“Roger BelAir told them about a night five years ago when he and his wife were watching an episode of 60 Minutes that featured a segment on Tom Dart, the sheriff of Cook County, Ill., who oversees one of the largest jails in the country. BelAir was struck by footage of inmates standing idle and had an idea. ‘I said to my wife, ‘They ought to be playing pickleball,’ BelAir recalled. ‘They’d get exercise, learn life lessons — sportsmanship, learning from mistakes — so I tell my wife:
‘I’m going to write him a letter. And I’ll go out there, and I’ll teach them all pickleball.’ ‘My wife, of course, gave me the ol’ eye-roll.'” It turns out that Tom Dart didn’t give the eye-roll when he got BelAir’s letter. For one thing, he was offering a service for free. So once the sheriff did some research “and made sure the equipment wasn’t likely to be used as a weapon, [he] opened the jail doors to BelAir.” How popular is the hottest sport in America? This hot. WaPo (Gift Article): Pickleball’s latest court? The prison yard.