By Steve Drumwright – Red Line Editorial
SAN DIEGO — When an opponent stands across the net from Johnny Pickles, their first instinct might be to smile or laugh.
Johnny Pickles, you see, arrives at every pickleball event in a resplendent suit, a colorful and often flowery ensemble that would seem more appropriate for a Hawaiian festival instead of garb for a participant in an athletic competition. The flashy suit is accompanied by a pair of flower-inspired sunglasses
It is a bold fashion statement to make as he walks onto the court. Either Johnny Pickles is really good or possibly looking to distract his opponent from his underwhelming skills.
But the outfit more reflects the spirit of Johnny Pickles, otherwise known as 53-year-old Johnny Collins, who lives in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb. Not only is he just happy to be here, but he wants to make sure to spread a bit of joy to those around him.
“I’m not very good, but I look amazing,” Johnny Pickles said.
Just a few days before participating in the 2025 USA Pickleball National Championships at the Barnes Tennis Center, Johnny Pickles played 24 consecutive hours of pickleball to raise money to feed families this Thanksgiving. Johnny Pickles, through a friend, took to the courts at Dill Dinkers in Newport, Delaware, and played 108 matches in that 24-hour span, winning 98 times while playing in a fabulous white suit accentuated by a rose pattern.
With the generosity of businesses, friends and the public, Johnny Pickles raised $11,392, which will provide 813 turkeys to be distributed by the Food Bank of Delaware. From the initial idea to the final minute of his 24-hour marathon, everything transpired in about a two-week period. He based all the donations on the Food Bank saying it costs $14 for a family turkey.
“I said, ‘OK, that’s the goal. Get all my friends and people in the pickleball community to donate $14 to give (a turkey to) a family in need.’” Johnny Pickles said. “Fortune Tires, who used to sponsor me, they gave $1,400 — gave 100 turkeys. And I had other people who did some pretty large donations as well. People in the pickleball community I reached out to and everybody stepped up.”
What surprised Johnny Pickles the most was the amount of support that came from outside the local community in Delaware.
“I would say at least 80-90 percent of all the donations came from people outside of Delaware,” he said. “So those are just Americans supporting Americans, right? They’ve got their own needs and food banks in their areas, but they’re like, I’ll give a free turkey for somebody in Delaware. That’s what I thought was amazing about the whole thing.”
To keep himself going, Johnny Pickles chowed down on cans of Chef Boyardee that he bought for $1. But it was the generosity that inspired him.
“I want to cry,” he said. “It really felt like a lot of the money that was raised was from people that I personally knew. So, it really touched my heart that I could share in the social media channels, ‘Hey, I’m doing this thing,’ and they don’t know people in Delaware, but they know me, and they wanted to support that. So, it was really touching.”
That provides a little window into Collins, who earned the Johnny Pickles moniker through his futility in the sport. Getting pickled, which means losing without scoring a point, was something that happened often to Collins, who started playing the sport about 18 months ago.
“My friends just started calling me Johnny Pickles, which I thought was hilarious,” Collins said.
He almost got pickled in his first match at Nationals, falling 11-3, then being eliminated 11-5 in the men’s singles 3.0 50-55-plus bracket. Collins, with a 2.8 rating, said he qualified for Nationals when there was no one else in his bracket at a Golden Ticket event in New Jersey. He jokingly said he finished 15th out of 14 players at Nationals.
Still, he looked amazing. Just ask him.
The suits came from his life before pickleball. Collins said he worked as a professional soccer coach for about 30 years, partnering with the Department of State and U.S. military by using sports to resolve conflicts, promote equality, working with at-risk youths and helping refugees in 45 countries.
“I was wearing a suit every day for the past 20 years,” Collins said. “So, when I play pickleball, I’m in a suit. Just wearing a suit to play pickleball just seems normal. I coach soccer in a suit. I play basketball — I’m always in a suit.”
Collins even being in this position is a story unto itself. He was born in South Korea, but one day strangers found him in a trash can and took him to a police station. A couple from the Philadelphia area then adopted him from an orphanage and brought him to the U.S. During his world travels, he did think of looking for his birth parents in South Korea, but he had no information to go on.
“Where I started and what I’ve accomplished in life, I’m crushing life — like crushing it,” Collins said. “I have a lot of friends that are in similar situations, but they take it as they’re the victim, that they weren’t wanted or they weren’t loved or something like that, where it empowers me to go out and support other people in need just like I was in need.”
Steve Drumwright is a journalist based in Murrieta, California. He is a freelance contributor to USA Pickleball on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
