Thursday, July 25, 2024 (Court Day #692)
The PPR sent out an email today announcing a “Level 2” certification for coaches:
“The Professional Pickleball Registry (PPR) is excited to announce the launch of its new Level 2 certification program, set to begin on September 1st. This advanced course will offer two days of comprehensive on-court training designed to elevate coaching expertise.”
Now, I have to decide to continue to plan to jump ship and get PCI sponsorship instead, or stick with PPR. Decisions, decisions.
Another Famous Actor and Pickleball
Comedic actor Vince Vaughn has purchased a majority stake in a pro pickleball team, the Coachella Valley Scorpions, which was launched in May.
Hollywood Reporter:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/vince-vaughn-buys-pickleball-team-coachella-1235957918/
Los Angeles Times:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-07-25/vince-vaughn-buys-majority-stake-in-pro-pickleball-team-go-scorpions
After Work
I left one of my staff to close and left work at 5:34 p.m. It was toasty, with my car reading 75°F on my car thermometer.
As I drove into Scotts Valley proper, my car thermometer read 81°F. Scotts Valley—at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains—generally has slightly more extremes in temperature compared to Santa Cruz which is next to the beach. They’re only several miles apart, but it’s amazing how much difference the geography makes.
Skypark
As I arrived at Skypark, there was a dark sedan pulling in and taking a spot just vacated by a truck. With no spot left for me, I found a spot to park halfway down the block. When I walked in, I noticed Jessie was unpacking her dark sedan along with Fabrizio. It turned out that she was throwing a party for Marco, whose birthday was last week. She brought a big spread of Carne Asada, guacamole, various taco fixings, along with margarita mix and beers and soda and chips… wow. She also brought along folding table to place everything upon—not that everything fit on it! It was very generous of her. I’m glad she got the parking spot!
The white dry-erase board proved to be unneeded tonight. It was a pretty light crowd for whatever reason. Too bad, they missed out on all the food!
Unexpected Faces
Surprisingly, Allan Kass was there for a short time. I had never seen him a Skypark before. I overhead him asked if the spread of food was normal. (Not!) Tristan was there sporting a University of Texas Longhorns baseball cap. Apparently, he is home for the summer.
Mark Dettle and I got into a game against Tristan and Allan. I played really well in that game, I had nothing to be embarrassed about. Tristan has very speedy serves, but I returned all of them, even the one he whipped right down the center line. I told him that was a tough serve to return. He replied, “That was as hard as they’ll get!” It was the back-and-forth game and I believe Mark and I lost a close one, not that Tristan was bringing his full intensity to this game.
Connor McNicholas and I played a few games against Spencer and Mo. Spencer, of course, is a very strong player. Good games.
There was a tall Indian fellow named Ashly, whom I’d never met. He made a comment about the strong group of players being very serious and not all that much fun to play with. Ashly is a pretty good player, 4.0+, I’d bet.
Last Game
Mo and I played a game against Conner and Spencer. The lights went out a few minutes into our game, but we decided to finish it. And we got completely smoked in that game. If it wasn’t the end of the session and not getting dark, I might’ve been embarrassed with an 0–11 loss. Still ouch.
Darkness
After the lights were out, I asked Spencer where he and Diego had won their silver metal. he said they had won it at a tournament in San Francisco. He said that he does not recommend the tournament. He said they rolled out some kind of surface, which turned out to be a bit lumpy, and also provided some very disinterested people who knew very little about pickleball to watch for kitchen violations. He said these people tended to not pay attention and didn’t call any kitchen faults. It seemed a waste. Spencer also says the ball would sometimes land on that odd surface with simply die.
I partially helped take down a temporary net then hung out for a while and also helped take some of the leftovers to Jessie’s car.
It was about 9:25 p.m. when I finally left.
Fun night.
Number of days on a court: 692
Number of total hours: 2,902.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 55.5
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