Sunday, August 27, 2023 (Court Day #605)

It was a sunny morning and you could tell it was going to be a very warm day. Fortunately, the fog later rolled in for a short time and kept it from getting too hot, too soon.

When I arrived at the courts at 8:45 a.m. Little Barb was there warming up with two people on the court and then there were two other players warming up on a different court. There’s a far cry compared to last Sunday when all the courts were in use by the time I arrived.

Still, it would prove to be a busy day. Andrew McLeod, who is on the SCPC board, said that he counted 56 people. There was enough at one point that I blew my whistle and changed the games to 9 win by 1, instead of 11 and win by 2. Everyone hates the 9 point limit, but it was good to rotate the games faster.

Overall?

I was not pleased with my play today. I played well against the run-of-the-mill players, but when Eric Schmidt and I played against Charles and Tony, Eric and I lost in a lopsided fashion. Eric had told me he has been out a lot due to problems with his feet, though that is improving. Eric and I should have given them a run for their money. It was frustrating.

By the time I left the sun and burnt off about noon and I left at 2 p.m. A group of Asian students arrived along with their friends, some recent graduates from UCSC. They were enjoying the game, rotating in and out on a single court. One of the recent grads, Spencer, offered to help me take down a net. I appreciated the help and showed him how to do it.

When I left, four courts were still in use.

Sigh

I spent the afternoon depressed. I was not happy with my play. Sure, I was in the top 6 of the 50-60 players, but I was not playing my best and making way too many errors.

Monday, August 28, 2023 (No Play)

I posted in the USA Pickleball Ambassadors Facebook group this morning about our city saying they don’t have room for more pickleball courts.

An ambassador named Larry Obermann shared a data tidbit and I searched online and found the source:
https://sfia.org/resources/pickleball-sees-unprecedented-growth-will-require-25000-courts-built-900-million-investment-to-keep-up-with-demand/

The Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA) estimates that meeting the demand for additional courts nationwide will require more than $900 million to construct 25,784 courts.

In the local pickleball Facebook group, Greg Julien pointed out that the City of Santa Cruz subsidizes another sport—golf—at the DeLaveaga Golf Course to the tune of $700,000 annually. That could build a lot of pickleball courts!

Fancy Pickleball set

This popped up this morning, “Louis Vuitton Indonesia released a limited Pickleball set valued at nearly $100,000 USD”:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwTF82yg39t/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
That’s a hard pass for me. And I bet the paddles aren’t USA Pickleball approved either!

Number of days on a court: 605
Number of total hours: 2,662
Number of paid coaching hours: 2

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