,10628,54537,315,66594],"class_list":["post-129395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-brother-boone","tag-carey","tag-crossroad-student","tag-crossroads","tag-double-line","tag-ford-casady","tag-high-school","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-league-championship","tag-leeds","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-no","tag-palm-springs","tag-pickleball","tag-samantha","tag-time","tag-varsity-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}