Pickleball is on a roll at UToledo. Last spring, student organization Juice House welcomed over 1,000 people to campus for the 2026 Toledo Pickleball Classic & Expo. This fall, the newly formed UToledo Club Pickleball team kicked off the season with something smaller but no less fun — a social invitational with universities from across the Great Lakes region.
Two months ago, there was no active club pickleball team at the University of Toledo. Now, they’ve amassed a team of 24 players, landed a major sponsorship with Paddletek, brought five other university teams to campus for the inaugural UToledo Fall Social Pickleball Invitational — and won the top prize.
The tournament, hosted on October 3, 2026, brought in a total of 70 players who competed in simultaneous doubles and MLP-style (Major League Pickleball) brackets with mixed-gender teams of four players. In addition to UToledo, participating universities included Case Western Reserve University, Grand Valley State University, Bowling Green State University, Wright State University and Youngstown State University.
Top awards went to Abraham Kim, Zach Madaras, Jack Stough and Soha Patil of UToledo for MLP-style play and Jordan Kalman and Nicholas Arlen of Grand Valley State in doubles. The award for top team overall, which included results from both brackets and additional factors like a skills challenge and inter-team social bingo, went to UToledo.
But more valuable than the awards was the atmosphere. The weather was bright and clear as fall descended on campus, and the tournament itself was designed to be about more than just competition.
“I think that, yes, there are very competitive people and teams that will take their teams and go and compete out in regional and national tournaments,” Samuel Chang, the coach of UToledo’s Club Pickleball team, said. “But I think there is a time and a place for both things. And I think it’s important to both have a competitive scene, but also have environments where people can just have fun and play the sport and not feel like they need to be a super pro player to get on the courts and play.”
The tournament was supported by Juice House, a student organization on campus dedicated to creating a healthy social ecology on campus. In addition to leading team bingo, in which players had to interact with other teams to complete it, Juice House also provided hot tea and coffee via their mobile AI cafe being developed by their APEX program.
Other teams could feel that this tournament went beyond the typical competition.
“The environment here is very welcoming and friendly, so I’m having a great time,” Shane Buchanan, a freshman at Case Western Reserve University majoring in aerospace and mechanical engineering, said.
Zaki Syed, Buchanan’s doubles partner, said he appreciates pickleball’s balance of accessibility and competition.
“I think it’s pretty accessible to get the hang of it, and even if you’re playing with someone a lot better than you, it doesn’t feel like there’s that much of a difference, even though I think it will be reflected in the score,” he said.
Students across universities highlighted accessibility as a common reason for joining, with many joining pickleball recently because of friends, family or even past injury.
“[Pickleball]’s the easiest [sport] to get around, and I feel like I can develop skills faster,” Trevor Dorn, a sophomore pursuing cybersecurity at Bowling Green State University, said. “And I dislocated my knee twice, so I’m like, ‘This would be a good sport to do.’”
When UToledo Club Pickleball embarked upon this tournament, the players set out to make it about more than just winning.
“When you see another person and they’re down, do you want to also be down, or do you want to pick them back up? I think pickleball is a really beautiful analogy of that,” Chang, UToledo’s coach, said.
Case Western Reserve University may not have won gold, but they did win the “Ambassador Award” for good sportsmanship.
“We’re having fun, even though we’re losing,” Carly Supinger, president of Wright State University’s Club Pickleball team, said. “That does not matter.”
Abraham Kim is UToledo Club Pickleball team’s student president. He has been working alongside Coach Chang since early this summer to build the team, which started as an offshoot of Juice House’s pickleball blend. And in just a few months, they’ve built a competitive team of 24, a social team of dozens of others, done collaborations across campus and secured sponsorships from Paddletek, Jupmode and Toledo Pickle.
Alongside Juice House, the team is also working on the upcoming Toledo Pickleball Classic in fall of 2027. 2026’s event brought over 1,000 people, 100 businesses and organizations and 90 competing teams across high school, college and corporate brackets to campus. Organizers hope to more than double the event’s size next year.
But UToledo Club Pickleball’s rapid success and tournament win haven’t changed the team’s goal to use pickleball as a way to bring people together — and help provide students and community alike a reason to stay on campus.
“Especially for the University of Toledo, where the majority of students are commuter students, I think it’s a great way for students to come to campus and be active on campus,” Kim said.
And while trophies and medals are nice, the spirit of pickleball displayed at the event was the main takeaway for teams across the board.
“People get serious with stuff — I did this, [too]. And sometimes the seriousness blinds the enjoyable part,” Nathan Bowman, a junior from Grand Valley State University, said. “So just make sure you have fun. Play with friends as much as you can. And just enjoy the growth process because it takes a while.”
Full results:
Overall team:
The University of Toledo
MLP-style:
First: UToledo — Abraham Kim, Zach Madaras, Jack Stough and Soha Patil
Second: Grand Valley State University — Nathan Bowman, Bryce Vanwort, Kayley Salcido and Maddie Kruithoff
Third: UToledo — Chad Snelling, Benjamin Leichty, Cody Schneider and Emily Szul
Doubles:
First: Grand Valley State University — Jordan Kalman and Nicholas Arlen
Second: UToledo — Hussein Jomaa and Zach Madaras
Third: UToledo — Anthony Kmita and Namir Sheikh
Additional awards:
Rocket Award (for demonstrating responsibility and punctuality) — Wright State University
Catalyst Award (for demonstrating excellent team spirit) — Youngstown State University
Ambassador Award (for demonstrating good sportsmanship on and off the court) — Case Western Reserve University
Iron Will Award (for demonstrating resilience) — Bowling Green State University
Photo Gallery:
Please email juicepress@juicehouse.org to request photos from the event. Please do not use without the following photo credit: “Image by Ruth Chang for Juice House.”
