Month: December 2024 (Page 2 of 4)

Tuesday, December 10, 2024 (Court Day #749)

At 11:27 a.m. this morning, Noah Downing, Park Planner for the City of Santa Cruz’s Parks & Recreation Department, sent out an email—following up on the community meeting last week—which in part read:

“During the meeting, it was evident that many community members wish to retain the bike park. In the new year, P&R staff will work with bike park users to enhance the bike park’s design and usability.

Additionally, it is clear that the demand for pickleball continues to grow, and a dedicated facility is needed within the City. Our staff will continue to work on identifying a suitable location.”

That formally closes the book on possible courts at Depot Park. If the bike riders don’t fully use the park, that book may open again someday.

Pickleheads

Continuing on the viral spread of the story of the local saga of Depot Park, it made another appearance in another national pickleball email newsletter.

I suspect that these pickleball email blast people subscribe to each other so they don’t miss anything of interest, but it can also make the newsletters redundant if you subscribe to more than one. Pickleheads also linked to the SFGate article.

Skypark

It was 50°F when I arrived at the courts at 6:50 p.m. Tonight would be my third day in a row playing, so between that, being tired, and the cold, I was quite tempted to just go home after work. But the sirens call of pickleball was too strong to resist!

The signup board was out and it was busy. To stay warm, I jumped up and down in place a little bit and moved around. Matt Babb concurred on my evaluation of the temperature!

Games

I had a completely unmemorable first game with weaker players.

In my second game, Alex and I played against Daniel with the glasses, and the newer guy his name also may be Dan, who’s been playing for about a year, if I recall correctly. Both tall guys. Those two were driving shots hard. They won the game 11–5 or something like that. Alex and I are both happier in a soft game. Between not being warmed up, the cold, this being my third day in a row, and being under your light, it made for a bad combination in that game. It was frustrating and inexcusable. Alex and I simply needed to let the balls go and fly out. Easier said than done for me.

Lucky Tap

In another game, Alex and I were down 1-8. Mo was across the dividing net behind us. I got her attention… “Mo! I need a paddle tap for good luck!” Mo laughed and obliged. Amusingly, we immediately went on a run of 10 unanswered points and came back to win 11-8! I need to tap paddles with Mo more often!

Fan Club

When I walked off the court after finishing the game playing against Brendan, Tim Feickert asked me if I had heard him. I was puzzled so he explained. During my game there was a pop-up by my partner which Brennan attacked and slammed the ball down at me. I successfully returned the ball back over the net, but it wasn’t a perfect reset so he slammed the ball again. This happened four times in a row until Brendan gave up and decided to send the ball away from me at a different angle. My team did go on to win that rally a few shots later. Tim had observed the rally and was cheering me on. I’m getting better and better about handling slams coming down at my legs.

Last Game

In my last game before the lights clicked off, Chris—whom I don’t know well—and I came back after being down 4-8 to win 13-11 vs. Asian Aaron and Alex. 

Breaking Balls

Pickleballs were breaking in the cold tonight. I had one split completely wide-open between two holes. I was in midst of three different games when each ball broke. Someone was saying recently, I think it was Dave Ryan, that the new Selkirk S1 balls hold up better in the cold. While we were waiting for our opponent to retrieve a new ball, I shared that with Chris tonight and he said that they get soft though. I asked, “In the cold?” He said, no, during typical play.

More BMX

At 7:47 p.m., while I was playing tonight, Sean McElhaney texted send a screenshot to club president Mark Dettle and me.

Nearly a week after the community meeting hosted by Parks & Rec, KSBW, a local TV station, is still beating the bushes for a story. As Ms. Nielsen says, “Move on!”

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Wednesday, December 11, 2024 (No Play)

I was searching in my email and found a message from John Pacholski from February this year. He shared with the SCPC board some early Depot Park sketches from March 2021 that he had done with Dan Bliss. The pickleball club had been talking the city for, literally, years about putting in courts at Depot Park. Alas.

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Thursday, December 12, 2024 (No Play)

It’s a rainy day today. No pickleball. It is practically winter at this point. Less than two weeks to Christmas.

Number of days on a court: 749
Number of total hours: 3,036.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 99.5

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

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

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

Sunday, December 8, 2024 (Court Day #747)

Yesterday, a discussion came up on Facebook. (I didn’t want to share this in the same post as the happy parade.) KSBW, a local TV station, shared an article originally published by the SF Gate which interviewed our club president, Mark Dettle. A local woman in turn, shared this article on a local Facebook group:
https://www.ksbw.com/article/santa-cruz-bmx-riders-califronia-against-citys-proposed-pickleball-courts/63120908
(The misspelling of California is correct in the URL. They made a mistake.)

The comments on the Facebook post were pretty nasty against pickleball. I felt the need to step in set some facts straight.

[Later note: The comment that I was responding to appears to have been since deleted and I can’t go back and retrieve the rest of my comment beyond the “…”]

Yes, we want more courts. No, we don’t want to displace children if they are actually going to use the space.

Brommer Park

With me demonstrating pickleball in the parade yesterday morning and also playing Thursday night without wearing my tennis elbow strap and I noticed a little bit of aching in my forearm… so it’s back to wearing it!

When I arrived at Brommer Park a few minutes before 9 a.m., it was a brisk 50°F.

Games

For my first game, Sam and I played against Laura and a regular named John. Sam, I usually see at Skypark. John is a 3.0-level player. Sam and I won 11-0. Laura was not on her game yet and Sam was on fire.

We rotated players and played again. I played with Laura this time against Sam and John. We won 11-5.

My next game was with Sam against Kirk and John. We won 11-0. Sam and I should have probably split up!

Sam and I continued our conquests, this time taking down Stevie (English accent), whom I didn’t know, and Kyle, a regular, 11-1.

Binh

Binh was there this morning, I hadn’t seen him in weeks. We played against Laura and Shawnte. We lost 5-11. Laura was doing a great job speeding up dinks. Binh was suggesting that I put more pace in my dinks. Something for me to work on. No dead dinks!

Binh and I did win the rematch 11-6.

However, we lost the rubber match 4-11. I like to think that maybe we’d win the next one… had there been one!

Another Game

I was paired up with Kirk and we lost 5-11 to Dieter and Sam. Not a surprising outcome.

Sam and I partnered again, this time playing against Jordan and Diego. While we lost 8-11, this was a great game.

I played some other games not really worth a mention.

I checked the time. 1:12 p.m., it was time to boogie.

And?

I was unhappy with my play today. I have work to do to help keep my dinks from being as attackable.

Number of days on a court: 747
Number of total hours: 3,033
Number of paid coaching hours: 99.5

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