Pickleball clinic brings new sport to Montana’s Veteran Whole Health Program lineup
An attendee of a veteran pickleball clinic grins at his fellow vet before serving. John Beaudry
By Christine Compton
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BILLINGS, Montana (Billings Gazette) — Navy veteran Gabriel George has a philosophy about pickleball: the sport is medicine, the sport is community, and anyone can play it.
He doesn’t claim that last part lightly. It’s why he led a series of pickleball clinics this week across Montana through Montana Veterans Affairs’ Whole Health Program, which aims to support veterans through their reintegration in creative ways.
“You’re not always the same when you get out (of the military),” George said. “It’s easy to feel like you can’t get out there … but you can. Sometimes you need something like pickleball to prove it.”
In 2009, George lost the use of his right arm in a motorcycle accident. He was discharged from the Navy, and life was different.
He still wanted to be active, and 10 years after his injury, he found himself at a VA summer sports clinic in San Diego.
He learned about sailing, scuba diving, cycling and archery. He went on to represent the United States in the 2022 Invictus Games, an annual international multi-sport event held for wounded and ill servicemen and women.
“I was doing things, and I was part of a community,” George said. “That’s why it was so healing.”
But George said he also knew that, while he had found peace in athletics, there were still thousands of veterans still struggling to reintegrate into a non-military world.
That’s how he fell into the world of Military Adaptive Court Sports, he said, which is a non-profit dedicated to helping disabled veterans through adaptive pickleball, racquetball and badminton.
He wanted to help fellow vets find a support system, but teaching archery was a bit too impractical; it’s expensive, and George uses his mouth to draw back his bowstring, so it’d be difficult to talk and demonstrate at the same time.
So, around 2018, he picked up pickleball and began teaching it to vets across the nation through clinics.
He said he likes it because it’s cheaper and, as he emphasized before, anyone can play it. In his first ever pickleball match, George was pummeled by his 86-year-old, wheelchair-using mentor.
On Monday afternoon, George guided around five Billings veterans and volunteers through pickleball basics at Lillis Park. It was the second of six clinics he’s leading across Montana.
The main idea is to help set up pickleball teams across Montana, a state known for its high veteran population and sparse medical care, to offer veterans another option in physical, mental and social healing.
“It’s healing disguised as fun,” said Penny Bangs, a Veterans Affairs recreation therapist and Army vet.
Physical activity can help people fine tune their coordination and endurance, she explained, but a lot of the healing comes from the invisible parts of the game.
“Pickleball can turn into friendship or drinks after practice,” Bangs said. “Just showing up takes effort. (Practice) becomes autonomy.”
Tristan Grimes, the first Veterans Affairs music therapist in Montana and fellow attendee of the pickleball clinic, said activities like pickleball help steer recovery away from strictly pharmacy.
“Sometimes people only need medicine, but health isn’t one-size-fits-all,” Grimes said. “Music and sports can help with neurochemistry, rewiring our brains in a healthier way. It gives people more options.”
While the clinic series will end in Missoula on Friday, George said that he plans to return to keep the program going. Two of the Billings’ clinic attendees, a veteran and pickleball coach with Pickleball Smiles, said they’d start teams with the VA’s Whole Health Program.
“Keepings programs alive is the hardest part,” George said. “I hate it when people just drop in, say they’ve helped and leave. Vets deserve options, and they deserve consistency.”
Billings residents can play pickleball at the YMCA, Yellowstone Fitness, Big Sky Pickleball & Tennis Center, Independent School, Smash Pickleball, Montana State University Billings, and at a number of Billings parks.
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