Rebbie Brassfield: I always wondered how Mormon women survived crossing the Plains. Then I played pickleball with them.

You probably know pickleball is sweeping the nation. Did you also know it’s ushering in the third wave of Latter-day Saint feminism?

It all started last winter when my neighbor invited me to play pickleball at the church meetinghouse. I asked her when, thinking this was some one-off social event, until she said, “Every morning at 6 and 9.”

I had played pickleball, of course, enough to be terrible and also obsessed. But nothing could have prepared me for the cult I was about to join.

I showed up at the church gym (forgive me, cultural hall) to find seven other women and their 10 collective children who aren’t yet in school. Some got to work setting up the nets, a few climbed up to the stage to skillfully jimmy-rig a “slide” using two plastic folding tables that had been left out for this purpose. Someone plugged in a phone to a speaker and started playing hits from the early 2000s — think Black Eyed Peas, Fergie, Usher and more Usher, songs that instantly made my blood pressure rise as they are reminiscent of so many angsty BYU dance parties. Someone propped open a door to the hallway so we could keep an eye on the kids, who then indulged every urge they have to stifle on Sundays: riding bikes through the halls, raiding the nursery for toys, watching Cocomelon on full volume.

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Pickleball player is shown in 2023. Latter-day Saint women, young and old, are increasingly gathering at their church meetinghouses to play pickleball. (Francisco Kjolseth/)

I greeted the women awkwardly, ready to make whatever small talk was required, but all they asked was my name and whether I wanted to serve first (no please). I whiffed my first ball and sent the next one out into the foyer where it got stuck under the floral couch. And everyone was just like “great try” and “so close,” and I thought: Is this the Celestial Kingdom?

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