I’ve met a lot of people in pickleball over the past seven years. Pros. Coaches. CEOs. Tournament directors. People who are changing the sport in different ways.
Every once in a while, though, I finish an interview and immediately think, I need more people to know about this person.
That’s exactly how I felt after talking with Meagan Allers.
Meagan isn’t a professional player. She isn’t building the next paddle company. She isn’t chasing sponsors or trying to become the biggest creator in pickleball. Instead, she’s quietly building something I honestly haven’t seen anywhere else.
As the founder of the San Diego Pickleball Collective, she’s created a women’s community that’s about far more than pickleball. Yes, there are clinics, meet-ups, social events, and open play. But underneath all of that is something much bigger: a place where women can show up alone, feel like they belong, and leave with genuine friendships.
The more we talked, the more I realized that pickleball is the vehicle. What Meagan is really building is connection.
How Pickleball Became Meagan Allers’ “Third Space”
Long before pickleball entered her life, Meagan was already building communities.
As Head of Community & Partnerships at Marco Polo, she spends her career helping people build relationships online. Before that, she worked in higher education planning campus events, organizing student life, and creating experiences that brought people together.
Then she transitioned to remote work and realized something was missing. As an extrovert, she found herself craving the simple interactions that happen outside of work and home.
“I really need to be intentional about creating my social life outside of this,” she told me. “Otherwise, I really value my morning walk to the coffee shop just to have an interaction with Luis at the pastry counter. My husband would come home and I’d be starved for socialization.”
That search eventually led her to two public pickleball courts near her apartment in San Diego, where she started showing up every day.
She met neighbors she’d unknowingly lived near for years and people decades older and younger than herself. She found herself staying just as much for the conversations between games as the games themselves.
Listening to her describe those early days, I couldn’t help thinking about how often people explain pickleball’s growth by talking about the exercise, the competition, or how easy it is to learn.
Very few people talk about loneliness. Meagan did.
She described the courts as a “third space”—a place outside of work and home where people naturally gather and form relationships. For Meagan, that third space became somewhere she could belong.
Why Women Needed a Different Kind of Pickleball Community
As she became more involved in the local pickleball scene, Meagan noticed that women weren’t always comfortable stepping into open play. Whenever she invited them to join, she kept hearing similar concerns.
They didn’t know the rules. They were worried about playing with people who were much better than they were. They didn’t want to get the ball slammed at them.
The interest in pickleball was there, but many women needed a space where they could learn the game and build confidence without feeling intimidated. So Meagan decided to create one specifically for them.
Her first event brought together 100 women and sold out. But what happened afterward mattered more than the attendance. Women exchanged phone numbers, weekly games started forming, and friendships continued long after the event ended.
“I think there’s definitely a trend right now about fitness communities and wellness communities, and ‘community’ gets thrown around a lot,” she said. “I think there’s a difference between just throwing an event and creating a community.”
That sentence stayed with me long after the interview ended, because she’s absolutely right.
Inside the San Diego Pickleball Collective
One thing I quickly realized while talking to Meagan is that none of this happens by accident.
Every woman wears a name tag. Newcomers are encouraged to introduce themselves. If someone comes alone, she’s intentional about helping them meet people. If a beginner shows up without a paddle, Meagan hands them one. If they don’t understand how open play works, she teaches them before they ever have to ask.
“We’re very intentional about creating the space where if you come alone, you’re going to meet people and you’re going to find other women to play with.”
Meagan handles most of the ongoing work behind the collective, but she’s also surrounded by people who help bring it to life. Her husband and friends jump in at events and help with content, coaches give their time, and sponsors and partners contribute in different ways.
In a way, that support is another reflection of the community she’s built. The people who show up for the San Diego Pickleball Collective aren’t limited to the women attending an event. They’re also the people willing to pitch in to make those experiences happen.
And despite how much work goes into it, Meagan doesn’t really describe it that way.
“It doesn’t really feel like work because, to me, it’s building relationships. It’s connecting with people. It fuels me.”
How Pickleball Creates Connection Across Generations
There was one story Meagan shared that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.
It wasn’t about one of her women’s events, a tournament, or even the San Diego Pickleball Collective. It was about an older man who used to ride his motorcycle to the public courts.
He wasn’t the strongest player, but he showed up consistently. Eventually, Meagan learned why.
His wife had Alzheimer’s. He had been her caretaker before she passed away, and he came to pickleball looking for connection.
Here was Meagan, in her 30s, searching for community after transitioning to remote work. Here was a man in his 80s, searching for community after losing the person he’d spent his life with.
Two completely different lives. The exact same need.
“I often think about him,” she told me. “I wonder where he’s at.”
That story perfectly explains why she sees pickleball differently than most people. For her, the game isn’t the destination. It’s simply where people find each other.
How Meagan Allers Builds a Pickleball Community
Toward the end of our conversation, Meagan said something I immediately wrote down.
“Community isn’t built through one event. It’s built through hundreds of small interactions.”
That might mean introducing two strangers, sending a text reminder before Wednesday open play, responding to an Instagram message from someone who’s nervous about attending their first event, helping someone understand the rules, or just remembering someone’s name.
None of those moments are particularly remarkable on their own. Together, they’re why people keep coming back.
And I think that’s why the San Diego Pickleball Collective has grown so quickly. The branding and social media are great, but the experience behind them makes people feel seen.
What’s Next for the San Diego Pickleball Collective?
Before we wrapped up, I asked Meagan where she sees the San Diego Pickleball Collective in three to five years.
I expected to hear about expansion. More cities. More events. A bigger brand.
Instead, she talked about continuing what she’s already built. She hopes the women who supported the community from the beginning are still showing up years from now, newcomers continue finding friendships, and the experience stays personal even as the community grows.
For Meagan, success doesn’t necessarily mean bigger events or expanding into more cities. If she’s still finding joy through pickleball and helping more women find their people through it, that’s enough.
After spending an hour talking with Meagan, I kept coming back to something I told her during the interview: in seven years working in pickleball, I honestly don’t think I’ve seen anyone doing what she’s doing.
There are plenty of people organizing tournaments. Plenty of people running leagues. Plenty of people building businesses.
What Meagan has created feels different because the relationships are the point. Pickleball gives women a reason to show up, and everything she does once they get there helps make it easier to meet someone, join a game, and come back again.
Maybe that’s what makes the San Diego Pickleball Collective so special. You can come for the pickleball, but you might just leave with people you didn’t know you were looking for.
