By Drew Silverman
Red Line Editorial
Swimming can be a lonely sport.
Long days in the pool. Hours in the gym. For competitive swimmers, it can be a challenge just to keep their social life afloat.
Morgan Ray has experienced the solitude of swimming for much of his life — but he also craves the social interaction that typically accompanies athletics. That is just one of the reasons he loves to play pickleball.
“With my swimming career, a lot of it is inside my own head,” explained Ray, an elite Paralympic swimmer who helped the United States win silver in the 4×50 meter medley relay in Paris last summer. “The competition is just me vs. the clock. Yes, I’m going against people, but I’m really just racing the clock. It’s not the most social sport.
“With pickleball, I can interact with people while the game is going on — build relationships, joke around. In that sense, it’s been great.”
Ray’s grandfather, Henry Washington, introduced Morgan and his three brothers to pickleball back in the 1990s. Washington picked up the sport in Seattle and “brought it here to Jacksonville,” said Ray, who is from St. Augustine, Florida — about 40 miles south of Jacksonville.
While Ray and his brothers played pickleball with their grandfather as children, they didn’t resume a more consistent passion for the sport until recently, as the pickleball boom continues to take over America.
“We re-found it last year because it’s growing so fast around the country,” Ray said. “It’s a really fun thing to do outside of my swimming.”
Available hours can be few and far between for Ray. But after the 2024 Paralympics, he took a physical and mental break from the pool — and pickleball was there to fill the void.
“Coming home from Paris, I took a six-week break from swimming and picked up pickleball heavily,” Ray said. “I was doing it almost every day. It’s something I love doing. I love getting better.”
Ray admits that he is a “developing” player at this stage of his pickleball career, acknowledging that his brother Michael — who just made the University of North Florida pickleball team — is “much better than me.”