Jan. 28, 2022
Dylan Frazier, a sophomore from Ashland, Missouri, fell in love with pickleball quickly — almost as soon as he picked up a paddle at age 14. Now he is a nationally ranked professional, competing at the sport’s highest level and well on his way to an accounting degree at the University of Missouri Trulaske College of Business.
“It wasn't that hard to learn the game and find people around my level to play competitively against,” Frazier said.
Dylan Frazier plays in a recent pickleball tournament in Newport Beach.
Frazier started out playing at Albert-Oakland Park in Columbia for the Show-Me Pickleball Club, and soon in the Show-Me State Games. As his skill progressed and he climbed the ranks, he met a sponsor in Dave Johnson, a College of Business alumnus and founder of Chicken N Pickle, a growing national chain of pickleball-centered entertainment complexes.
“Whenever people first meet [Dylan], he's very unassuming and very humble,” said Mary Beth Marrs, associate teaching professor at the College of Business and the director of the Cornell Leadership Program. “But when they see him play, they understand why he's ranked so highly on the professional pickleball circuit.”
Frazier works as a tennis and pickleball instructor at the Club at Old Hawthorne in Columbia. He plans to pursue a traditional accounting job upon graduating from the College of Business in the spring of 2023 but will always be open to the idea of continuing his professional pickleball career.
