Pickleball may be one of the fastest-growing sports in the country, but according to Santa Rosa Beach author and coach Colleen Riddle, the real story isn’t the score. It’s everything that happens around it.
In “Came for the Game, Stayed for the People: True Stories of Pickleball, Friendship & Belonging,” released last month, Riddle shares eighteen true stories from members of her own local coaching community — people who walked onto a pickleball court looking for exercise, a new hobby, or simply something to do and found something they didn’t expect: friendship, confidence, connection, and a sense of belonging.
The stories follow everyday people navigating grief, divorce, retirement, relocation, empty nesting, new beginnings, and other major life transitions. Their experiences are woven together with fifty-four short life lessons on resilience, reinvention, courage, and what it means to truly belong.
Riddle has also released “Quietly Brave: A Reflection Journal,” a companion to the book that invites readers to turn those same fifty-four life lessons inward. Through guided reflection prompts, simple action invitations, and space to write, the journal encourages readers to explore their own experiences with courage, change, joy, connection, and belonging. While designed to complement “Came for the Game, Stayed for the People,” “Quietly Brave” also stands on its own as a personal reflection journal.
“Pickleball gets people in the door,” Riddle says. “But it’s the people who keep them coming back. I’ve watched this sport hand people their community back to them — sometimes exactly when they needed it most. That’s the part nobody talks about, and it’s the whole reason I wrote this book.”
Riddle has called the Emerald Coast home for more than two decades and has spent much of that time helping others improve their health and confidence. An ACE-Certified Personal Trainer and founder of Fit Pickleballer, she began her pickleball coaching community with a single free beginner class. What she didn’t expect was how quickly lessons would become friendships, friend groups would become support systems, and a sport would become the beginning of entirely new chapters in people’s lives.
Although pickleball provides the backdrop, Riddle says the message of “Came for the Game, Stayed for the People” reaches well beyond the court. At its heart, the book is about the courage to show up, the friendships that can change the direction of a life, and the ripple effect created when people make room for one another. “Quietly Brave” extends that message by giving readers a place to pause, reflect, and consider how those same themes are showing up in their own lives.
Riddle celebrated the release of both books with an invitation-only community launch event on in Destin, bringing together many of the local people whose stories and friendships inspired the project.
“Came for the Game, Stayed for the People” is available in paperback and Kindle editions, and “Quietly Brave: A Reflection Journal” is available in paperback. Both are available on Amazon and through ColleenRiddle.com.
ABOUT COLLEEN RIDDLE
Colleen Riddle is an ACE-Certified Personal Trainer, pickleball instructor, author, and founder of Fit Pickleballer. For more than 20 years, she has coached and encouraged people to become stronger, healthier, and more confident. Her work today brings together fitness, pickleball, wellness, and community, with a focus on helping people find connection and belonging through shared experiences.
