Thursday, February 6, 2025 (Court Day #769)
About 2 p.m., I left work and I headed north to Stanford University for the 1-year followup scan on my right (surgery) knee as part of a 6-year research study. As of last year, there were only two of these MRI combo machines in the entire country—world?—and both were doing research. They wanted me there at 3:15 p.m. to do paperwork for the 3:30 p.m. appointment, but it was raining and there ended up being an accident on Highway 17 North. I texted them warning that I’d be a little late and that ended up being 3:27 p.m. It worked out fine, regardless.
After the scan—no injection this time and just one scan instead of two—it was time to head to my son Nicholas’ apartment and from there we’d carpool to his pickleball class. Unfortunately, it was already almost 5 p.m., so instead, we arranged to meet at the Santa Clara Adult Education Gym for the 90-minute 6 p.m. class. He had previously let Cindy, his instructor, know that I was coming and that I could be a volunteer coach, if she wanted that.
It took me about 45 minutes to get from Stanford to the gym. The lot in front of the gym was full, so I parked in the overflow lot. As I walked back, a few spots had opened up… figures! Fortunately, it was only a few minute walk either way… it was just cold and still spitting annoying random small drops of rain.
The Gym
I walked into the gym to find only 4-5 people, but I was also about 15 minutes early. There were six pickleball nets already set up, filling the space.
I found a woman who appeared to be in charge, “Are you Cindy?” She smiled and said she was, then she started asking—but I answered her barely-started question, “I’m Nicholas’ dad.”
Cindy pointed out, “You are wearing your USA pickleball cap!” I asked if she was a USA Pickleball Ambassador too, but she explained that she’s just a USAP member. When I asked where I could change, she kindly walked me to the double doors and pointed to the Men’s restroom. Easy.
When I got back, things were a little busier and Nicholas had arrived. Cindy asked if I’d played indoors before. I told her that I had, though it’s rare. (I think I’ve played indoors maybe half a dozen times out of over 700 outings.) She explained that the ball takes a little getting used to. She also said she opted for blue-colored balls since the yellow ones had been difficult for her to see against the tan wood floor.
Warm Up
Nicholas and I warmed up doing crosscourt dinks—”aggressive dinks” as Cindy suggested to us early birds.
Cindy gathered everyone to one side of the gym next to the collapsed bleachers. Cindy introduced the two coach volunteers, Tony and Cathy, then she also introduced me and explained that I was visiting from Santa Cruz.
She lead us through about five minutes of warm ups, jogging, lunges, sideways shuffles. I was going to sit out and observe the warmups with Tony—who said he was sporting a sore hamstring—until Cindy yelled over, “Coaches too!” So, in I went!
Drills
Cindy ran fairy quickly through a series of drills. Drive followed by drop, speedup readiness, lob defense, transition defense, others. I felt like we had 10 minutes tops to run though each drill. The acoustics are pretty bad in a gym for drill explanations but she managed ok. I rotated groups for the drills.
Game Time
At 7 p.m., it was time for 30 minutes of games.
For the last set of drills, Cindy had put particular players on my court. It turned out that she’d picked the strongest players, so when it came time to roll into games, the students would be challenged.
First, I played with Mike against Kristen and a female partner, we’ll call her “S”. (I was never introduced and Cindy wasn’t 100% sure how to pronounce her name.) I later learned Mike has only been playing for about five months. Some skills transferred from his tennis background—I’d put him at a low 3.0 level. Kristen was a strong 3.0 and I’d put S as a very strong 3.0 or even a 3.5 level player. For S’s first two serves to me, the ball didn’t come back up—blue indoor balls!—and I hit them into the net. Embarrassing! But after that, I figured things out and returned her serves just fine. This was a pretty close game with the most balanced pairing.
In the second game, Mike played with S, and I played with Kristen. This was a lopsided game, I think they scored just two points.
At 7:30 p.m. sharp, it was time to clear out and make room for the soccer players.
Cindy and I chatted for a few minutes. She had nice things to say about Nicholas’ progress. She asked if I’d be back again soon, and I told her I had no idea. It’s uncommon for me to come over to the Silicon Valley, unless it’s a trip to/from the airport and that’s not long enough for pickleball. If they were all 4.0+ players, it’d be more enticing.
Cindy had done a good job “herding cats”. 24 students is a lot to manage.
And that was that. After dinner with Nicholas at a Mongolian BBQ place, I headed back “over the hill” to Santa Cruz and sleep!
Friday, February 7, 2025 (No Play)
About a week ago, USA Pickleball held what they called a “Media Day”. This was the first one I’d ever heard of. Guests were limited to pickleball paddle manufacturers and a few media outlets. It was mostly to explain their paddle testing procedures and seek feedback from paddle makers.
Here’s a good article about it, though it confuses terminology some. A paddle can’t be “delisted” if it was never approved in the first place!
https://www.speakpickleball.com/articles/usap-media-day-things-we-learned
Number of days on a court: 769
Number of total hours: 3,084
Number of paid coaching hours: 111.5
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