I started playing pickleball 6 years ago while getting my PhD in Finance from Michigan State University. I wanted an athletic activity that took place indoors during the cold weather. Six months after playing my first game, I competed in my first tournament and immediately fell in love with the social community surrounding the competitive atmosphere.

I started playing tennis and golf at a young age, and went to college at the University of South Carolina on a golf scholarship. I still plays both tennis and golf in my spare time, when I’m not teaching as a professor of finance at Campbell University in North Carolina.