President's Circle: Member Highlight

This month, the Noosa Pickleball Club is honoring Steve Phillips for his outstanding contributions to the club and pickleball.

Steve Phillips, with his wife, Yvonne, moved to Castaways Beach from Melbourne in 2017. They are both retired teachers. Steve was a high school principal at Lyndhurst Secondary College, Victoria, for the last 15 years of his career as an educator. This probably strikes a chord with many of our members who were/are also educators.

Steve played badminton as a teenager and started playing with a badminton group at Cooroy. From there it wasn’t long before he heard about Pickleball. Both he and Yvonne were immediately “hooked” after about 5 minutes and began playing at the Noosa Leisure Centre (NLC) in 2019. Keith and Sharon Bing introduced Steve to the game. They taught him basic strategy and the history of the game. Steve earned a Level 1 Coaching qualification which allowed him to coach beginners. Steve joined the Noosa Pickleball Club (NPC) in 2022.

In April 2023, Steve ran the NLC Sunday and Friday sessions at the NLC for five months. Part of this responsibility included conducting introductory sessions for newcomers every Sunday morning. Steve thoroughly enjoyed this. He recognized that newcomers needed follow up after their first lesson. To achieve this, he volunteered to serve on the NPC Management Committee and organized the club’s program for introductory sessions.

Steve has introduced the game to well over 150 people in the past year. Together with other volunteers, he also introduced follow-up sessions for newcomers, and organised social play as well. Steve is really proud of the fact that the club attracted over 40 new members in the latter half of 2023. He continues to occasionally coach beginner level players if they ask for help, and enjoys this immensely. He is a regular feature at the Tuesday NLC Round Robin session.

For Steve, the key things about the game are to ensure people are having fun, playing in a good spirit, keeping active and making new social contacts. This is why he plays. When he feels his game is not working or is frustrated with his rate of improvement, Steve simply reminds himself that he plays for fun, and to enjoy the good chat and coffee with others after the game.