Lisa and Paul Knechtel, badminton players and coaches, have shared their skills with North Carolina and Alaska students for the last two decades. They’ve brought in top Olympic athletes and coaches, opened school and community facilities for play, and spent untold hours getting students excited about this racket sport.
Meet Lisa Ward-Knechtel, a retired public school Physical Education/Health Teacher. She started a badminton program in a North Carolina middle school in the 2000’s where badminton became as popular as basketball. She was a frequent presenter in badminton sessions at State, District, and National SHAPE America conventions for Physical Education. A competitive player on the national level, she is also a Director on the Board of the United States Badminton Education Foundation.
A retired business professional, Paul Knechtel is a Certified Level 1 Coach in Canada and a successful national competitor in Canada and the U.S. The Canadian Eskimos introduced him to badminton in 1970. He holds 9 titles in U.S. Nationals Men’s Singles and Men’s Doubles in the 50+, 55+, 60+, and 65+ age groups, and 3 titles in the U.S. Senior International MS and MD in the 45+, 65+, and 70+ age groups. Paul moved to the U.S. and brought his badminton passion with him. He made forays to schools, giving clinics and demonstrations. On one such trip, he met Lisa Ward, who had established a badminton program in her middle school as part of her P.E. classes.
Paul coached club teams at both Duke and North Carolina State University. He established the badminton clubs, Badminton RTP and North Carolina Badminton. He also co-founded Badminton North Carolina, a dedicated for-profit facility in Raleigh-Durham, NC. In 2004, Paul created the non-profit, Beyond the Classroom, which brought guest speakers into classrooms. Those guest speakers included Olympian Kevin Han and 2005 World Champions Howard Bach and Tony Gunawan. This program led Paul to use his badminton passion to channel his efforts into Badminton Goes Viral.org in 2017 with Lisa.
Badminton Goes Viral.org is a youth-oriented program that creates fun and healthy lifestyles. The program works well in schools as a P.E. event, a workshop, an in-class student instruction, or a school assembly. Local badminton clubs like the Alaskan Villages Project pull in the involvement of Alaskan village Tribal Councils. A playbook to replicate the BGV program can be found on the website. There are a handful of other sites in the lower 48 states.
The Alaska State Badminton School Team Championships are held annually on the first Saturday in April. This tournament was started in 2018 with 6 schools and 40 players participating. In 2019, the tournament increased to 24 schools and 165 players, with 2022 pulling in 275 players. The Alaskan State Championships included middle school and elementary students initially, but high school students were added after several years. A new format was introduced in 2022 with players in either A, B, or C level events, and a round-robin for the first round of games lasting 10 minutes. Howard Bach, along with Olympian Iris Wang, and badminton coach Kyle Emerick, joined the tournament players one season to demonstrate and encourage players for success. The tournament makes the sport fun and gets more kids involved than just the usual athletic types. Between 30K and 40K students have picked up a racket in Alaska, astoundingly about 5% of the population of the state.
The Knechtel team refers to the Chinese proverb: “Teachers open the door, but you must walk through it yourself.” They continue to see lots of enthusiasm, inclusion, and participation of all students, and a community connection with adults. A school Athletic Director emailed the Knechtels, “We love the ‘great equalizer’ part.” A curriculum coordinator in another school district observed, “I see kids playing, competing, and enjoying, kids who I have never seen before participating.”
The Knechtels have been promoting badminton in Alaska for the last eight years, but they are approaching their last twelve months with this project. They’re leaving behind a huge statewide badminton program. Teachers, students, and parents have discovered a new way to have fun and stay healthy, thanks to the passionate coaches, Paul and Lisa!
Ideas and observations Paul and Lisa have learned in Alaska are important to badminton everywhere:
© 1995-2025. All Rights Reserved. Stan Bischof (stan@worldbadminton.com). Last updated 26 April 2025 20:33.