Alternating between teasing her teammates and turning up the intensity, Callie Jo Smith showed RootsTech attendees how she has become one of the top professional pickleball players in the world during an exhibition at the Salt Palace Convention Center.
A pickleball court was placed on the floor of the Expo Hall, allowing people to take a turn with friends and family members during Family Discovery Day on Saturday, March 2.
The world’s largest family history conference became a place for people to make new memories centered around sports — and hear from Smith’s example of how sports connects her family through generations.
“My grandpa got our whole family into tennis,” said Smith, who played tennis for the University of Utah. “He made one of the biggest differences in my life.”
On long road trips to tournaments, she learned the value of family time and traditions from her father. Through injuries, she learned perseverance and problem-solving from her mother. “I have so many memories of sports,” she said.
So how did a tennis champion become a pickleball pro? Through another grandfather — this time on her husband’s side.
“I hated pickleball,” she laughed. “I was coaching tennis, and these pickleball people were taking over my courts. I said I would never be caught dead with a pickleball paddle in my hand.”
But when her husband’s grandfather invited her to play — and she and her husband lost a game to a couple twice their age — her competitive side kicked in and she became hooked.
“It’s really cool to see how sports can influence our family through generations,” she said, sharing how so many moments of time were spent that provided opportunities for those relationships to grow. She loves those memories and wants to have them with her children.
Her husband, Kyle Smith, agreed.
“We have been to so many sporting events with so many family members and it is a part of who we are,” he said. “We wanted our kids to continue on and be a big part of sports because of all the life lessons that can be learned.”
Gospel lessons, too, he said, sharing how being consistent in practicing a sport has a parallel to spirituality — consistency in Church attendance, scripture study, prayer and more.
“Sports can be a way to teach those lessons,” he said.
Food and family history
Near the pickleball court in the expo hall was a booth designed to look like a corner of a kitchen.
Food is another way to build traditions and memories and pass on family history, explained Si Foster, a cookbook author, blogger and RootsTech presenter.
Foster — who will begin serving as a mission leader with her husband in the Philippines Urdaneta Mission in July — said she loves the idea of telling the stories of food.
“I think there are so many stories that get lost in our history that have to do with food. It is such a great connector. I want people to understand that it is not difficult to record your food story, and there are so many ways to do it,” she said.
Several companies exhibiting at RootsTech showed how to record recipes and stories and keep them in an online collection or make them into books. Other options include posting photos and videos to social media of different dishes and allowing family members to comment with memories.
Bonnie Wade Mucia came to RootsTech from South Carolina to learn more about the latest tools in genealogy. She has a box of original recipes from her Italian mother-in-law and wanted some way to preserve them.
She said she is looking forward to having her daughter help put the recipes into a book for the grandchildren. “It is really important. They don’t have the recipe cards from their grandmother and they need them.”
Christopher Bradford noted how much tradition in families is around food.
“One of the things that I love about it is it is one of the key ways where international roots get preserved. My mother is German, and we have certain German foods that I grew up with that I am now passing on to my children. It is one of the key things that connects them back to their heritage. I love that element of tradition around food and family.”
Recording recipes becomes a way to record family history, Foster said. “I want people to keep that memory and record that memory before a person like a grandmother or an aunt — or in my case, my mom — is gone.”
