Thursday, December 5, 2024 (Court Day #745)
Last night, there was a community meeting at the London Nelson Community Center hosted by the City of Santa Cruz’s Parks & Recreation Department. They wanted to get public input about replacing some BMX bike jump ramps at Depot Park with four pickleball courts.
From what I’d heard, I was expecting this plan to be a slam dunk. According to Parks & Rec, the bike park was seeing relatively little use.
After the Zoom meeting that club president Mark Dettle and I had with the city in October (which I mentioned here at the time), they drafted a very nice revised proposal for the court placement.
Community Meeting
When I arrived at the large meeting room about five minutes before the start time at 5:30 p.m., there was already a bit of a crowd, including several bikes and teenagers with helmets. Most of the faces I didn’t recognize, but that is pretty normal given how much pickleball has grown in the last few years. I plopped myself down in the second row.
Seated to my right was Mark Dettle. There were a couple of club Site Coordinators there, Sean McElhaney somewhere behind me and seated to left, Val Rathbone, along with her husband Stan.
Little did I know that 80% of the room were people there to advocate for keeping the bike jumps. By the time the meeting started there were probably about 80 people, including many standing in the back.
Almost all the speakers were against the pickleball courts. A number of the pickleball players got sheepish to say anything.
After I spoke up about the general need for more courts—”maybe not at this location”—and how the game is played by a huge range of ages, Mark spoke about the number of players—though he only mentioned the approximate 460 paying club members, not the 1,000+ local players—and then that perhaps some of the underused city tennis courts could be dual-striped for pickleball. (Not that this idea would make the tennis players happy!)
In the end, it was apparent that the bike contingent was very passionate about keeping the park for their use. It was stated that originally there were novice jumps there but the wood had deteriorated and they were torn down. One man said they had been told by the city that they couldn’t replace those jumps since the jump park was intended to be “temporary.” That left only the taller and steeper expert metal jumps that limited who could use them.
Two pickleball players who I know came but spoke up for keeping the bike jumps and against installing pickleball courts—advocating for places dedicated to youth. And I understand… and concur, if the jumps will really be used frequently. Otherwise, I can guarantee that the space would see a whole lot of use as pickleball courts, especially so near to the big Dream Inn hotel with all its visitors to the city.
By the end of the meeting, it was pretty obvious that Depot Park would not become pickleball courts. And I have no problem with giving the BMX jumps another shot to better use that space.
Skypark Tonight
It was 54°F when I got the Skypark about 6:40 p.m. Fortunately, there is a pickup truck backing out of a parking space just as I arrived. The truck made about an eight-point turn to get out… it was a little amusing to watch. I suspect it could have been done with half that number or even fewer. But, hey, it’s easy to judge from outside the vehicle, right?
I almost immediately got into a game. There weren’t enough people to warrant using the dry erase board so it was still happily stowed in the storage bin. All four temporary courts for set up for a total of eight and all were in use with only a couple of players waiting.
Games
My first game was with Mo against Oscar and the guy who I am totally spacing about. Mo said that she was heading into her eighth hour of playing today and had lost all her recent games. And we lost this one against Oscar too.
Oscar and I played against Mike and Mauricio and we beat them by quite a bit. I played quite well. They complimented me a couple of times after particularly good shots and I replied, “You should have seen me in my first game!”
The next game was Oscar and myself against two young guys. We beat them 11–0.
Long, Long Game
Mo called me over and I joined her against Mauricio and Diego. That was a very long and fun game. At one point, Mo and I were down 6–10, but we came back and tied it up 10–10. There was side out, after side out, after side out, and we finally went ahead 11–10. There were a lot of really good rallies. Eventually, Mauricio and Diego did pull out a win 13–11. When we came off, someone commented on how long we were on the end court. Yep, a very long game!
Isaiah & Gabe
Mauricio and I played a game against Isaiah and Gabe. It was a very close game but we won.
We decide to have a rematch but this time it was embarrassing. Isaiah was absolutely on fire and if Mauricio and I scored any points, it was no more than two points! I was really impressed with Isaiah’s play in that one.
Last Game
After he won, Gabe said this would be a good time for him to leave, so Isaiah had to find a new partner—a young guy named Ben who has long curly blonde hair that he’ll sometimes secure with a bandana. Ben reminds me of a shorter young Andre Agassi.
Mauricio and I were down 1-7 but had climbed back to 5–7 when the lights clicked off at 8:30 p.m. The chorus of moans of disappointment could be heard from all the courts!
I told Isaiah that he was playing so much better than the last time I’ve seen him. (It had been months.) He said that he’s been playing a lot of singles lately. That might be why his shots are so well dialed in with his angles.
Number of days on a court: 745
Number of total hours: 3,028.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 99.5
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