Pickleball is an extremely small world.

When you work in the sport, travel to tournaments, or spend enough weekends standing around courts for 10 hours at a time, you start realizing just how connected everyone really is.

You keep running into the same people. Mutual friends become friends. Someone always knows someone you know. And over time, certain people stick with you.

Not because they’re the loudest person in the room or chasing attention, but because of the way they make people feel.

Dawn Horan is one of those people.

If you’ve played an Association of Pickleball Players (APP) event, volunteered at a major tournament, watched early BoxCar Productions livestreams, or competed in the Midwest pickleball scene years ago, there’s a good chance Dawn had a hand in your experience, whether you realized it or not.

And that’s exactly how she prefers it.

“Pickleball is about people,” Dawn says. “And I love delighting people, whether I am working on the front lines or behind the scenes.”

That mindset has shaped almost every corner of her pickleball journey.

How Dawn Horan Found Pickleball

Dawn first played pickleball in 2004 when visiting her parents in The Villages, but the sport didn’t fully enter her life until 2016 when pickleball finally started gaining traction in northern Indiana.

Back then, there weren’t dedicated courts nearby. There weren’t local tournament systems. There wasn’t easy access to demo paddles or beginner clinics.

So Dawn created what she needed herself.

She borrowed paddles from her parents, bought a few more, hauled around balls, and used water jugs with twine to lower tennis nets so people could play.

Like a lot of early pickleball communities, everything was informal. Players taught other players. Volunteers became organizers. Community members became ambassadors because someone had to.

Within months, Dawn had joined her local pickleball board, became a USA Pickleball ambassador, started advocating for courts at government meetings, and began introducing new players to the sport.

“You just did it because you loved it,” she said repeatedly throughout the interview.

That line probably explains her entire career better than anything else.

How Dawn Horan Built Local Pickleball Tournaments

One of the more fascinating parts of Dawn’s story is how naturally she became a tournament director. 

At the time, there wasn’t really a roadmap for running local pickleball events, especially in smaller Midwest towns without major facilities or infrastructure.

So she built her own system. Literally.

Color-coded clipboards and score sheets. Poker chips to track active courts and player flow. Round robins with playoffs. Guaranteed games. Constant court movement. Lots of food.

That combination became her signature.

“I became known for three things,” Dawn said. “Lots of games. Continuous play. And lots of food.”

Dawn first became known for running smaller tournaments throughout northern Indiana, many of which supported charitable causes or local court development projects. 

As pickleball continued growing, she later expanded into larger events, eventually serving as USA Pickleball’s Regional Director of Tournaments and managing Golden Ticket tournaments across the Midwest.

Even now, after helping manage some of the biggest professional pickleball events in the country, she still speaks most proudly about creating good experiences for everyday players.

That part never changed.

The Year Everything Changed

About a year after seriously diving into pickleball, Dawn was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

The timing completely disrupted what had become a rapidly growing part of her life.

In the span of a single year, she underwent brain surgery, back surgery, and a knee replacement. At the same time, one of her closest friends and playing partners was battling cancer herself.

After surgery, Dawn dealt with severe balance issues and had to relearn basic movement patterns through therapy.

But pickleball never fully disappeared from her life during recovery.

She continued organizing tournaments. Continued showing up. Continued finding ways to stay connected to the sport and the people around it. “Where I saw obstacles, God created opportunities,” Dawn said.

Recovery didn’t pull her away from pickleball. If anything, it strengthened her connection to the people and community around it.

From Volunteer to APP Event Leader

Like many longtime pickleball people, Dawn’s path into professional event operations happened gradually.

She volunteered at tournaments constantly. Helped wherever she was needed. Assisted other tournament directors. Worked with early livestream crews. Played in events herself.

That’s how she eventually connected with the Association of Pickleball Players (APP) and BoxCar Productions during the early days of professional pickleball.

As Ken Herrmann was building the world’s first professional pickleball tour and Kyle Selinko was helping pioneer professional livestream coverage for the sport, Dawn found herself volunteering, troubleshooting, and helping wherever she was needed. 

Long before pro pickleball broadcasts became commonplace, BoxCar was hauling cameras onto rooftops, setting up cable for days, and experimenting with production quality most people in the sport hadn’t seen yet.

Dawn became part of that process while continuing to work full-time outside of pickleball.

Eventually, the same volunteer work Dawn had done for years started turning into paid opportunities. 

That evolved into her current role with the Association of Pickleball Players (APP), where she primarily oversees volunteers and supports tournament operations across the country.

Depending on the event, Dawn may coordinate anywhere from 100 to 200 volunteers while helping manage player check-in, information desks, and countless operational issues fans never see.

“Flexibility and composure are important skills for event managers. Stuff happens. Always. You just make it work!” she said while describing tournament weekends where unforeseen obstacles can be common.

That mentality feels representative of the generation of people who helped grow pickleball before the sport became heavily commercialized. They just figured things out in real time.

Why Community Still Matters to Her

Throughout the conversation, Dawn kept returning to one core idea: people.

She talked about the early days of tournaments feeling like family reunions. About tournament directors personally checking on players. About volunteers stepping in wherever needed because everyone genuinely wanted the experience to succeed.

Even now, after the sport’s explosion, that’s still the part she cares about most.

“I think the APP is absolutely amazing,” she said. “Our staff truly cares about people and sharing the magic of pickleball with all players—young and old, pro and amateur, competitive and recreational. I’m incredibly blessed to be part of this team.”

Even after everything she’s experienced in life and in the sport, Dawn still approaches pickleball the same way she did in the beginning: by putting people first.

Over the years, she’s been a player, ambassador, tournament director, volunteer coordinator, livestream crew member, and one of the people behind-the-scenes helping tournaments function. But ask her about any of it, and she’ll usually redirect the credit somewhere else.

She wants tournaments to feel welcoming. She wants volunteers to feel valued. She wants players to leave feeling like they mattered there.

More than anything, she wants people to feel joy around the sport she fell in love with years ago.

And honestly, that’s probably why so many people remember her.