Crossroads students begin pushing to make backgammon a varsity sport

For brothers Boone and Ford Casady, pickleball is more than just a game, it’s a passion. The 16-year-old twins are among the best junior players on the planet, but more important than trophies and medals to them is their desire to expand America’s fastest-growing sport to high schools and colleges.

Their vision, combined with the perseverance of Crossroads sophomores Samantha Leeds and Hannah Carey, gave birth to the LA High School Pickleball League, the first of its kind in California. The first game will be played on January 24th at the Santa Monica Pickleball Center.

Teams from Crossroads, Brentwood, Windward, Palisades, Notre Dame and Santa Monica Pacifica Christian will be in attendance, and possibly a few others.

Matches will be held once every two weeks, with all schools competing at the same common venue. The match format is loosely based on high school tennis with three doubles, one singles and “friends” – ensuring that beginners, alternates and developing players all get playing time. The season culminates in the semi-finals and the league championship.

“My brother and I grew up playing competitive tennis and baseball,” Boone said. “We’ve been playing tennis since we were about 3 years old, and in eighth grade we moved to Barcelona to train at the Emilio Sánchez Tennis Academy. We were first introduced to pickleball when we were in Mexico playing with friends and fell in love immediately. We signed up for our first tournament in Palm Springs and realized we had found something special.

“We noticed that so many juniors were training and competing individually, but there wasn’t the school structure that you have in other college sports. We decided to change that. We wanted girls to be involved from the beginning—it was important to us that the league be coherent and inclusive, to reflect how competitive girls’ pickleball already is. We are also co-founders of the Crossroads Pickleball Club and Hanreus, who are involved in our camp and Hanreus and we work together with Hanreus on our LA camp.”

Unlike most youth sports initiatives, the league was not created by adults or administrators, it was built entirely by students. Over the past two years, they have worked with the Southern Section for recognition and leadership, worked with Crossroads administrators to establish pickleball as a school-sanctioned varsity sport, organized early intramural and interscholastic tournaments, built communication networks between local high schools, and helped other schools convert their club teams into varsity programs,

“In high school sports, students typically join a system that’s already in place,” Leeds said. “With pickleball, we had to create a system ourselves.

Boone beat Ford to take first place at the 2024 PPA Junior National Championship, but they met again for the gold medal, with Ford winning this time. They also took gold in doubles and finished No. 1 and No. 2 in the country in the 14s division.

At the 2025 PPA Junior National Championships, the brothers took silver and bronze in the U16 boys’ singles and won silver in the doubles. They were also awarded the Community Assist Award in recognition of their initiative in starting the Los Angeles High School Pickleball League. They are straight A students and play shortstop and third base on the varsity baseball team.

So far, their toughest pickleball competition has been one-on-one.

“Boone and I practice together all the time and play against each other all the time,” Ford said. “Boone knows the attacking part of my game and I know what to do against him, so we always have great games. No matter who wins, we’ll embrace it at the end.”

The siblings played in their first professional tournament of the year on Saturday — the Palm Springs Tournament of Champions.

Leeds and Carey were introduced to pickleball in eighth grade.

“I remember leaving gym after playing pickerboard, heading to football practice and honestly feeling a bit bored,” Leeds recalled. “All I wanted to do was keep playing pickerboard.

“Samantha and I just randomly got together to do a pull-up at the gym,” said Carey, who lost her home in the Palisades fire. “Most kids would sit, look bored, or try to skip, but as the pickle nets went up, our peers were engaged, excited, and connected with their love of pickleball. So Samantha and I started petitioning to create a league.”

The girls, then 13, met Anthony Locke, headmaster at Crossroads, and created the playground. Leeds used her skills as a filmmaker to create a short video to help show what a cucumber is he could look like a real school sport.

“We have been told that the formation of school teams and leagues is a necessary first step to eventual CIF recognition,” she said. “I created a varsity team starter kit, outlining the steps we used to establish pickleball as a school-sanctioned varsity sport. Leaders at other schools are actively using it to start their own teams.”

Carey added, “We partnered with Boone and Ford, which was such an honor given their talent and passion for the sport. We decided to join forces and use our resources together to continue the process of building the league.”

The inaugural season runs from January through March, but starting in the 2026-27 school year, the plan is to move to the traditional winter sports window, November through January.

“Pickleball has the potential to become a true varsity sport in both high school and college,” Boone said. “We’re so excited to help move this forward.”