Month: July 2024 (Page 3 of 5)

Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (Court Day #688)

In the bandwagon realm, even Chick-fil-A has a pickleball set in their online shop. (I didn’t even know they had an online shop!)

Pickle Pickle™ Pickleball Set

Stepping Down

The board and other site coordinators have been very supportive of my decision to relinquish my role as the Sunday Site Coordinator at Derby Park. And Barb offered to cover for me this Sunday. That’s great, as I have a boatload of relatives in town—including from different states—for my great-uncle’s memorial service this weekend.

Skypark

I left work and arrived at Skypark just before 7 p.m. and sunny skies.

It was a light crowd and rotations in the games off of the whiteboard happened fairly quickly.

Rachelle stopped me and thanked me for getting her driver’s license back to her. She said my daughter, who dropped it off to her a few weeks ago, was very nice. I had picked up her license on the ground at Skypark and my daughter Charlotte was heading out past Rachelle’s area of the county anyway, so it worked out.

First Game

My first game was paired the Rachelle. She’s a lefty, and still a fairly weak player. She is still learning the game . . . I had to frequently remind her of the score and where to be on the court. We played against Barry and his wife Christy. Rachelle and I fell behind really quickly. Then we crawled back and tied up the score, but we couldn’t pull off a win. Yes, it was my first game, but, boy, I was not playing well in that game. There was no way I could make up for Rachelle’s inexperience.

In that first game, I played horribly. That generally came from me underestimating my opponents—doing net speedups or drives from the baseline, where Barry or Christy then put the ball away. There were a couple instances where I decided mid-shot to return a serve intentionally to Barry (who is the better of the two players) and I distinctly remember hitting two of those into the net. It was just weird.

Next!

Roman and I played against Barry and Christy. I played so much better. We clobbered them.

Lefty

I played with Beth against Mark Dettle and Laura (formerly from Visalia). We won.

In the rematch, I decided to play the entire game left-handed and Beth and I still won. Mark wasn’t playing his best.

Tall vs. Short

I played with Roman—young guy—against tall lefty Aaron and tall Mike. Aaron and Mike are about the same height, both over 6 foot. Roman and I are also both about the same height . . . but shorter! About 5’8″. Aaron is getting really good. While I was able to return all of Aaron’s serves, but Roman wasn’t so lucky, he missed a few. Mike has also gotten quite a bit better over the last few years. But Aaron is definitely the stronger of the two. After the game, Roman thanked me for playing with him and apologized for his performance. I told him he had some really nice shots, which he did. He just needs to be a little bit more consistent and not try to be so tricky with his shots . . . like trying too hard to add spin.

Spencer

Spencer was there tonight although I didn’t get a chance to play with him. Someone told me this week that he and Diego had taken silver in the 4.0 bracket in recent tournament. Between rallies, I congratulated Spencer when he was playing next to me on an adjacent court. Spencer is a good guy—upbeat and a good player.

Last Game

The last game of the night was Mark and myself against Beth and Laura. I decided to play lefty in that game too and for a series of side outs, the score was stuck at 5-3 with Mark and I leading. Then Beth and Laura went on a 4-point run and when their service ended they were leading 7-5. When they were up 9-5, I decided to switch to my right hand. For whatever reason, I had a hard time switching back to righty after playing three games left-handed and I missed a few shots, so I can’t say that the loss was all on Mark for this one.

Night, Night!

There were still four games going on in the twilight and Laura, Beth, and I wanted to play one more game, but we couldn’t find a fourth. With that, I helped out Ofer by taking down one of the temporary nets. After that, I was in my car and on my way home.

Tennis elbow is kind of acting up and my right knee was a little sore. *sigh*

Number of days on a court: 688
Number of total hours: 2,894.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 52.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Sunday, July 14, 2024. (Court Day #687)

For the first time ever, I found myself already irritated driving to Derby Park to open up the courts. Skill creep is getting under my skin in a big way. When I got there about 8:45 a.m., I wrote a note on the white dry erase board asking everyone to sign up one level below what they did last week and that the blue pen is for 4.0+ tournament players only. A regular, a 3.5 equivalent, signed up in blue. I reminded him blue is reserved for 4.0 tournament players. He said he doesn’t play tournaments. That was that, I thought. I added a big arrow next to my skill level note on the sign up board to call more attention to it.

When I came back out later, there was a new box in blue with the guy’s name right at the top, and Ted (3.0-3.5) and a couple of others, none of which are 4.0 players. There were only 2-3 true 4.0 players there today and since we’d have to play with red players anyway, I pulled the blue pens and wrote “no blue today”. I really wanted to reset the skill levels, it’s been very frustrating with everyone signing up higher than their skill level.

Anyway, while waiting, I see the 3.5 guy walk up to the whiteboard, erase my note on the board, and go to the bin to get blue pens—which I had intentional moved elsewhere—and start walking back to the board with a blue ballpoint pen, which was all he could find. He complained to Val—the Wednesday site coordinator—about why I had any authority to “change the rules.”I calmed smiled and explained that I’m the site coordinator, which he already knew, of course. He ended up leaving in a huff. I understand his frustration, I’m experiencing it myself. We need a reset. That said, if you doesn’t like what the site coordinator is doing, you don’t go rogue and take over, you bring it to the attention of the club board of directors.

Pickleball is supposed to be fun. I typically work six days a week and have limited time to play, I want to get into good games. That is not happening at Derby. It’s a source of frustration for me. Plus, teaching—which I love to do—takes four hours out of my day on Sundays. That’s over seven hours on courts . . . I’d like the easy flexibility to adjust on a given Sunday to keep my wife happy. Something has to change.

“Sick ATP”

I was in a game with Hugh against Larry Yein and someone else that I forget. Larry hit a great sharp crosscourt shot bouncing the ball very wide outside the right sideline. I was in an all-out sprint and was looking away from the net when I hit the ball. Hugh exclaimed, “That was a sick ATP! You need to put that in your blog!” The thing is, I didn’t even see it since it took me a moment to turn and start heading back onto the court! We did lose that rally, but at least I added a few more shots to it. Here you go, Hugh!

Teaching

I left about 12:15 p.m., raced home, ate quickly, changed, grabbed my things and headed to Skypark for my class starting at 1:30 p.m., the first in a 4-week series of both my Beginners class and then Advanced Beginner class.

After teaching, I played two games with some of my students at their prompting. Mary was my partner against Ray and his wife Melaney. I played both games left handed and I was taking it easy on them. Mary and I still won, not that I cared.

Birthdays

My niece and I both have birthdays this month, so my parents arranged for a dinner party tonight. My brother John gifted me with a pickleball action board game. So funny! When you pull the trigger on the plastic “paddle gun,” it flips a mini paddle up with the intention of hitting the plastic pickle on the end of a metal rod that swings back and forth over the net.

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Monday, July 15, 2024 (No Play)

Today, I finally did it. I’ve put in nearly seven years as the primary SCPC Site Coordinator for Derby Park on Sundays—since October 2017. Yesterday was the final straw. I’m done. After hinting for months, I notified the board that my last day will be the last Sunday in August. It’s not worth the aggravation and it’s not worth getting games with players who think they are better than they are. Done, done, done. I’ll be free to sleep in on my day off from work. (My workday ends about 6:45 p.m., I’m not an early bird.) I’ll have flexibility to do what I want, and I can arrange private games with better players elsewhere.

Switching Hands

This is exactly when I switch hands in a game. Some pickleball pundits say “never switch hands.” Well, here’s the guy who has been the #1 player in the world for years—up until very recently, now he’s in and out of #1—Ben Johns, doing exactly that. Switching hands!

Paddle Testing

USA Pickleball shared a video of part of their paddle testing equipment which I found interesting, if only a small taste…
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9fmlSBS70I

Rogue 2 Paddle Rattle

Macy at Players Pickleball got back to me today about my paddle:
“About the rattling–check on that edge guard and see if it’s loose anywhere. Otherwise, a little faint “rattling” can occur as when the honeycomb core is created, very tiny bits of polypropylene sometimes become trapped inside the cells of the honeycomb. When you shake it, you might hear a faint rattle sound. The good news is that it’s no cause for concern and won’t affect the performance whatsoever. “

Number of days on a court: 687
Number of total hours: 2,893
Number of paid coaching hours: 52.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Friday, July 12, 2024. (Court Day #686)

I arrived at Brommer Park shortly after 9:30 a.m. I planned to be there earlier but I had some last-minute preparations to do for the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club Board meeting today.

We were only somewhat busy today so the waits weren’t horrible.

I only got one really good game today and that was with Ethan as my partner against Josh—Bruce’s son—and another fellow that I don’t really know. It was a close back-and-forth game and honestly, I can’t remember if we won or not. That was the only truly challenging game I had. Sure, there were some good rallies, but balls coming back and longer rallies are more fun.

Shaye asked Ethan if we’d join her and one of her friends. In that game, he and I were both trying to keep the ball going by hitting soft shots and avoiding winners. It was entertaining just because it was so ridiculous . . . like dinking back high pop-ups instead of smashing them.

SCPC Board Meeting

Once Mark Dettle finished up his game at about 12:15 p.m., we started our monthly club board meeting at a table in the picnic area.

At that our 2-hour meeting, we spent about 15 or 20 minutes talking about how to properly sort players by skill appropriately so that at club sessions people have games that are challenging. All it takes is for one weaker player to sign up above their skill level and that messes up the game for three other players. This has been ongoing problem. The question is how to solve it. There was a discussion about having challenge courts, forcing players to use DUPR with their games, having a board/club ranking committee, having peer-rating system of some kind. We didn’t come up with a firm solution. I suggested maybe polling the membership to select one of several options to try. Who knows. It’s been a problem for years. I just seems that it’s getting worse.

Number of days on a court: 686
Number of total hours: 2,889.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 49.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.