Sunday, May 5, 2024 (Court Day #654)
My right knee is bothering me a little bit, giving me mild pain while walking around this morning. Tomorrow morning is the club’s “Dinko de Mayo” event—I guess you could call it a tournament. Everyone has been assigned a team, though I’m not sure how many players are on a given team, each one is named after some kind of food like the Notorious Nachos or the Taco Titans.
As I was driving to Derby Park at 8:45 a.m., I was noticing that there were moist areas on the road from precipitation since last night and the front deck of our house had standing drops of water on it. That made me wonder about the condition of the courts at Derby. I was really hoping that we’d be past the season of wet courts but we may not be.
It was partly cloudy and 52°F.
Derby
When I arrived at Derby Park, there are some players warming up on a court and Mark G. was blowing off the courts with his own blower. You got like the guy!
Quite unusual, two of the city nets had been partially disassembled and pushed off to the side . Apparently, some tennis players came to play and decided to make things more difficult for pickleball players later. It wasn’t outright vandalism, but it was obviously and very intentionally annoying.
As feared, there were puddles on the courts, but they were small and the sun was now shining. Between three of us with towels plus the sun, they were dry in about 10-15 minutes.
Once I’d set everything up and blown off the courts more fully, it was 9:15 a.m. and I got about to getting into a game.
Play
Today was a far better day for game play. Tall Charles O. and Dave Cox came today.
Dave started a blue (4.0+) box which had Dave and Mark G. and Ted and I added my name to the box. Dave and I are generally similarly skilled followed by Mark followed by Ted. When our box was called, we went to a court and Dave partnered with Mark. I think they might have a tournament together, but I’m not sure. Regardless, it’ll be Dave’s M.O. to pick the strongest player to play with as a partner since he doesn’t like to lose—even rec play. Dave couldn’t have picked me, Ted would have probably complained about balance. Ted played well enough for the game to be fairly even. Still, Mark and Dave ended up winning by several points.
After his performance in that game, Ted decided to sign up in a lower level instead. The rest of us signed up in blue and waited for a fourth to fill out our box. That fourth player turned out to be Charles which made me super happy. That would be a good game.
The first game was very close. Charles and I lost. It would be hard to place a blame either of us. We both were playing reasonably well, though we did make some errors.
Between games, Dave Cox asked if I was ready to drop $600 on a pickleball workshop. That’s definitely a big chunk of change. However, I do have extra income coming from teaching. The problem was, the 4.0+ camp is less than a week away. It conflicts with a tournament René and I are playing on Saturday morning.
In the next game, Charles was saying he was falling apart, but then we came back took the lead. But then Mark and Dave came back and won the game. Still it was super fun with good rallies.
In the last game, we won 11-7 and we lead the entire game.
I left at 12:15 p.m. I had to get home, eat, and get out to Aptos to teach.
Family
My brother John texted me a couple of photos showing that they were using the pickleball net that I gifted to him and his family.
I could tell that they were at Skypark.
Up and coming young players!
New Rec Beginner Class
Today is the first day of my new beginners group that includes—surprise—my wife and some of her friends from teaching. One of my registered students—another educator—got injured and couldn’t come to the first class and ended up dropping out altogether. Fortunately, I had friend and staff-member Julia step in and fill out as the fourth for the second court.
Class Notice
In the evening, sent out an email blast to my former pickleball beginner students letting them know that I’m teaching an Advanced Beginner 4-week class at Skypark. It’s already half full, but I figured I’d let my former students know about it and give them the opportunity to sign up if they wanted to.
Number of days on a court: 654
Number of total hours: 2,803
Number of paid coaching hours: 33
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