Pickleball in Cold Places
The Anchorage weather means Ken Coston has to play pickleball inside for at least six months every year - Ken Coston is obsessed with pickleball. Coston, 60, loves everything about the sport. He plays every day he can, although his job tends to get in the way. Don’t you hate when that happens? Ken works as a material planner for a major oil and gas company. He plans to play every day when he retires. He’s also a paddle junkie who owns at least 15 of them and regularly loans them out to friends and beginners because he wants to spread the love. Ken dinks in his home against a wall mat that has a picture of a net on it and practices spin with another training device. Ken has lost 40 pounds since taking up the sport in August 2023. “Best shape I’ve been in in 20 years,” he tells me. He’s not a high-level player, with a DUPR of 3.0. But he’s a high-level person and pickleball enthusiast. That’s obvious from the few phone calls and several text messages and emails we’ve ex...