Kathy Demetri is known affectionately throughout pickleball circles as Crazy Kathy, a superfan. She has no reservations about her nickname. Demetri often emanates an aura of good karma on the pro circuit, cheering, dancing, yelling, and applauding good, solid play. However, offsetting her fan persona is her strength as an amateur player, her successful career as an engineer, her family, and the fact that she learned about the sport from a sister she didn’t even meet until she was 34.
Demetri has been married for 21 years to her husband, George, and both are engineers at Westinghouse Electric Company. They have 2 daughters. Athena, their oldest, is a student at Kent State, and Sophia is a senior in high school. They also have a Maltese named Bella. Demetri and her family live in O’Hara Township, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pa.
Demetri was raised in the South Hills of Pittsburgh by her adoptive parents, Shirley and Jim Jensen. Her father was a Chemical Engineer with Westinghouse and her mother was a dietitian and homemaker. The loving middle-class life she was given instilled the value of education in her and provided her with many opportunities. She was one of six children the couple adopted and raised.
The Jensen Family Tree (Pen and Paper required)
“My parents couldn’t have children. My mother loved kids, so they adopted my brother first and then wanted a girl next. My dad was in the hospital for a hernia repair, and they called my mom and said, we have a baby girl for you. So she told my dad, you’re on your own. We’re getting a baby girl. So that’s when my adopted sister came, and then the mom of my oldest brother got pregnant again, and she said, the only way I’ll give him up for adoption is if he goes with the same family. So my mom, of course, took him,” she said.
Demetri was added to the family when her father’s colleague, who fostered children, asked if the Jensen’s might consider adopting a child in his family’s care. Later the Jensen’s would add twins at the bottom of their family tree, a boy and a girl.
“They wanted triplets too, but they never came. We would have been 9,” Demetri said.
Chemistry Kits, Cords and Workshops
Demetri described her household while growing up as bustling but fun and full of life. There were 6 kids angling for position, and organizing it all was mom. Her mother could often be heard yelling, “Kids get in the car.” They were always on some excursion. Her mother was an expert at getting everyone in order, including her father. The children enjoyed every holiday and were always clean, safe, and loved. Her father was always proud of all his kids and encouraged his trade in little ways.
“We all had chemistry kits and were always doing experiments and learning from him. He had a workshop, and we all saved every cord and screw, keeping in mind we might be able to use the items for another project. We grew up in that environment, and he was such a mentor in education and that kind of thing,” she said.
The Science Girl
Demetri graduated from the University of Pittsburgh Johnstown with a degree in Civil Engineering in 1984 and was one of about four women in her class. Demetri’s choice to study engineering resulted from her upbringing in a household that embraced education.
“I loved math and science. So initially, I went into computer science out of high school, but that was when we were punching card decks. I didn’t enjoy it. My brother went into engineering but didn’t like it, so he transferred to accounting. I said, you know what, I’m going to study engineering for my dad. I went into civil engineering, specializing in structural design, and I became an engineer,” she said.
Demetri has worked 38 years for Westinghouse and advocates for girls interested in a similar career path. She often finds herself fielding questions about her interest in the sciences at pickleball events.
“At Westinghouse, we have an Introduce a Girl to Engineering program, where we bring high school students into the office. They are on the edge of what they want to do career path-wise. We just enlighten them on the engineering path. Suppose you have critical thinking, science, or math interest but don’t know what to do. We give them ideas on how to enter careers in the STEM fields,” she said.
Full Blooded Siblings
Demetri was 33 when her oldest sister chose to look for her birth parents. She closely observed the process as her sister navigated the court system.
“In 1995, I think I started the process. I successfully found a connection through the court system. My birth mother left some information, and I wrote a letter to her with my interests and some of the points of my life I thought she might find interesting,” she said.
Demetri wrote to a birth mother she never knew. She sent some old photographs to her that highlighted her life like someone pushing pins into a map illustrating their journeys. In Pennsylvania, a birth parent can’t look for their child. Demetri had to open the door to a conversation. The decision was personal and had an effect on her mother that raised her. As a result, Demetri was stealthy with her pursuit.
“I think she felt like, what did I do wrong that you need to do this? What didn’t I give you that you need this? So it was hard, difficult for her. So in the beginning, I was quiet, not open about it,” she said.
Her birth mother wrote back to her and carefully followed court procedures, excluding last names. Demetri explained that her story, when all told, was like watching a made for tv movie. Her birth mother told her she had two full-blood sisters. She shared their first names and explained that she had never told them about Kathy. She also stressed that she wasn’t ready to tell them. Demetri also discovered that her birth father died in a boating accident in 1981.
“My birth mother was 18, and my birth father and she were forced onto a sort of double dating. My father had a car, his best friend and his girlfriend didn’t have a car, so they needed another person. My birth mom and him were friends, and things happened, and he got her pregnant. My birth father was already married, and his wife was pregnant with their fourth child, so they gave me up for adoption. And that was it. Life went on,” she said.
Demetri’s kind and considerate personality is what has led the pickleball community to fall in love with her on and off the court. She wasn’t resentful or angry about her birth parent’s decision to put her up for adoption. She realized that her birth father came from an impoverished background and started having kids in high school. He faced many obstacles and had fewer options as a result. Demetri also cherished the life and family she had growing up.
“He wasn’t going to leave his wife, but later, when he saw my birth mother dating someone else, he got jealous, and he did leave his wife. They married, and three years later, I had a sister, and two years after that, another sister,” she said.
Demetri didn’t press her birth mother about telling her two sisters she existed. She needed to process it all as well. However, she did pursue one piece of information she gained from the letters. She had to know more.
“I went to Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh ’cause she said your father died in a boating accident in 1981. So I went to the library and looked for it. I started in May. It had to hit the newspapers, right? And I hit August and found the story of that accident,” she said.
She collected the details about her birth father’s death, whom she had never met, on a microfilm machine in the library. She didn’t do anything other than that. She just read what happened and then waited to hear from her birth mother again.
Catching Up
An entire year passed before she heard from her. She told her she was ready to tell her daughters and it was time to meet, if she was willing. Demetri agreed, and after 34 years, she met her blood family.
She asked questions about her father, who had passed. She answered questions about her life. They got to know one another, and something exceptional occurred between her and the sister closest to her in age, Karen Dreska. They became buddies, immediately making up for lost time. She now knew her mother and oldest sister but Dreska became part of her life.
“I do a lot of international travel with my work. I was heading over to Europe, and out of just a whim, I said to Karen, do you want to go with me? I’d known her maybe less than a month, and she said, yeah. It’s not like you’re at the Holiday Inn down the road, and you can go home if you don’t get along. So we get over to Europe, and we were like the same person in the room,” she said.
They laughed at the same jokes and eventually could figure out what the other was thinking. They had a blast wherever they went and drew closer as they discovered things about one another. Dreska also shared more about their birth father, with whom she was very close. Demetri learned that the boating accident occurred when her sister was 16 and still in high school.
“She felt like she lost both a mom and a dad. He was her role model and her mentor,” Demetri said.
Demetri learned that her birth father evolved, despite his mistakes early in his life. He was ambitious and intelligent, starting his own excavating company that allowed him to be supportive and giving to his children.
“I came into Karen’s life in ‘96. It was just like a godsend situation; she now had someone to connect with again,” Demetri said.
The two sisters have traveled the world together, laughing and crying, making every day a new adventure.
“We say we have a lot of catching up to do. It’s very interesting. She was on a business trip with me in China. I guess a year before the Pandemic. We took a trip to the Great Wall. And we get there, and she goes, I can’t go. And I said, what do you mean? She said, ‘I’m afraid of heights.’ We weren’t raised together, so I didn’t know that,” she said.
Demetri and Dreska have a lot to gab about, but one night on the phone, Dreska mentioned pickleball.
“She actually saw pickleball on a TV show from California. And she never played any sports in school. She wasn’t, in her opinion, athletic in any way or interested in athletics. Yet, she asked her husband for a paddle. They offered pickleball weekly at the YMCA in Sewickley where she lived, and she began to play,” Demetri said.
Demetri had a strong tennis background, having played tennis competitively in high school. She also had spent years as an amateur in United States Tennis Association tournaments so her interest was sparked immediately. Her family visits Laurel Highlands yearly, and when she saw they offered pickleball at the Deer Valley YMCA Camp, inspired by her sister, she went for it.
Pickleball Partners
The pair, already traveling the world together, now travel the world of pickleball together.
“Those are the two connections (Karen and Deer Valley YMCA Camp) that brought me to pickleball. So we’re both big addicts of pickleball, and we love to travel to tournaments and play locally, and we have built quite a pickleball presence in Pittsburgh, actually,” she said.
Demetri is a pickleball ambassador, USA Pickleball Level 2 referee, and a PPR Certified Professional instructor. She loves teaching, and mentoring others and she cheers for great play, wanting matches to reach a third game and continue on to a game to 15. Demetri also brought the idea to add courts to her local community center in 2015, which resulted in two courts being constructed. Since then she has helped line over 30 courts across the Pittsburgh area.
The bond between the two sisters has grown through pickleball. They spend more time together and support one another in the sport and their lives. Demetri lost her mother this year, and her entire family was able to offer comfort, including her birth sister Dreska. Despite her mother questioning why Kathy needed to reach out, she eventually accepted it and encouraged her daughter to have a relationship with her birth family.
“One Thanksgiving, she said, would you like to invite Karen for dinner? Would you like to have her come for Thanksgiving? I said that would be nice. And once she came in, everything has been open since then,” she said.
Her mother who raised her, the matriarch, was experiencing signs of dementia before passing this year. One evening, she had many of her children around her, and out of nowhere she yelled. “Kids get in the car. Let’s go.” Demetri smiled at the life she has been given. At that moment, she remembered the old times and cherished the new.
