Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in America and the bug bit our guest, J.P. Christen, hard. The San Francisco Bay Area native and Wharton School (PA) graduate came to Charlottesville, Virginia in 2008 to work for General Electric after several career jumps to New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Hong Kong. He met his wife and soon made Central Virginia his permanent home.

But it was during Covid in 2020 when he discovered a game that changed his life: Pickleball. As Stock and Hicksy found out, it's more than just a game for J.P. He has a late-night (very late) routine of 3 hours of practice hitting more than a thousand pickle balls. He's been to the Pickleball U.S. Open and wants to turn professional. Why is he so driven to become a pickleball pro? Well, it's actually fairly simple and quite authentic.

Hosts

Rob "Stock" Stockhausen was raised in Buckhead, Georgia. He went to Hampden-Sydney College (barely made it out alive) in Virginia and ultimately grad school at the University of Virginia. Rob has spent most of his adult life in Charlottesville, VA where he has been in the commercial real estate business. He is the ultimate “people” person. He loves to talk and get to know people (understatement of the year), is a prolific texter, and has a strong emoji game. He digs pickleball, golf, and rapping with the boys. Rob loves iced tea but not as much as he loves his greatest gifts, his wife and two college-aged children.

Tom "Hicksy" Hicks was raised in Greenwich, CT, and has lived in Charlottesville, VA for the past 24 years. In a rare moment of spontaneity, (for Tom), he left a corporate job to move with his wife and two young sons to Charlottesville to own a small business. After selling the business in 2014 he moved to Tuscany, Italy, and spent his time, and money, living the good life. Actually….that’s not true. In 2019 Tom began a new career in solar energy and has loved being part of a growing and important industry. Tom is a University of Virginia graduate with a Communications major.