Month: October 2024 (Page 2 of 5)

Sunday, October 20, 2024 (Court Day #730)

Last night was the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club’s holiday party, which was held at Bargetto‘s Winery in Soquel. My wife Kristen came along and got to meet a lot of pickleball people that I know like George Propper, Eric Schmidt, and Ted B., plus Gregg “3G” all of whom were at my table. Steve Bontadelli, one of our Site Coordinators, was at our table too, but he was on the far side. It was a bit difficult to hold a conversation from that distance given the noise level.

Tennis Snob

Early in the evening, I spoke to a man who I didn’t know, and he asked me if I was a pickleball player. There were a number of people there who were friends or spouses of players who didn’t play themselves, so it was an honest question. I told him that I did play and I asked him the same question. He said that he had played pickleball a little bit but taught tennis for a long time and continues to play tennis. He referred to pickleball as “a good activity for old people.” We chatted another minute and whenever I used the word “sport” in reference to pickleball, he’d use “activity.” I was mildly annoyed as well as amused. It seems as though he had never got into a game is anyone over a 3.0 or maybe a 3.5 level. Generally, opinions like his change when you play against better players. Perhaps I should’ve shared professional tennis player Genie Bouchard’s comment about coming to pickleball making her feel as if she was in the tennis juniors again. Or the male pro who returned to tennis after playing pickleball and found tennis to be “very slow” in comparison. As it was, I just let it go and later shared the story with Eric at my table. Erik chuckled and said something about that arrogant option is not uncommon amongst tennis players. And regardless, the average age of pickleball players continues to drop. Last I checked, it was 35 years of age and falling fast.

Brommer

I got the Brommer Park this morning at about 9:30 a.m.

The first game of the day I was paired with Drew against Evan and Jay. We got slaughtered.

The next game with Evan and myself against Drew and Jay and this time it 
Evan and I who won by a similar margin. 

My last game was Isaiah and me against Shawnté and Bruce’s son, Josh. (Josh said that Bruce has was in hospital for a week, but he’s doing better.) And we won 11–7 or 11–8. That was a fun game with a lot of battles.

Sweat Drops?

There is one rally this morning where I got distracted. As I hit drive near the baseline about half a dozen drops of sweat fell to the ground. I was confused. Did these fall off of my paddle? I made a mistake on my next shot which ended the rally. I shook my paddle again. Nope. No drops of sweat. They either came from my arm or from my head. I’m generally not a big sweater, but I seem to be a bit more lately I guess.

It’s nice to be in games where I’m not the best player on the court, which frequently happened at Derby.

There is one game with three advanced players when we asked for a fourth and a 3.0 player volunteered. I was partnered with him, and we got destroyed. He was popping up shots, returning serves into the net, hitting drives long… it was a bad combination. Fortunately, that was the only game of the day like that.

I checked the time and it was 11:48 a.m. It was time for me to go and get ready for teaching.

It was a good morning. I get a break from teaching next weekend, And then five weeks later, come December, I can play on Sunday mornings as long as I want since I won’t be teaching again until January.

On my drive back to you my house, it was 77°F and sunny.

I still need more opportunities to play with better players and hone my skills. I can understand why pros avoid rec play. It’s easy to get sloppy.

Number of days on a court: 730
Number of total hours: 2,989.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 87.5

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

Thursday, October 17, 2024 (Court Day #729)

Today was the 35th anniversary of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which had its epicenter just several miles from downtown Santa Cruz. It was a magnitude 7.1 on the Richter scale. It damaged at least hundreds, and probably thousands, of buildings in Santa Cruz alone, including dozens that had to be completely demolished. (Chimneys cracked at the roofline were quite common. My parents’ home was a victim of that too.) The event had a major impact on the character of our downtown business district. Miraculously, only three people died, though many more were injured. It’s something I know I will never forget.

Sample Paddle

I was informed by email today that there’s a sample paddle on its way to me from Aireo. It’s another paddle that I can share with my students. 

Scotts Valley

As I arrived in Scotts Valley just about 7 p.m., the sky was a dark blue gray but with a glimmer of amber stretched along the western horizon. By the time the time change hits next month, it’ll be completely dark even before I get to the courts.

Michelle & Jason

My first game tonight was with Michelle as my partner. Michelle is the wife of Jason Cohen, who is a bookstore manager and an avid painter. Jason used to be my daughter’s boss before she went off to medical school. Since then, he changed jobs from that downtown retail store to the university bookstore.

Jason was at the other end of the courts in the game with some other people. I had met Michelle a couple of times before at art events. They had mentioned that they sometimes play pickleball, but I’d never bumped into them at the courts before.

Michelle and I played against Tim H. and Wendy.

So we had me, who is a 4.0 player, partnered with Michelle, who is a 3.0 player against Wendy who is a 3.5 and Tim who is approaching a 4.5 level. You can probably guess, Michelle and I lost, and the result was never in question. Still, a fun game.

Next Game

Next game I played was Tim H. and Minori against her boyfriend David L. and myself. It started out with David and I losing a fair margin, but then we started coming back and made a game of it. We still lost, at least it was more respectable. Midway through that game, I was disgusted with my play and part of me wanted to simply stop and go home. But I did start to play gradually better.

Jordan

Jordan was just leaving as I got there. He was pretty sweaty and apparently tired as well. Too bad, he’s always fun to play with and against.

Gabe, Aaron, Dr. David

The next game was Dr. Dave and myself against big lefty Aaron Bartley and Gabe. We played a couple of games in this configuration and I’m pretty sure Dave and I lost both games. Gabe was playing pretty well and Dave wasn’t.

Gabe was pretty funny. I was mixing up my serves, sometimes targeting a backhand, hitting short and angled, and I put some pretty strong top spin on some of them. There is a couple of times Gabe audibly blurted out something to the effect of “wow!” after I hit a particularly good serve. All three of my courtmates were complimenting me after the second game about the speed of my hands. Always nice to hear.

On the downside, there were at least three or four shots tonight—maybe even half a dozen—where I wasn’t covering the middle well enough and I wasn’t close enough to the side of the court with the ball. Yep. There’s a difference between knowing what to do and actually executing it. 

Surprise! Paddle!

They had only this morning said the paddle had shipped, but it was waiting for me when I got home from playing.

The paddle arrived with a paddle cover, overgrip, and an assortment of pamphlets explaining the rules and the features of the paddle. The paddle has a very grippy surface. Impressive.

Number of days on a court: 729
Number of total hours: 2,987
Number of paid coaching hours: 84.5

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

Tuesday, October 15, 2024 (Court Day #728)

It’s definitely getting dark earlier. I wrapped things up at work, changed, and was almost at Scott Valley at 6:45 p.m. Street lights and car headlights were on and it was closer to dark than it was to light.

Skypark

I arrived at Skypark shortly before 7 p.m. I lucked out and there was an open parking spot right next to the courts.

It is really busy with about with at least a dozen people waiting to get onto courts, maybe even 20 people. The dry erase board was up.

Tonight was a bit of a fiasco as far as getting really good games. But I knew what I was getting into signing up with the people that I did.

I tried to make the games as difficult as I could for myself. I played about 90% of the shots left-handed. The last game I was playing against Kyle and his wife Carolyn while partnered with Gowa (pronounced “go ah”). I decided to play that game right-handed, but I told them that I would hit all my shots as drop shots. That’s what I tried to do. There were a few I still hit without thinking in a more normal manner, but when the ball wasn’t coming at my head, and I hit a drop shots and simply tapped high shots into their kitchen.

Finally

When there was about five minutes left, and I quickly got into a game with Spencer against Paul and Alex. That was the best combination players for me all night. I was playing quite well and we were leading by a few points when the lights clicked off.

It was a warm night, in the low 60s. There were several players who were obviously working hard tonight since their shirts were pretty sweaty.

Owl Paddle

A significant note, Spencer was playing with a new Owl paddle, a result of USAP’s Quiet Initiative. It’s pretty amazing how quiet the thing is. The surface of the paddle is covered with felt. Spencer said he had a chance to play with it today and immediately bought one. (I’m assuming the got it at The Hub in Campbell.) He said aside from being very quiet, he says you can add a lot of spin to the ball too. Like anything new, it may take a while to get some traction. But, again, it’s hard to get over how quiet it is.

Number of days on a court: 728
Number of total hours: 2,985.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 84.5

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