Sunday, December 10, 2023 (No Play)
Today was last day of teaching for 2023, the final day of my 4-week beginner class.
Sporting Goods
I stopped by Play It Again Sports and picked up some target cones for “serve deep, return deep” drill. While there, one of the clerks was explaining pickleball paddles to a middle-aged man and two woman about the same age. This is my second visit in a row where customers congregating at the pickleball paddles wall. When I asked the cashier if pickleball was popular, he said, “It is around here!”
Class
Two of my students were out, leaving six of the eight enrolled. As I’d planned, we worked on serving deep and returning deep and also worked on block volleys. It was a bittersweet day. The end of a successful class series. I got three hugs, seems like I did a good job!
Newspaper
A sign that pickleball is getting more popular, this appeared in an advertising insert for Big 5 Sporting Goods in the paper today:
Monday, December 11, 2023 (No Play)
Some big news over the weekend, the “bad boy of tennis”, Nick Kyrgios, told a crowd in Miami over the weekend that he’d start playing pickleball after his tennis career is done. Nick is a top-15 tennis player in the world, and won the doubles title at the Australian Open last year. He also played in the Wimbledon singles final last year as well. He has reputation for a temper and questionable sportsmanship with throwing racquets, taunting, and arguing. I’m sure it’ll bring a lot of attention to pickleball if Kyrgios does indeed cross over.
New Paddle
Last month, Aidas came out with a new paddle—”Metalbone”—that’s unique in that on the sides of the paddle, just above the handle along the edge, are metal holes for three screws that can be add or removed depending on the player’s preferences in regard to balance. Gimmick? Maybe. It seems that they could/should have added holes at the top and the middle of the edges as well. It seems to me that there isn’t all that much difference adding weights only within an inch or so of each other.
Tuesday, December 12, 2023 (Court Day #614)
PT
I had left work about 5:15 p.m. today and headed to physical therapy. During physical therapy they were doing exercises they were more demanding on my knee certain motions were causing pain, although on a scale of 1 to 10 topped out at about a 3. Nonetheless, it was uncomfortable for those exercises.
I left physical therapy and popped across the road, and parked on the dirt off to the side of the courts. (Parking that is proposed to be eliminated.) It was a colder night so initially there were only a few people there. Though more people came later.
Bad News
I am going to jump to the important news of the night. SCPC President Mark Dettle stopped play to make an announcement. He said that he had gone to the Scotts Valley Parks & Rec meeting and there had been some disturbing developments. They decided that the lights for the courts would go off at 8 p.m. for most of the week with the exception of maybe Friday and Saturday which would likely continue until 9:30 p.m. There is also the decision to eliminate the parking along the side of, and also behind, the courts which would eliminate about 10 to 12 parking spots.
I don’t think that eliminating parking is a good idea because players will just park in the neighborhood and take up on-street parking instead. (That has to be more annoying for the neighbors!) Turning off the lights will definitely eliminate playing after that time. That is very unfortunate. People like me, who normally wouldn’t be able to arrive until closer to 7 p.m., we would only be playing for an hour. That barely makes it worthwhile to go . . . but I believe that may be their goal. During the summer, it will stay naturally light until almost 9 p.m., but that is only for a short portion of the year.
Mark went on to say Parks & Rec will be talking to the school district about adding lights to the courts over at Scotts Valley High School. The school has a lot of parking—though it’s not right next to the courts—so that could be a positive development, but we will see.
Even with eight courts, there were still about a dozen people waiting to get on and play. The dry erase board was out and in use.
My play tonight was a mix of frustration and satisfaction. I hit the net at least 4-5 times. I served one of my serves into the net and another one that sailed long.
Sunday, December 17, 2023 (No Play)
New rule changes for 2024 were shared by USA Pickleball this week. Nothing too major, but all “carries” are now illegal, regardless of intent or lack thereof. (Refs no longer have to be mind-readers.)
Nagging Injuries
My right wrist is continuing to hurt. It’s a minor concern compared to my right knee which is still hurting.
Newpaper
Apparently, once is not enough! Big 5 Sporting Goods advertised pickleball paddles both inside and on back cover of their four-page newspaper insert.
YouTube Instruction
I found this to be a good video to watch…
A nice analysis.
We’ll see how long this order takes to show up. With the holidays, I expect it’ll likely be after Christmas.
My right wrist is continuing to bug me. And my knee. Bleh.
Relative Pickleball?
My wife’s family will be in town for Christmas Day. My sister-in-law was suggesting pickleball, since they’ve been playing up in the Bay Area. That’d be fun. I haven’t played with any of them yet.
Rain
It was pretty rainy today. It cleared for short times and late in the day, the sun briefly popped out. Conner was bulk texting looking for people to play with. Uh. Not me. Even if I wasn’t working.
Around 4:30 p.m., Conner shared a photo of play in progress…
I opted to do a quick photo edit and propose a future reality and shared it with the text group.
Max replied, “Well played!”
And just for fun I made this up and posted it in the Santa Cruz Pickleball Facebook group:
But there is a big difference between “cold” (uncomfortable) and “wet” (injuries)!
Number of days on a court: 614
Number of total hours: 2,687
Number of paid coaching hours: 8
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