By By Drew Silverman – Red Line Editorial
For the past decade, Jamie Elliott has served as a USA Pickleball Ambassador, sharing her passion for the sport with countless people.
Much has changed in her life during that time.
About seven years ago, doctors discovered a tumor on one of her ribs from chondrosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. In 2018, she underwent a procedure and had four ribs removed. A year later, doctors removed another tumor from her spine, which left her legs paralyzed.
Elliott has undergone four additional procedures on her lungs and three on her liver in recent years.
While her body has changed drastically, her enthusiasm for pickleball has remained a constant.
“I’m still active. Nothing’s going to get me down,” beamed the 74-year-old Elliott. “Some people whine about a splinter, but you’ve just got to keep moving. You might as well live life to the fullest.”
At many of her appointments and procedures, Elliott arrives carrying her pickleball medals. The hardware serves as a bit of a reminder of how tough it is to defeat the former stuntwoman — on or off the court.
“I was told most likely that I would never walk again,” Elliott said, reflecting on the aftermath of her 2019 surgery. “Of course I looked at the doctor and said, ‘I’m going to prove you wrong. I’m a pickleball player.’”
She stuck to her word. Four months later, Elliott was able to stand and walk slowly.
Elliott returned to the pickleball court in 2021 as a wheelchair player. She competes in a sports wheelchair that she named “Barney” after Barney McCallum, one of the original founders of pickleball.
It isn’t uncommon for Elliott to come up with names for various things in her life.
For instance, she named the tumor on her rib “Earl” after the song “Goodbye Earl” by the Chicks. And the tumor on her spine? That was “Jack” after the Ray Charles classic, “Hit the road, Jack.”
“It’s just to keep laughter going and keep the smiles going,” Elliott said.
During her time as an ambassador, Elliott has co-founded three pickleball clubs and helps run multiple pickleball Facebook groups, including one for wheelchair players called Para Pickleball Program. The program offers regular court space to wheelchair players in the Dallas area and provides them with sports chairs if they don’t have one.
She does most of this work at her home club in Fairview, Texas, where she helps run a “Dink for Pink” event each October to raise money for breast cancer research. For part of the year, she lives in Angel Fire, New Mexico.