Charlie Kirk’s mentor dead in freak pickleball incident

The man they called Charlie Kirk‘s mentor has died after suffering a serious head injury while engaged in a game of pickleball. Jeff Webb, 76, was a key figure in early conservative media, and helped guide the young Kirk through the formation of Turning Point USA.

Webb’s connection to Kirk was underlined when he stood alongside Kirk’s family as Trump posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He claimed that Kirk “may well have been a future American president,” but, alas, a sniper’s bullet put a sudden and incredibly violent end to those ambitions.

Webb’s own end was somewhat less dramatic but rather strange. As per a report in Cheer! Daily (“your ultimate destination for all things cheerleading”), Webb was innocently enjoying a harmless game of pickleball two weeks ago when a freakish disaster struck in which Webb suffered a serious head injury.

ICYMI — Charlie Kirk’s mentor, conservative activist Jeff Webb, dies while falling during pickleball. Webb was present at the White House when Kirk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Following Kirk’s assassination, Webb said we lost a future president.… pic.twitter.com/vaa3fK9kMR

— Toria Brooke ☘️ (@realtoriabrooke) March 22, 2026

He was hospitalized and placed on life support, but after two weeks had passed and there were no signs of recovery, his family made the gut-wrenching decision to pull the plug.

The father of modern cheerleading

Aside from orchestrating the rise of one of America’s loudest conservative voices, Webb was also considered the father of modern cheerleading. In 1974, he launched the Universal Cheerleaders Association, which went on to become the Varsity Spirit organization that runs competitions, training camps, and sells merch.

His ambition was, apparently, to make cheerleading an Olympic sport. He got as far as the International Olympic Committee recognizing cheerleading, but it seems like it’ll still be a long route to pom-poms at Olympic stadiums.

Turning Point USA also provided its own tribute, saying Webb helped mold the organization into what it is today, saying he was “a visionary who helped shape generations of young leaders” and that he was “a dear friend to Turning Point USA and Charlie.”

It’s fair to say both Kirk and Turning Point USA simply wouldn’t have gotten as far as they did without Webb’s support. Who knows where the world of conservative media would be without him boosting Kirk to national attention, or how history may have turned out differently for Kirk? I suppose we’ll never know.

One thing’s for sure, if there’s a pickleball court in the afterlife, Webb is playing there right now with a squadron of drop-dead gorgeous teenage cheerleaders giving an Olympic-worthy acrobatic performance at the side of the court.