5 Questions With Pickleball Aloha Ambassadors Brian and Joy Rogers

Brian and Joy, and of course, we can’t forget Cocoa—a fixture at the Courts

In my effort to find activities to do with my 15-year old son that weren’t absolutely repulsive to him, I tried to get him to play pickleball with me. He wasn’t interested.

I decided to try a different way…I convinced the moms of his friends to try pickleball. “We can play mom-son doubles!”, I told them.

They went online, picked up a few paddles, and off we went.

We ventured over to Ala Moana Park, and because it had been raining, there was parking right in front of the tennis courts and only a few people at Open Play.

What luck!

That’s when we met Brian and Joy (and Cocoa), the hosts at the Ala Moana Courts on Friday evenings.

When you’re a beginner, you make it a point to tell everyone that you’re a beginner. But that was swiftly dismissed by Brian and Joy, waving it away, and making us feel that really, truly, it didn’t matter that we were newbies—we were welcome there.

We had a lovely evening—even when the boys launched a few pickleballs onto the roof of the structure next to the Courts, Brian smiled, telling us it was no big deal. Then, the boys jumped in with Brian (it was too boring playing with their moms) and we were all so grateful for their hospitality and kindness.

Thank you, Brian and Joy!

Now, for the 5 questions:

First off, we’re going to start with the quintessential Hawai’i question: where were you born and raised, and what high school did you go to?

Brian was born in NYC and I was born in the Philippines. We were both raised and went to school in Asia.

What do you do outside of pickleball (work, hobbies, volunteer, etc)?

Brian and I both work for the Tetris Inc. (Yes, the game TETRIS). We both love to go on a hike and take a morning walk on the beach with Cocoa and both of us enjoy playing strategy board games like Settlers of Catan, Wingspan, Seven Wonders, Agricola etc. I love doing arts and crafts. Brian’s hobby at the moment is to play Minecraft! LOL!

Why did you decide to take up pickleball and when did you start playing?

During the pandemic, Honolulu Club shut its doors for good. It was the place for Brian to play squash and it was the place where I used take back to back classes for Zumba, spinning and yoga. That’s when Brian heard about pickleball, so he bought the whole set so that we could try it out. We called family and friends to try it with and we all liked it since then.

What made you decide to host the Ala Moana courts and why do you do continue to do it?

While we were gone vacationing in Vegas, a family member volunteered Brian and I to host open play on Friday nights at Ala Moana park! We thought…ok, we'll try it out. Since then we've been hosting!

What do you love about pickleball?

You get to meet nice people with the same interests. It’s easy to learn it. Anyone can play it. And you get to play a lot of pickup games.

Minecraft? Tetris? Who knew?

Volun-told or not, we’re so grateful to Brian and Joy for creating an inclusive culture out at Ala Moana on Friday nights! Mahalo!