Thursday, July 14, 2022 (Court Day #516)
My alarm went off at 5 a.m. California time, that is, 6 a.m. local New Mexico time. I quietly got up in the very dim hotel room and got ready trying not to wake up my sleeping wife. I was out the door and arrived at Apodaca Park a few minutes before the start time of 6:30 a.m. given to me by USA Pickleball ambassador Laura Smart. The courts were deserted. I got out and walked around. There were eight permanent courts that appeared to be in very good condition.
When I returned to my rental car, I started composing an email to Laura asking for clarification since I was alone. But then a car pulled up. This turned out to be another player, Mona, a recent transplant to Las Cruces from New York via Southern Florida. (Coincidentally, our rental car license plates are from Florida!)
Mona and I warmed up for about 10-15 minutes then Alicia arrived and added her in our continued warm ups. When a man named Pat arrived, we had ourselves a game.
One of the local players said that they play during winter too and they break a lot of balls in the cold. Las Cruces gets some weather extremes, apparently.
The local convention is the two losers leave the court, the winners split, and two new players join one each of the winners.
As time went on, additional players arrived peaking at about 15 players. An early arrival was retired university history and wildlife professor Paul—I learned later that Paul is 80-years-old. Big credit to Paul! Jeff arrived and Pat warned that he’s a good player.
I won my first three games, then with Paul as my partner against Virginia and Jeff, we lost 12-10, my only loss of the day.
Ambassador
Laura Smart arrived mid-morning and introduced herself from across the divider. She later said she was also a referee. I asked her if she knew Maree Creed—a Santa Cruz-based ref who travels nationally to officiate tournaments—and she said that she did. I told her that Maree was one of the first people to teach me pickleball five and a half years ago. Laura broke into a big smile no doubt about how small the world is.
I went on to play more games, rotating players in and out and with only one loss, my time sitting and waiting was minimal.
Compliments
I received a couple of nice compliments. Jeff said, “You are always were you need to be.” And after one game, Marty observed, “You played what was the most mistake free game I think I’ve ever seen.”
Laura asked if I’d consider playing up in a tournament with a local female player. (I’d told Laura in my original message to her that I’m a 3.5 tournament player.) That local player is 4.0 60-year-old. Maybe it’d work out, though a bit of a long-shot. That’d be a first, partnering with a non-local player that I don’t know. Regardless, it was a nice compliment.
My last game was with a man named Marty against Laura and Virginia. Marty and I gave them a bunch of points—I probably gave them three myself, nothing like a compliment to make you lazy and over-confident!—and we fell behind significantly. But I got a bit more focused and we came back and won.
It was 85°F when I left the courts with Laura and Virginia at 10:15 a.m. It was indeed warm today, but not as bad as I was expecting—granted, it was still early morning.
Number of days on a court: 516
Number of total hours: 2,378
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