Will Howells climbed from amateur pickleball to one of Major League Pickleball’s strongest franchises in less than two years. Now the game changes. The next phase of his career is not about arriving. It is about proving he belongs among the sport’s elite every week.
Key Takeaways
- Will Howells’ rise from a corporate career to Major League Pickleball has been one of the fastest recent ascents in the professional game.
- The APP Tour gave Howells the competition and repetitions required to turn his tennis background into a sustainable pickleball career.
- His next test is establishing himself as a consistently decisive player across the deeper PPA Tour and MLP environments.
- Howells was speaking on the latest Pickleballers podcast
Most professional athletes spend years trying to reach the highest level.
Will Howells did it in less than two.
That timeline has become so remarkable that it risks disguising the harder story now unfolding.
Breaking into professional pickleball is no longer his biggest challenge.
Staying there is.
The former Division I tennis player has already completed the journey many aspiring professionals never manage. He discovered pickleball in August 2023, rapidly established himself on the APP Tour, earned opportunities inside the PPA ecosystem and became an increasingly trusted member of Major League Pickleball’s New Jersey 5s.
For many players, that would represent the destination.
For Howells, it is only the beginning.
Professional pickleball has changed dramatically during his rise. The gap between being a successful professional and becoming one of the players who consistently influences championship weekends continues to widen.
Every new arrival eventually reaches the same moment, when raw athleticism, confidence and momentum stop being enough.
That moment appears to have arrived for Howells.
The APP Was Never The Finish Line
One of the easiest mistakes in modern pickleball is treating the APP Tour as simply a stepping stone.
For Howells, it was considerably more important than that.
The APP gave him exactly what every developing professional needs: meaningful repetitions against strong opposition without immediately demanding perfection every weekend.
It allowed him to experiment, build partnerships and discover which parts of his tennis background genuinely transferred to pickleball and which required rebuilding.
His men’s doubles title in Punta Gorda alongside CJ Clinger and finals appearance with James Ignatowich were not merely résumé builders.
They demonstrated that he could win tournaments rather than simply compete in them.
That distinction mattered.
Howells had grown up in Richmond, Virginia, before moving to Florida at thirteen to train at the Saviano Tennis Academy. He became a top-15 junior in the United States and later played Division I tennis while studying finance at Notre Dame.
An ankle injury disrupted the professional tennis route that once appeared possible. After university, Howells spent eighteen months working in alcohol distribution in Milwaukee before returning to Florida and discovering pickleball.
The APP Tour did not produce a finished player.
It produced one ready for a much more demanding examination.
The PPA Does Not Let Players Hide
The PPA Tour asks fundamentally different questions.
Opponents recognise patterns more quickly.
Neutral balls disappear faster.
Poor decisions are punished with greater consistency.
Players who overwhelm opponents in less established fields suddenly discover that everyone across the net possesses comparable athleticism and equally dangerous weapons.
Improvement also becomes less obvious.
Instead of learning entirely new shots, players refine the margins. They disguise attacks, improve their movement through transition, choose better moments to accelerate and accept that winning ugly can be more valuable than winning spectacularly.
Howells’ aggressive hands and willingness to attack give him a route into those matches. His flick, developed partly through early drilling work with James Ignatowich, can create offence from positions opponents expect to remain neutral.
But elite pickleball increasingly rewards players who know precisely when not to attack.
The tools that help a rising player overwhelm opponents early in his career do not always remain sufficient once the leading professionals understand where the attacks are coming from.
Nobody doubts Howells belongs in this environment.
The challenge is becoming indispensable within it.
Why New Jersey Matters
There may be no better place to test Howells’ development than the New Jersey 5s.
Championship contenders do not carry passengers.
Every position matters. Every partnership is analysed. Every weakness becomes a target.
Howells has answered many of those questions impressively.
His mixed doubles partnership with Jorja Johnson compiled a 15-6 record before New Jersey strengthened its roster in July. The combination became one of the team’s most dependable, providing balance alongside Anna Leigh Waters and Noe Khlif.
His men’s doubles partnership with Khlif was less dominant, producing a 14-12 record and leaving the clearest opening inside an otherwise formidable line-up.
St. Louis Shock exposed the consequence when it swept New Jersey in the MLP Mid-Season Tournament final.
New Jersey responded by acquiring Federico Staksrud and Milan Rane from Orlando Squeeze.
The obvious interpretation was that the 5s had added another star.
The more revealing detail was that they retained Howells.
As WPM examined following the deal, New Jersey acquired Staksrud without breaking apart either of its successful mixed doubles partnerships.
General manager Ryan Harwood made the organisation’s position clear, explaining that it had been important to retain both Howells and Khlif because they deserved to remain part of any championship success.
New Jersey wanted to improve its men’s options.
It did not decide Howells was expendable.
The 5s’ continued investment in him reflects how much value elite teams place on more than isolated results. Howells gives New Jersey athleticism, partnership flexibility and a player still young enough in pickleball terms to possess considerable development ahead of him.
The official New Jersey 5s team page places him inside one of the most visible and heavily scrutinised environments in professional pickleball.
That attention is both an opportunity and a test.
The Luxury Of Surprise Does Not Last Forever
Every rapidly improving player enjoys a period when opponents are still learning their game.
That advantage eventually disappears.
Video accumulates. Scouting improves. Patterns become familiar. The surprise factor vanishes.
The next stage depends upon adaptation.
Can the player continue evolving faster than everyone else adjusts?
That question now sits at the centre of Howells’ career.
His explosive hands remain among his greatest strengths. His willingness to take balls early and generate offence creates pressure few opponents enjoy facing.
But the difference between mixed and men’s doubles also reveals the next layer of his development.
Alongside Johnson, Howells operates within a partnership that gives him clear opportunities to impose his aggression. Johnson’s consistency, coverage and ability to absorb pressure allow him to look for attacks without carrying the entire construction of the point.
Men’s doubles frequently offers less space and less time.
Both opponents can counter. Attacks return faster. An ambitious speed-up that creates pressure in mixed doubles can become an invitation against two elite men with their paddles prepared.
The question is therefore not whether Howells should become less aggressive.
It is whether he can make that aggression more selective, disguised and difficult to anticipate.
That judgement often separates excellent professionals from players who repeatedly reach championship matches.
A Career Already Rewritten
Only a few years ago, Howells appeared destined for a conventional career after his time at Notre Dame.
Today he travels the professional circuit, competes alongside some of pickleball’s biggest names and plays for a franchise built to win the MLP title.
That transformation alone makes his story remarkable.
It also explains why expectations can become distorted.
When a player rises this quickly, every subsequent step appears slower by comparison.
Professional sport rarely works that way.
The higher a player climbs, the smaller the margins become. Improvement is measured over seasons rather than months. Consistency becomes more valuable than occasional breakthroughs.
Howells has already demonstrated that his APP success was not an illusion.
He has won inside MLP, formed a productive partnership with one of the sport’s leading women and retained the trust of a franchise with the resources to replace almost anyone.
Those are meaningful achievements.
They do not remove the harder questions.
The Next Two Years Will Define Him
Will Howells has already answered one important question.
Can he become a professional pickleball player?
Unequivocally, yes.
The next question is considerably more difficult.
Can he establish himself as one of the players around whom franchises are built rather than simply one they are pleased to have?
The APP Tour proved he belonged in professional pickleball.
Major League Pickleball has shown he can contribute to one of the sport’s strongest teams.
The PPA Tour will determine whether his weapons, decisions and partnerships can hold up repeatedly against the deepest opposition available.
Breaking through brought Howells attention.
Remaining among the elite will require answers after every opponent knows exactly how dangerous he can be.
Further Reading
- Latest pickleball news from around the world
- Tournament coverage and results
- Rankings and player profiles
- Regional pickleball coverage
Chris Beaumont
Founder and Editor-in-ChiefChris Beaumont is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of World Pickleball Magazine. Chris follows the global game closely, reporting on the latest news, developments, stories and tournaments from all five continents. He also hosts the World Pickleball Podcast, interviewing people at…
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