By dawn’s early light…. The Paterson Club, Fairfield, NJ

Rex Savorum, paddle enthusiast, reported from The Paterson Club (Fairfield, CT):

If it’s true that “necessity is the Mother of invention,” then jam-packed weekend calendars for families in Fairfield County, Connecticut, was the catalysis for starting Sunrise Paddle. Beginning the week before Daylight Savings Time, and running through mid-March, a hardy group of passionate paddlers arrive in the paddle hut at 5:30 AM on Saturday mornings for coffee, donuts and stretching.

Accompanied by an eclectic mix of Rock, Blues, Punk, Reggae and (very little) Rap music piped out to the platform courts, play starts at 6:00 AM sharp and normally runs to 8:00 AM, or whenever the blinding early morning winter sunrise makes it near impossible to play. This unique “paddle cult,” now going into its third year at The Patterson Club (Fairfield, CT), started with a member e-mail blast to over 100 fellow paddlers that make up Patterson’s Men’s Paddle League. While there were many humorous and rather “colorful” replies nixing the idea, there were four paddlers willing to give it a go.

Through the club’s monthly newsletter the original four gained further notoriety and support through the paraphrasing of the legendary Grantland Rice:

Outlined against the ebon pre-dawn sky of winter, the Four Horsemen ride again. In dramatic- lore they ore known as Famine, Pestilence Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Joe Murphy, Matt Terry, Sean Kelley and Mike Hoover.

They form the crest of The Patterson Club’s newest paddle tennis movement: Sunrise Paddle. While it’s not a sanctioned league per se, some narcoleptic slumberous skeptics refer to it as a radical movement (or even a cult). Devotees affectionately call it: “The Dawn Patrol.”

Within the first weeks of play, the number of participants doubled and then quickly tripled. The goal of the founders was reached as all platform courts are full in the predawn hours most Saturday mornings. It seems the growing “paddle mania” at The Patterson Club is becoming a 365 days/year activity as play has now carried over into the summer months… Sunrise Paddle has now given birth to “Summer Paddle”. The goal this upcoming winter paddle season is to host the first Sunrise Paddle inter-club match.

Source: Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol. 7, Issue 2, November, 2005