RecReport

Pickleball has exploded in popularity over the past few years, but along with it, some neighbors to pickleball courts have been negatively impacted by noise. USA Pickleball, the national governing body for the sport of pickleball, is taking action to address these complaints with the launch of its Quiet Category for pickleball products, an initiative that aims to reduce the sport's sound output.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) Pool Safely Grant Program will award more than $2 million to eight state and local governments. 

Just about every park and recreation agency across the United States has activities and policies in place to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) outcomes, according to the 2023 NRPA "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Parks and Recreation Report" from the National Recreation and Park Association. 

Vista Hermosa Natural Park in Los Angeles, designed by Studio-MLA, has won the ASLA 2023 Landmark Award. The Landmark Award recognizes distinguished landscape architecture projects completed between 15 and 50 years ago that retain their original design integrity and benefit their surrounding communities.

The NCAA recently awarded its Ethnic Minorities and Women's Internship Grant, designed to provide financial assistance to Division II and III member schools and conferences that commit to enhance ethnic minority and gender representation in entry-level athletics administrative positions, to a group of young professionals who recently began their new roles at 22 schools.

The USA Swimming Foundation, the philanthropic arm of USA Swimming, announced that $157,745 has been awarded to an additional 21 swim lesson providers via its Learn-to-Swim Grant program. The two rounds of grants awarded this year by the USA Swimming Foundation combined for more than $800,000 to 125 providers across 33 states. 

The 2023 State of Pickleball: Participation & Infrastructure Report highlights the investment needed to keep up with pickleball’s meteoric rise, leveraging data never available before. This in-depth analysis of pickleball participation and facilities in the United States is a joint effort of the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA) and Pickleheads, an online platform for pickleball. As cited in SFIA’s Topline Participation Report, pickleball has seen an incredible increase in the U.S., rising by an astonishing 158.6% over three years.  

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drowning is the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4, and the second leading cause of death for children ages 5 to 14. In recognition of World Drowning Prevention Day on July 25, the International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF) and Every Child A Swimmer announced they were partnering with Goldfish Swim School Franchising to ensure more children have access to low- to no-cost swimming lessons.

Parks are catalysts for building community, social connectedness and civic action according to a new report titled “The Common Ground Framework” from the Trust for Public Land (TPL). Debunking the misconception of parks as luxury amenities, the research positions greenspace as both critical social infrastructure and an effective tool for building a stronger sense of community.

The fittest cities in the U.S. have been ranked in the American College of Sports Medicine's (ACSM) 16th annual ACSM American Fitness Index. No. 1? Arlington, Va., which had top scores in both the personal health and community/environment subscores. Arlington was followed by Washington, D.C.