Game On: Jennifer Dawson's Journey To Becoming 4-Time US Pickleball National Champion

We love celebrating women at the top of their game. In our series Game On, we're interviewing top athletes about their well-being routines—covering everything from nutrition that makes them feel strong to the moments that bring them joy. P.S.: Read more in our digital issue of Game On.

Recently, we wrote about the importance of staying involved in sports throughout one's lifetime. Sports are often encouraged in youth but not as much later in life. But we argue they should be: Sports not only keep you healthy and active, but they're profoundly beneficial for your mental health, can improve the body's stress response, and offer a place of community. This is particularly important for women, who statistically don't participate in sports as much as their male counterparts. 

It was a piece I felt very passionate about and loved writing and reporting. So I was particularly excited to talk with four-time U.S. Pickleball National Champion Jennifer Dawson, who feels just as invigorated about this topic as we do.

"My mom—who's going to be 82 in a couple of days—plays pickleball six days a week. I think you have to keep moving and keep using your body—whether you're trying something new or doing a sport that you've done all your life," she says. "And it's just important to engage socially, physically, and mentally to be healthy."

Recently, Dawson was named to QVC's The Quintessential 50, which is part of the brand's new Age of Possibility platform celebrating women over 50.

"It's a super-big honor to be picked as one of the ambassadors to QVC's Age of Possibility. They're such a great organization and are putting women over 50 in the forefront," she says. "Whether you want to start a new business, try a new sport, pick a hobby, whatever it might be—you can do it. I think the bonus to all of that is we are a little bit older and we do have experience. We've worked hard all our lives. We've raised kids. We've worked on our careers. So, I think at this point in our lives, we have the flexibility to do the things that we want." 

Dawson: I got into pickleball through tennis. I started tennis when I was seven, played D1 college tennis, and then played on the tour for about a year before I started my family. After having kids, I started back competing at tennis again.

So I was playing senior tennis, traveling all over the world, and doing all of that. And we used to own a tennis club called Bobby Riggs Tennis Club [now called The Bobby Riggs Racket and Paddle Club]. We had a couple of people that came to us and said, "Hey, we want to play pickleball, but we don't really have a place to play. Can we rent a couple of tennis courts and put some lines down with tape?"

We ended up renting some tennis courts to this group, and it just looked like so much fun. My husband actually started playing first. He was actually playing senior tennis as well, but then gave up tennis completely when he started playing pickleball. Then myself and my two boys started, and we just loved it. It just kind of grew from there.  

At our club, we were taping, you know, two courts. And then it was like three courts. And four courts, and so forth. And then we started painting permanent lines on the courts. We just gradually moved to converting all our tennis courts into pickleball courts. And so now we have a pickleball club!

Dawson: Well, pickleball is just so much fun! I treat it as something that I love to do rather than a job or something that I have to do.

Dawson: I try to stay relaxed and not get all hyped up because I feel like when I do that I actually get a little bit nervous. I just try to stay relaxed and then focus on just a couple of things that I wanna do during the match. 

Dawson: If I have a tournament, I'll take a couple of days off after. And I like to get massages to get the muscles relaxed and try to get those knots out.

I also have one of those massage guns to help loosen my muscles. And I have compression sleeves that you put on your leg.

Dawson: It's going to sound kind of silly, but one of my favorite things to do is paint by numbers.

It is so relaxing. I'm totally addicted to it. You don't have to really think about anything—it tells you what color to paint on what areas, and they turn out so beautiful. So that's very relaxing.