Southampton Pickleball Club’s Second Annual Heart of the Hamptons Pickleball Tournament Raises Nearly $10,000 For Local Charity

Southampton Pickleball Club’s second annual Heart of the Hamptons Pickleball Tournament at Southampton Youth Services on Sunday was a huge success.

Through its fundraising efforts, the tournament raised $8,700 for Heart of the Hamptons, the Southampton Village-based organization that helps people in need, via its food pantry and other various programs. That’s $3,700 more than last year’s inaugural tournament, and according to Vinny Mangano, who runs Southampton Pickleball Club and is the USA Pickleball Ambassador for the North Mid-Atlantic region, that number is expected to be closer to $10,000 by the end of this week.

It was an even greater success in the perspective of pickleball, one of the fastest growing sports in the world, with the East End certainly included in that. This year’s tournament maxed out at 60 teams, which included approximately 100 players, both significant increases from last year when there was a reported 42 teams.

Heart of the Hamptons Executive Director Molly Bishop, who went down to check out the tournament on Sunday along with a few of her board members, said on Monday that the tournament was simply awesome and that it continues to be a huge help during the busiest time of the year for the organization. In fact, this year alone has been one of the busiest ever for Heart of the Hamptons, she said. Just this past November, the organization had double the number of visits than it had last year, Bishop said, who added the past four months have been busier than those same four months than at any time before.

“Everything Vinny Mangano does is amazing,” she said. “It was so fun to see people excited, to see so many new people learning about Heart of the Hamptons. We have certainly had the busiest year in our 42-year history. We’ve already served more meals of food, served more families than any year, including 2020, so there’s definitely a need for us here and all the community support is great.”

The tournament was set up similarly to last year, with six different divisions: women’s recreational and women’s competitive, mixed recreational and mixed competitive, and men’s recreational and men’s competitive. Pam Wolfert and Dorothee Von Moi won the women’s recreational division; Wendy Fitzpatrick and Marie Minnick won the women’s competitive division; Pam Wolfert and Steve Cain won the mixed recreational division; Gina Diao and Peter Simel won the mixed competitive division; Steve Cain and John Andrulis won the men’s recreational division; and Larry Citarelli and John O’Connell won the men’s competitive division.

Most of the competitors from throughout the tournament hail from the East End, largely due to Mangano’s Southampton Pickleball Club, which, in just a few years, has grown from 20 people to around 200. The club can be found on Facebook and includes photos from the various events it holds, which are not just pickleball-based, but also include social gatherings and the like.

“As ambassador this has a special place in my heart,” he said of the tournament. “As they say, it takes a village, and we all enjoy each other’s company. We go to dinners together, have special birthdays together, so pickleball is not only a great way to exercise, but it’s a great way to meet new people and make new friendships, and as ambassador, that’s what I’m most proud of. We have people from all over the community, men, women, from all different ethnic backgrounds.”

Because the tournament was full with 60 teams, this allowed things to run more smoothly than last year, Mangano said, since they didn’t have teams wait for others to get done with their matches. In fact, because of how many teams competed, things had to be planned and timed out so well as to not go over the 4 p.m. closing time of SYS. The seven hours or so were just enough to get all matches in. Typically, pickleball games are played to 11, but because of the time constraints, each bracket played five 10 minute games instead. That allowed many people to get five chances to play five different matches.

Mangano once again thanked SYS Executive Director Scott Johnson and his entire staff for donating the court space for the day, and he also thanked the many local businesses for donating gift cards and baskets of prizes that went to the division winners. Those businesses included: Around The Post Pickleball, Gubbins Running Ahead, Tennis East, Flying Point Surf Shop, Golden Pear, Sip ’N Soda and The T-Shirt Shop.

Mangano said because of the time constraints, 60 teams is the max the tournament could see going forward, and with how much it’s grown in just the two years — although there may be another fundraising tournament coming up in the spring — he had an early warning for those who many be interested in playing next year.

“I’ll say this — next year you’d better sign up early if you want to get a spot in this tournament,” he said. “You’d better sign up early.”