Monday, December 9, 2024 (Court Day #747)

While I was still sleeping, an email from the Pickleball Union arrived in my inbox this morning at 7:46 a.m., covering a variety of topics, but it included a link to the SF Gate article from last week reporting on the local community meeting about the City of Santa Cruz replacing the local bike jump ramps with pickleball courts.

Brommer Park

I had some obligations this morning, including finishing the agenda for our SCPC board meeting today and getting gas for my car which was flying on vapor. Normally, I’d be at work today, but with our monthly meeting today, I took nearly all the day off.

Being that today was also organized club play, I was surprised to see a few parking spots open when I arrived at Brommer a few minutes after 10 a.m. I was fully expecting to have to park down the street.

When I got to the courts’ dry erase board, no one was signing up in blue (Advanced 4.0), so I added my name to an Intermediate/Advanced red box. 

First Game

Play kicked off for me paired with a guy named Michael against Gary and Richard, both regulars. Michael and I won by a very wide margin. I’d consider all of them to be 3.5 level.

Charles

I signed up in an Advanced blue box to get a better game. Gary and I played against a new Latino guy Chris and Charles. (Yes, tall Charles, whom I hadn’t see for maybe even two months.) We won 11-3. Their loss was not on Charles. Chris is a pleasant fellow, but not an advanced player by any stretch, he is play was closer to 3.0… though, who knows, maybe he was just having a really bad day. 

Charles and I were a bit more picky about signing up for the next game and found ourselves in a game against lefty Aaron Bartley and a fellow named River who said he’s been playing for six months. River has really good play for that timeframe—he is easily a 3.5 already, though he doesn’t have as much of a soft game so he tends to attack balls that are too low and the ball ended up in the net a few times. However, River does have strong drives and fast hands. Charles and I won 11-7.

Three games in and it was 11:11 and I was waiting for my next game. The waits weren’t too bad.

We played a rematch and Charles and I won again 11-7 against Aaron and River. I guess we are consistent… the exact same score.

Josh & Sevan

Josh M., the tall thin tennis player, brought a tennis friend, Sevan, who said this was only his third outing. Sevan and I took on John P. and Josh. I hadn’t seen John for months. As the game was about to start, Sevan asked for help with scoring. Sevan and I lost 11-7. It was a challenging and fun game. John was playing the best I’ve seen him play. Sevan is very friendly. Nice guy. Humble and easy going. Sevan is adjusting quickly to pickleball, he did really well.

That last game was done at 12:12 p.m. and I raced over to the picnic area for our board meeting and sat down perfectly at 12:15 p.m., right on time. An hour and a half or so later, it was home, then to work.

More BMX

Another appearance of the bike park/pickleball courts story was on an Instagram post from The Pickleball Clinic today:

Number of days on a court: 748
Number of total hours: 3,035
Number of paid coaching hours: 99.5

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