Month: January 2025 (Page 4 of 5)

Thursday, January 9, 2025 (Court Day #757)

I left work early to copy a special key before the locksmith shop in Scotts Valley closed, then I popped right over to Skypark around 5:30 p.m.

There was a crowd there tonight, but the times waiting for games weren’t too bad.

My first game was with Jax against Sam and Spencer. I lost with Jax, but it was close.

We mixed things up and I played with Spencer and we won.

Next, I played with Sam against Spencer and Jax. Sam and I won 11-0. (They had an off game!)

There were a couple of highlight-worthy rallies in two different games with Spencer, Jax, and Sam that I really wish were recorded. They were kind of amazing. After one, Spencer told me I had really good hands. 

Natural Debris

There were a bunch of leaves on the courts. In one game on the night, my right foot slipped out from under me. I didn’t fall, but it caused short term discomfort in my back.

Youngsters

I signed up with Alex and a name I couldn’t read. Alex is a good player—yeah, except this was a different Alex! I played with Daniel Borlean against two 8th graders from Scotts Valley Middle School! I didn’t know that they were 8th graders until we got onto the court and saw how young our opponents were. One was Aydan and his friend was Alex. They wanted to play together. Daniel and I beat them 11-0. I will admit that they did have a handful of shots that were far better than I was expecting. I could see them becoming very good with time and practice. Afterward, Aydan muttered to Alex, “We were outclassed.” Yeah. Just a bit. For now. Watch out in a couple of years!

Yeah… no.

Daniel and I played against a man named Sonny who lives at the summit (Santa Cruz Mountains), but he said that he often plays at Mitchell Park in Palo Alto.

Sonny and David played against Daniel and myself and the first game was very close, though we lost.

And… Down.

It felt really good about my play tonight and until the last two games.

Daniel and I played again and this time was a little bit more lopsided in favor of Sonny and David.

We mixed it up and I played with Sonny against Daniel and David. This was a disaster. We got clobbered. The final score was something like 11–5 and that was closer than the game actually felt. David was on fire.

Somewhere in all of that, David hit a drive that hit a knuckle on my paddle hand. Ouch. It bruised some and was sore on my way home.

We finished that last game at 8: 24 p.m. I didn’t hang around long, just said my goodbyes, and headed home.

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Friday, January 10, 2025 (No Play)

Pickleball has made it to all seven continents. Well, kind of. There was no net or court, but a pickleball was knocked around in Antartica for the first time ever. Pilot Lt. Col. Jared Wood of the U.S. Air Force Reserves was down there in October last year and posted a video about it at the time, but the news is only now making the rounds. Wood lives in Seattle, so he’s used to cold nasty winter weather!

The video:

The later resulting article:
https://www.dupr.com/post/pickleball-in-antarctica-how-the-sport-is-taking-flight-with-lt-colonel-jared-wood

And here’s a brief part of an interview with Col. Wood:
https://www.instagram.com/duprpb/reel/DExSZ86tTYj

Tennis Pro Bummer

In this article from late December, “bad boy” of pro tennis, Nick Kyrgios said he’d be partnering for pickleball with Jack Sock at the PPA Australia Open this month:
https://www.tennis.com/baseline/articles/nick-kyrgios-make-pro-pickleball-debut-2025-jack-sock-australian-open-nothing-major

But that won’t happen after all. Kyrgios was picked to play for Australia in the Davis Cup which is happening the same weekend as the PPA event. Alas.

Pickleball Female Pro Pay

A few weeks ago the PPA/MLP people issued a press release about how the top 60 female pro pickleball players are making more on average than female pro basketball or female pro soccer players.

Here’s an article I found about it:
https://nypost.com/2024/12/20/business/professional-female-pickleball-stars-earn-more-than-wnba-nwsl-athletes

Of course, this is “average” salary, not minimum or median value.

Hypothetically, let’s say the top female player is making a $2,000,000 salary—Anna Leigh Waters doesn’t make that in salary, maybe with endorsements, but not salary—and a #2 player is making $100K/year, then the remaining top 10 make $50K/year. Take a look at this chart I threw together in Excel:

As you can see, this averages out at $250,000 salary for the top 10 players, but the vast majority are making only $50,000/year. We just want to be careful what we take away from press releases. It’s probably not as bad as my hypothetical chart, but it may not be too far off. We don’t know. They didn’t give us a median and we do know there is disparity in performance and pay of the players.

Then the other question is, is this sustainable? The WNBA pays their players not a lot. Caitlin Clark, the rookie phenom—off her record-setting college career—makes about $70,000 as a pro basketball player. The highest paid WNBA player makes about $250,000/year. The WNBA can pay as much as that because it is subsidized by the NBA to the tune of $15,000,000 per year. According to this article, the WNBA has lost money every year since its first season in 1997:
https://www.sportspro.com/news/wnba-losses-2024-media-rights-deal-cathy-engelbert-adam-silver-caitlin-clark-nba/

The PPA and MLP paying their pro players $30,000,000 annually. Being that the UPA (PPA and MLP parent) is borrowing $10,000,000 this first quarter of 2025 (“bridge loan”), it does make one pause and wonder. Will it succeed? The APP is quietly being successful, so you’d think that the UPA should be able to pull it off, but the numbers in and number out have to be in balance.

Number of days on a court: 757
Number of total hours: 3,059.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 102.5

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

Tuesday, January 7, 2025 (Court Day #756)

Today was a warm day for January—hovering in the mid 60s—and it was still 61°F by the time I got to Scotts Valley. My car was telling me that I only had 3 miles of gas left so a little choice for the stop and fill up. When I got out of my car at the gas station, it was very windy. I had fully expected tonight to be a challenge on the courts, but the windscreens did their job and it wasn’t bad at all.

Skypark

The lot was full, but I spotted a woman walking to her car so I put my car in reverse and left her room to vacate the spot. I felt myself fortunate in my timing.

Free Cap

As I was about to play in my first game, Anthony’s young female friend Anna was offering two Joola caps for free. She said that they were brand new. She had a light gray one and a light blue one. I snatched up the gray one. Thanks, Anna!

Games

My first game was with Alex against Anthony and Anna. Alex and I won 11-1 against them in the first game. I was playing well.

The next game was Rachel and myself against David and his girlfriend Minori. While I wasn’t perfect, I was more perfect than Rachael. It was a close game, but we lost.

A nice surprise, Caitlin, the recently graduated UCSC student, was there tonight and said “hi” over the center divider while we were both in separate games. She later said waiting for her graduate school applications to come back.

Where a series of games with the two Aarons—Aaron Hicks and tall lefty Aaron Bartley against Matt Babb and myself. We played two very close games of which Matt and I won both.

We switched our partners in this time Aaron H. played with Matt and I played with Aaron B. We won 11-5.

We played another game, and this time while Aaron B. and I took a big lead, Aaron H. and Matt went on a run and started closing the gap. That’s when the lights clicked off at 8:30 p.m.

And?

Tonight felt like redemption. The last three outings have felt subpar but tonight I felt like I was playing well. Sure, I made some mistakes, but overall I played quite well.

Warm

Amazingly, when I got home, it was 63°F. (Scotts Valley tends to be more extremes when it come to temperatures.) Sheesh. It’s January 7 at 8:45 p.m. and it still about 60°. Yes, it was a very nice day.

USAP

When I renewed my membership for USA Pickleball over the summer last year, they were redoing their website and things were a bit rough. I didn’t get the newly-implemented membership discount for USAP Ambassadors and ordering one of the offered swag packages proved to be difficult.

A few weeks ago, I reached out to the USAP and they refunded the missing discount amount and talked me through ordering swag.

A package was waiting for me on our dining room table when I got home from Skypark tonight. Cap, luggage tag, socks. I was mainly after the cap. As if I need more caps! And I probably won’t wear the socks. Maybe I’ll gift them to my brother.

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Wednesday, January 8, 2025 (No Play)

A first, my brother John called me about 5 p.m. and asked if I wanted to play or drill. We’d been at my parents for a family party on Monday and I’d mentioned that we could get together and drill. I had a meeting tonight, so I couldn’t, but this was something new! My brother is getting serious about pickleball!

Number of days on a court: 756
Number of total hours: 3,056.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 102.5

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

Sunday, January 5, 2025 (Court Day #755)

After how relatively poorly played my last few outings, I was hoping for a rebound today as I drove to Brommer Park.

This was my first day of classes after a month off, so I couldn’t stay indefinitely. I needed to be on my way home no later than noon to change, eat, move things to my car and get out to Scotts Valley.

Brommer

It was sunny, but 48°F when I arrived at Brommer Park at 9:06 a.m. The parking lot was only about half full. I think the temperature scared some people away. 

My first game of the day was with a tall thin blonde woman named Tatiana who said she visits from Palo Alto now and then. I had never met her before. She and I lost, but I wouldn’t take that as a huge surprise, I think she’s a bit of a newer player but with a solid 3.0 level skill set. I played a couple of games with her, but then I wanted to get in with a more difficult group.

I played a game with Rick Arnold against a couple people and we won 11–4.

I played with a guy named Tony against Rick and René. We beat them a couple of times.

Then I played with a guy named Mike whom I’ve seen around. He’s is tall and his 60s, but has a solid game.

My last game was with Laura against Evan and John who is strong 3.0 level player. John was playing more to 3.5 level today. Laura and I lost 11–9 in that game—a game that we should’ve won, but I was dragging a bit. I was tired. On my way home, I was yawning in the car. It’s only the second time in my life that I remember having done that.

And?

I would give myself a C- grade for my play today. Things to work on… staying fully back behind the baseline while waiting for service returns, fully covering the middle. Basic stuff I teach in my classes! 

I had a few of my service returns sail long today and I wasn’t super happy about that. I missed a few of my serves, but that was when I was being tricky and trying to hit angles or otherwise take a risk… usually when we had a big lead.

I don’t lob a lot, but I do lob now and then to test my opponents. I hit two or three lobs that were not successfully returned, but I also had at least two or three lobs that were too short and gave my opponent slams. That’s the big risk with lobs. 

It was 59° when I left at 11:45 p.m. A little over an hour later, I was on my way to teach in Scotts Valley.

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Monday, January 6, 2025 (No Play)

I’d never heard of the Apple Fitness+ streaming service, but today, new pickleball-specific features went live:
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/01/06/new-apple-fitness-programs-now-available

I’d missed it but these were announced last week:
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/apple-fitness-plus-update-new-pickleball-b2673284.html

Number of days on a court: 755
Number of total hours: 3,055
Number of paid coaching hours: 102.5

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