Meet Erik Lange and Purple Jesus – A Story of Opposites Attracting
Photo Credit for feature image to both Major League Pickleball (MLP) and the Association of Pickleball Players (APP).
One of my new favorite partnerships to watch this year was Erik Lange and Max “Purple Jesus” Manthou.
They have great chemistry, play hard for each other, respect the game and their opponents, and it always looks like they are having a good time – Win or lose.
I was able to sit down with both of them ahead of the 2025 pickleball year and get to know their stories. Come along for the journey!
Upbringing and sports
Max and Erik both grew up on the Pacific North West (PNW). Max grew up in Kent, Washington, and moved to Tacoma when he was 16 years old.
Max’s mother’s father was drafted into the NFL, but went to World War II instead. His son, Max’s uncle, played basketball at Washington State. While he didn’t get his athleticism directly from his parents, Manthou definitely has athletes in the family.
After a near death drowning experience at his uncle’s house at the age of five, Max’s parents got him swimming lessons the next summer. It just so happened he took swimming lessons at the Kent Swim and Tennis Club. That summer, he also started playing tennis – AND NEVER STOPPED.
Max got good very quickly. The 2010 high school graduate was never ranked outside the top 50 of his graduating class nationwide, according to tennisrecruiting.net. He was a five start recruit and had multiple Big 10 offers, University of Washington, and Harvard.
He won the state title in AAAA in Washington all four years of his high school career, and was even named an All-American by the National High School Tennis All-America Foundation.
Max chose the University of Washington, and so began the legend of “Purple Jesus”.
Erik grew up in Eugene Oregon, and started playing tennis at a young age as well. He played a ton and as he got into high school he started working at Courtside Tennis and Apparel, stringing racquets and helping out where needed.
While he was a very good player, Erik was not the star high school tennis athlete that Max was. Erik chose the “safer” route of going to the University of Oregon and studying Sports Marketing, rather than going to a D2 or D3 school and playing college tennis.
Erik regrets that decision a little bit because it forced him to ask himself “what if?” after his schooling was done, and he was working in Corporate America.
“One of the biggest regrets is not playing college tennis at a D2 or D3. But, it turns out, not having those four or five years of wear and tear on my body, probably has helped me stay as relevant in pro pickleball now into my 40’s.”
College Tennis for Max
Max’s Stats at the University of Washington
Max had a great collegiate tennis career, highlighted by the following accolades.
Playing Honors:
- Made the NCAA tourney the first three years of his career
- 2013 – ITA Northwest Regional Championships semifinalist – Singles
- 2012 – ITA Northwest Regional Championships semifinalist – Doubles (Emmett Egger)
- 2014 – ITA Northwest Region – Most Improved Senior
Academic Honors:
- ITA Academic All-American all four years in a row
- Pac-12 All Academic Team – 2012, 2013, 2014
During his senior year, Manthou was captain of the Huskies tennis team. He went 12-9 in singles at both the No. 1 and 2 slots. He also earned the ITA Northwest Region Most Improved Senior award.
Life after college
Erik graduated college in 2002 and immediately got into the business of racquet sports. He owned and operated six different racquet stores with other owners and friends.
On a personal level, shortly after graduating from college, Erik married his longtime girlfriend, Beth, who he has been married to for 22 years now.
Erik and Beth have two children, 17-year-old Mia, and 14-year-old Evan. Throughout my entire conversation with Erik, he continuously referenced back to his family – the love he has for them, the joy they provide him, and their continued support for him.
Back to business – Erik just continued in racquet sports throughout his entire career. The last position he held was with HEAD Racquet Sports – the very well known tennis, racquetball, and pickleball brand. Lange was a Regional Sales Manager, in charge of the entire western United States.
For Erik, life after college was a very “quintessential” American story. Married his college sweetheart, had two kids, and continued in a career he had been a part of since his teenage years. A very safe and steady career with roots put down as a family.
Part of the title of this article is “Opposites Attract” – and this section of the article is the biggest highlight of this.
Max could not have had a more different path after college. Between 2014 and 2020, Max had some of the craziest experiences in life.
Do you know anyone that speaks English, Spanish, and Indonesian fluently? Max speaks all three.
Do you know anyone who just picked a spot on a map (called Bolivia) and became a PUMA TRAINER for a few months? Max did that.
Yes, Max trained pumas in the jungle of Bolivia, by walking them on large leashes for hours a day in the jungle.
Do you know anyone who traveled the world volunteering in such places as a potato farm and several hostels, while meeting amazing friends? Max did that.
Do you know anyone who joined the Peace Corps to teach English in Indonesia, without really knowing the language, and lived with a host family and became fluent within two years? Max did that.
Do you know anyone who moved into a house with boys from Central America and taught them English and life skills, while their visa paperwork was being processed? Max did that.
During this time, Max also decided he wanted to become an Anthropologist (Of course he did – how did I not see that coming?). So he went to Illinois State in the fall of 2021 and did a Master’s Degree in Anthropology. This is where Max found pickleball.
By the way, Max also did some other things at Illinois State. He was in the inaugural national collegiate national championships in poker, and he went to nationals in table tennis as well.
Finding Pickleball
Erik found pickleball through his work with HEAD. He realized as pickleball became more popular around 2017/2018, he was in charge of selling HEAD branded stuff, and he didn’t even know the rules of the game. So he just started playing recreationally at first.
As he got better and better, he played more regional tournaments and HEAD was always super supportive of his playing career while working full-time for them.
Max actually started playing pickleball at Illinois State, recreationally. As a former high level athlete, Max didn’t realize how much he missed the competitive aspect of sports until he started playing pickleball. He didn’t take it too seriously, but had fun competing.
Max moved back to Washington after he finished his Master’s Degree. His Master’s thesis was obviously related to pickleball. It was titled, “Non-Zero Sum Sport: Pickleball and the Theory of Coopetition”. It is 149 pages.
If you don’t have time to read that, Max wrote a much more reader friendly novel and published it in October of 2024. It is titled, “A Pickleball Gospel: The Harmony of Competition and Cooperation in Sport”. You can buy it on Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover, or Audible. I have listened to it on Audible and I find the writing to be fascinating and this concept of “coopetition” to be very insightful and though provoking.
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Pro Pickleball and Finding Each Other
Erik was on the pro scene much sooner than Max. He has been playing PPA Tour and APP Tour events for over three years. In fact, at the age of 42, Erik arguably had his best career year in 2023. He was drafted to the Chicago Slice in Major League Pickleball and had some outstanding team wins at big time events.
In fact, late 2022 and early 2023 were going so well that Erik had to make a decision. Did he want to take the safe route and keep his corporate job with HEAD and fall behind the professional competition in the next year or two? Or maybe give pro pickleball a real go at it – switching to that full-time.
I think the decision to not play college tennis influenced his decision in pickleball, and in May of 2023, he quit his full-time job at HEAD to pursue pickleball full-time. Kind of a “give it everything you have, while you have it” type of attitude. Beth and the kids full supported this kind of crazy idea to quit the steady job for full-time pickleball. I would say that decision has paid off in spades.
Max played some local PNW pro tournaments in late 2023, but nothing the nationwide audience would have seen. In fact, I didn’t even know Max’s name until early 2024.
This is where Steve Paranto came into play. If that name sounds familiar, it is because Steve was inducted into the Pickleball Hall of Fame in 2019 for all of his contributions to the game.
Steve knew Erik and he knew Max. Of course, he has a couple of courts at his home, because what pickleball Hall of Famer wouldn’t have courts at their house? He invited both of them over to play for the first time in early 2024, and they immediately had a connection.
Erik and Max immediately hit it off. Erik is known as one of the nicest guys in pro pickleball from everyone I talk to. Max makes immediate first impressions on people where you say to yourself, this guy is something special, and I want to be around him more.
Erik and Max found a coach in Travis Rood, where both of them can practice and drill and work hard at the sport they love. Max drives two hours each way, twice a week to play with Erik and other PNW pros. They train hard with guys like Jason Bock, Spencer Lanier, Clayton Powell, Wes Gabrielson, among others. Max and Erik both credit Travis with a lot of their success this year and Max even argued that Travis is the best pickleball coach in the country.
Playing Together in 2024
Immediately after meeting, Erik and Max started playing together. They first had success at the APP Miami Open, where they earned a bronze medal. Directly after that, Erik was drafted to the SoCal Hard Eights in the Major League Pickleball Challenger Level, and had some say in the Hard Eights drafting Max with their last pick.
Here are some results of Erik and Max playing together in 2024:
APP Tour
- OWL Newport Beach Open – 10/23-10/27 – GOLD – Men’s Doubles
- APP Dallas Open – 10/9-10/13 – GOLD – Men’s Doubles
- Zimmer Biomet APP Chicago Open – 8/28- 9/1 – BRONZE – Men’s Doubles
- OWL APP Newport Beach Open (MAJOR) – 7/3-7/7 – GOLD – Men’s Doubles
- Chase APP Miami Open – 3/19-3/24 – BRONZE – Men’s Doubles
On the APP Tour, Max has also won gold in mixed with Christine Maddox. Max has also won a bronze medal in singles as well.
Major League Pickleball
- As members of the SoCal Hard Eights, they finished third in the playoffs, and second in the regular standings, earning promotion to Premier Level in 2025.
- As a men’s doubles unit, they went 17-6 in their 23 matches together, making them the winningest men’s doubles team in all of Challenger Level, with a 74% win percentage.
- Additionally, Erik and Yana Newell, his regular mixed doubles partner found a lot of success while playing together with the SoCal Hard Eights.
Other Competitions
- Max and Erik went to England and actually won the English Open in August of 2024, beating Richard Livornese, Jr. and Jack Munro. Max also won gold in singles at the event.
- Erik and Max earned a silver medal in the USA Pickleball Nationals, held in Mesa, AZ earlier this year.
Future Outlook
2025 is looking bright for the dynamic and odd duo. It’s not every day you watch men’s doubles and a 5’8” guy is playing a big left side and a 43 year old 6’3” player is counter attacking every speedup from the right side, sending it straight down at your feet.
Just like the people they are, their playing style is also unique. If you get a chance to watch these two men play pickleball, I highly encourage you to do so. You will see a genuine love for the sport that is unmatched, a high degree of competitiveness, and a genuine affection for each other and the people closest to them.
To close, I will use a variation of Max’s favorite word: serendipity.
While Erik and Max meeting was serendipitous, their friendship and partnership have both grown exponentially in the year or so since they have known each other. 2025 is looking to be a phenomenal year for these players that are still getting better together each and every week.
