The History of Pickleball with Onix Founder, Steve Wong

Steve Wong is one of the oldest players of pickleball. He has been in the game since 1991. That was around the time when the game had started taking root in the Northwest. Steve began playing because it was taught at his middle school gym in Bellevue, Washington.

His eighth-grade art teacher also wanted him to play pickleball. She played a significant role in getting him interested in pickleball. Steve and his friend were challenged by two of their teachers for a match. That was what got him addicted to the game.

Although he had started loving the game in 1991, there weren’t many courts accessible to him during that period when the game was not nearly as popular as it is today. It was not until 1998 that Steve got access to a pickleball court and started playing fanatically – once again in Bellevue, Washington.

He had lived in Minnesota for a while and then moved back to Washington in 1998. Steve met Mark Friedenberg on the same pickleball courts he was using in the late nineties. They were in a gym called 24-hour fitness. One of the great things about 24-hour fitness that suited Steve’s daily schedule was that it was – like its name indicates – open 24 hours. Most of them were doing day jobs, so pickleball was an activity that would continue at night, sometimes till as late as 2 AM.

Steve was what he would call a “young buck who was eager to play” back then. That was when he started playing alongside Friedenberg. They have been playing together for over 20 years now, and Friedenberg is in the Hall of Fame. Steve founded the USA Pickleball Association (USAPA) with him in 2005.

Steve also founded the brand called Onix Sports alongside his ex-wife back in 2005. He ended up selling it in 2015, but it had seen a lot of growth. Onix Sports is a renowned brand of pickleball equipment even today. Now Steve has launched a new brand of pickleball equipment called Armour Pickleball. He has partnered up with other pickleball families to launch this new brand, and he is very keen on growing it with time. Getting younger people onboard is another goal that Steve is pursuing.