It all started on a summer evening in 2024 while on a walk through Sawyer Point Park along the river of Cincinnati, Ohio. We didn’t know it then, but that moment gave birth to our latest obsession.

I had never even heard of pickleball before, but seeing so many people outside playing together caught my attention immediately. The laughter, the competition, the energy—it was magnetic. I didn’t join in that night, but the spark was lit.

Within a week, I borrowed paddles from a friend, and suddenly I was on the courts every day. My obsession grew way faster than my skills. Still, I couldn’t get enough—the people, the lingo, the atmosphere, even the sound of the ball popping off the paddle.

What really fascinated me, though, were the details. I noticed the shoes players wore, the bags they carried, the paddles they played with. In the pickleball community, you meet so many people so quickly that it’s easy to forget names—so for me, I was remembering people by their shoes.

The inner creative in me wouldn’t rest. I wanted to build something that reflected this new world I had discovered, something that captured both the game and the culture that came with it.

And that’s how Slicer Pickleball was born.