Month: July 2025 (Page 1 of 5)

Tuesday, July 29, 2025 (Court Day #835)

This morning, this popped up. I need this, yes, a shock collar when when I hit an out ball!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMkiTeUzhKS/

Padel vs. Pickleball

“Move over pickleball”? This is a news report from the Bay Area, about an hour away:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHluxzTR9fk/

I’ll admit, padel looks like a lot of fun. But according to Google’s A.I., “A June 2025 study on pickleball in Asia found that close to 812 million people in that region have played at least once.” Also, “The Association of Pickleball Players (APP) estimates over 100 million players globally.” Also, “There are an estimated 30 million active padel players worldwide as of 2024 and 2025.”

Padel may be great, but it’s far harder and more expensive to set up a padel court than a pickleball court.

Skypark

As I drove away after work at 6:26 p.m., it was a sunny warm 75°F without a cloud in the sky. Even though it was only two days, it felt like forever since I played. I believe a part of that is because I only got two good games on Sunday at Derby Park.

I parked and was walking into the Skypark courts around 6:40 p.m. The courts were a little busy and people are waiting however there was no whiteboard out.

I pretty quickly got into games, including some with and against David L. and against Rachel. I had two games against a guy named John who is quite a good player and I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen him before.

David was absolutely on fire tonight. Unrelated, his partner Minori is now 35 weeks along with their first child.

I felt somewhat satisfied with my play tonight, but it’s not necessarily because I played particularly well but more so that I was just tired. By 7:30 p.m., I was dragging a bit and not caring so much about the outcome of the games.

Fremont Courts

A new indoor pickleball facility has opened up in the East Bay, specifically, in Fremont, roughly 45 minutes north of my house:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMjMrRsS1bk

I doubt I’ll ever play there, but who knows? Maybe.

Number of days on a court: 835
Number of total hours: 3,242
Number of paid coaching hours: 156.5

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

Wednesday, July 30, 2025 (Court Day #836)

After got home from work, I was informally eating dinner by myself standing at the kitchen counter when I got a text from Conner McNicholas asking if I wanted to drill at Derby Park—like, right then!

Being a responsible husband, I checked with my wife to see if there was anything she needed me to do, but she told me was it was a beautiful night and to go play. I told Conner that I would be there in 20 minutes.

Derby Park

It was 66° and the shadows were long as the sun dipped low in the sky. Sunset would be coming in about an hour.

When I arrived, there were a couple of players on one court, a family of three on another court, and then there was Conner on the third court by himself, a little bit farther away.

We started with a few minutes of straight ahead dinking, and after a few minutes, we switched to crosscourt dinking—or if you believe voice to text “crossword thinking”—punctuated with an occasional speedup. Then we switched to drops from the baseline with the other player at the net trying to make it as difficult as possible for the dropper.

After about 20 minutes, Conner suggested we play skinny singles. Under Conner‘s rules, after serving from the even side, the returner would return straight ahead and the server would shift over. When the server was odd, both players would stay and play diagonally.

In the first game, while there was definitely some back-and-forth, I found myself down 1-9. I did claw back and make it 7-10, but then Connor scored one more point and won the game.

We switch sides and played it again this time, it was I who took a lead 8-4. Conner came back and tied it up 10-10 and then he won 12-10.

We switch sides again and this time it was tied up 2-2 when Conner decided it was too dark for him to continue.

It was just shy of 8:30 p.m. when we called it a day.

Junior Player

Here’s a news report out of Phoenix about a 13-year-old girl named Kelly Goodnow. According to the report, she’s the top-ranked “14 and under” junior pickleball player:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMgpFOQSNgR

Number of days on a court: 836
Number of total hours: 3,243
Number of paid coaching hours: 156.5

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

Sunday, July 27, 2025 (Court Day #834)

Today is the annual “Wharf to Wharf” race. This year, my wife, our son, and her friend are participating. I would say “run” it, but that’s not really true. They registered for the race and have bib numbers, but they are joining the race somewhere in the middle and will be walking it.

Brommer

I dropped them off where they asked to be, then I headed the few blocks to Brommer Park to go play. The bad news is that as I drove up the hill next to the park at 8:15 a.m., I was surprised to see, off to my left, a line of apparently circling cars in the parking lot. After I turned into the lot myself, my newfound fears were confirmed. The Brommer Park lot was completely full of race participant cars—and the sides of the roads in the surrounding blocks were full of their parked cars as well! I was very annoyed. I spotted a few players on the courts from my car, but with no place to park, irritated, I decided head back home and then onto Derby Park for club day.

Last year at this time, I was still the long-time Sunday site coordinator for Derby Park and therefore was never at Brommer on a Sunday. I will have to keep in mind for next year that on race weekend, the Brommer parking spaces will all be snaked by runners not using the park.

Derby Park

After driving back to Santa Cruz, I walked into the Derby courts at 8:52 a.m. The courts were already full.

As is typical at Derby Park, it started out overcast. Then the fog burnt off, and it got sunny while still being cool. 

Most of the games this morning were uneventful, however there were two games that were of interest. Both were against a guy named Frank who was sporting a PPR (certified coach) cap—like the one I own—and his friend named Tim. Tim is tall and thin with white hair and Frank is about my height with short-cropped hair and a fit build. I’d never seen either of them before and I’ve never heard of Frank as a local coach. I suspect that they may have been visiting.

Tim and Frank both returned shots that I would otherwise not expect to come back. They were worthy adversaries. In the first game, I was paired up with Jeff’s brother Scott against them. Scott imploded in the middle of the game and we couldn’t recover and lost.

It wasn’t entirely on Scott. Tim hit a rocket, which was passing near my head and I tried to pull my paddle down out of the way in time, but unfortunately the ball clipped the edge of my paddle in careening off into a neighboring court. I guess I can say that at least I was pulling my paddle down and out of the way and trying to do the correct thing. Had I simply gotten out of the way, that ball would’ve easily hit the fence behind us at least 3 to 4 feet above the ground.

Scott apologized later. My right hand hurt. He had popped up a ball and it was slammed down onto my hand. “If you were my brother, I wouldn’t apologize!” (That’d be Jeff who arrived later in the session.)

In the second game, I was paired up with Marin who is Soji’s husband. Marin is originally from Glasgow, Scotland and sports a Scottish accent. It is pronounced “MAR-in”. Marin is a good player. I’m kind of surprised that I hadn’t run into him previously. I think we won, but all I can remember is that it was a good game.

At 11:40 a.m., there are too many players waiting for me to get onto a court and still be done with my next game by noon. I needed to get home to eat lunch then go teach my classes. So I called it a day.

And?

Overall, I felt good about my play, but aside from the games against Tim and Frank, the competition wasn’t particularly strong. Even against him and Frank I still got at least four or five points from serves that they returned into the net or out. Yes, serves can be a weapon.

Referee Tom

Tom Sherwood is working his way to become a certified referee. I spotted him talking to Maree—who has been refereeing at tournaments around the country for years—a few times this morning. 

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Monday, July 28, 2025 (No Play)

Fake A.I. generated videos are still a novelty—”1984″ is arriving—and sometimes they are hilarious, like this one…
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMp92l9MSMZ/

Number of days on a court: 834
Number of total hours: 3,240
Number of paid coaching hours: 156.5

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