For Dan Beeman, happiness comes from serving others. From an Army Airborne Paratrooper in Germany as a teenager to a pickleball Ambassador in California and Mexico in his 50’s; Beeman has never stopped serving all over the world.
At 50, Beeman was involved in a major car accident and subsequently had a double fusion of vertebrae in his back. While this traumatic event impacted his mobility, it also opened the door to a new passion.
One day after doing gentle yoga at his rec center, he walked past the gym and heard the ubiquitous laughter and the pop, pop, pop of the pickleball play. Curious, he entered the gym and, despite being self-conscious about his appearance (he has a skin disease called vitiligo) and physical limitations, he was immediately warmly welcomed and encouraged to join the fun.
“One of my favorite quotes is that we are defined by how we respond to adversity. And that certainly was a major adversity in my life. I could have said, oh, woe is me, and retreated from engaging in sports activities. But I said, let’s go do yoga, and yoga led me to pickleball, and the rest is history,” Beeman said.
Just a few months after his newfound passion, he was selected as a USA Pickleball ambassador and hosted a successful introductory clinic as a part of National Pickleball Month for 60+ people. He helped one of the class members learn pickleball, and as a result she has yielded a fitness regimen to help her lose over 100 pounds and become a sponsored player and coach.
In 2019, Beeman received his Master of Hospitality degree from UNLV, where he studied Sustainable Tourism. As his passion for pickleball grew, he wrote his final research paper on the Implications of Pickleball for the Hospitality Industry.
“I had to do a lot of research and saw the future before most people. So if you look at the growth rate, I believe it has been something like 150 plus percent in the last three years. So this was before then. So I just saw what was happening. So many elements of it told me it would be great for so many people, including primarily the inclusiveness. The nature of it is people welcoming other people to play, and they have so much fun playing,” he said.
Beeman sensed that growth and found, purchased, and renovated a condo just a few steps from this promising, burgeoning facility. It is now called the Pickle Palace and is available for long-term rental for pickleball.
After being confirmed as an IFP Ambassador for Mexico, Beeman rented the Pickle Palace and headed to Playa Del Carmen, MX, to meet with resorts to bring pickleball there.
“The core audience of Pickleball Players aligns perfectly with major hotel developers in Mexico. Pickleball players are active. So you have mostly active adults with disposable income and the ability and time to travel on vacations. They want to be active and have fun. So what are hotels trying to do? They’re trying to reach active Americans with time and disposable income. It’s a perfect alignment,” he said.
Parallel to his resort consulting business is a pickleball travel business. The model for that business is simple: use the buying power of his group to negotiate great group rates at resorts and then pass along the savings to the travelers in his group.
“The value proposition of the travel company is that we guarantee the best rates, you’ll have other people to play with, and we will guarantee the quality of the courts and nets. Because right now, there is a lack of standards for resorts and clubs as to what constitutes a good or legitimate or acceptable court in many places, they say they have a pickleball program. What does that mean? That means they tape some lines over tennis courts and have unstable nets that are usually saggy. So I want to bring a certification process for resorts to increase their minimum standards of what is acceptable for a pickleball program. So we guarantee the best rates, we guarantee that you’ll have other people to play with, and we want to guarantee that you’re going to be going to a resort that has a Certificate of Excellence program whereby they have courts that are dedicated for pickleball with dedicated nets and permanent lines,” he said.
He has also recently written a critically acclaimed award-winning screenplay for a buddy comedy called Pickleballs! – The Movie.
“I channeled Will Ferrell and Sasha Barrett Cohen. I loved Talladega Nights, and basically, the simplest way I can put the story is it’s a story of redemption through pickleball,” he said.
Beeman is actively seeking investors and producers for the project.
Each summer Beeman travels the world evangelizing the sport by providing free introductory clinics to anyone who asks. He actively volunteers at tournaments as a line judge, announcer, host, or whatever else is needed to create the best environment for players and spectators possible.
“It’s a mechanism to simultaneously socialize and exercise,” he said.
So, whether it is a resort, club, tournament, city, state, or country; whether it is a professional, recreational, or wanna-be player; Beeman continues serving them and pickleball with honor.
Beeman has found that service leads to happiness.
Photo provided by Dan Beeman.
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