Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the US, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, with participation more than doubling to 9 million players between 2020 and 2022.
Drew Evans, a retired law librarian who has previously worked at Kansas State University in Manhattan and Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, took up the sport about seven years ago. “I was hooked from the first hit,” he says. “You’re about 14 feet from your opponent, and that allows for a lot of social interaction and joking around.”
But when Evans observed a lack of reliable information about the sport, he saw an opportunity to become the Pickleball Librarian.
“As a good librarian, I said, ‘What resources are out there?’” Evans recalls. He found one book online, but accompanying reviews provided little information about it. Having previous experience writing reviews, he decided to rectify that situation.
Evans published his first review online, which was positively received. Reviews of other books followed, as well as evaluations of training camps and equipment, interviews with pickleball players who have interesting stories—including a series on couples who met through pickleball or who discovered pickleball together—and information to help players improve. He posts this content to Facebook and YouTube under the name Pickleball Librarian.
He also regularly uses his videos to champion reading and banned books, including Thank You, Jackie Robinson and The Fault in Our Stars. Says Evans: “One beauty of sharing books with people is that you will meet someone who says, ‘I haven’t read for a long time, but your review was so compelling I had to grab that book.’”
