Month: September 2025 (Page 2 of 3)

Sunday, September 14, 2025 (Court Day #852)

Yesterday, my brother John asked to connect up and play today with him and a woman he is seeing named Melissa, who John has been introducing to pickleball. But I told John I wasn’t willing to give up my time playing this morning at Brommer Park, however, I told him that I could probably meet with him this afternoon.

I would’ve been teaching today, however, the Skypark court resurfacing is still not completed and so my classes were bumped yet another week—after already being bumped a month. It has been a complete hassle.

Brommer

It was amazingly sunny and 66°F when I arrived at Brommer Park at 9:55 a.m.

My first game was with Jordan Rein against little Linda in a somewhat regular guy named Paul. I was expecting us to win which we did, 11-1. 

Dave Ryan and I teamed up against Shawnté and Jordan. David and I lost a lopsided game. That was my third game of the day. Our loss was a combination of my errors plus Dave trying way too hard and making a fair number of uncharacteristic errors himself. Nonetheless, the game was back-and-forth, despite the final score. We lost something like 1–11 or 3–11.

Dave wanted a rematch and this game was a bit closer. This one we lost 5–11 or 6–11. This was a better game.

One shot that I specifically remember from that second game was a pop-up in the middle. We were doing a good job communicating about shots in the middle and Dave let me have this one. Unfortunately, I let down my partner by hitting that shot about 2 feet long of the baseline. I turned to my right and said, “Sorry, Dave.” Dave was supportive, but I’m sure he was as disappointed—or even annoyed—as I was embarrassed.

Tony

Mexican Tony teamed up with the newbie named Eric. I teamed up with Eric’s friend Jason, who was also a newbie. It was a throwaway game. Then Tony and I switched partners, again splitting the two weak players. Honestly, I have no recollection if I won those games and nor does it matter.

Tony and I then went on to play a game against René and Alex, the bird researcher. The first game was somewhat close with Tony and I winning. I was playing really well.

We played a rematch and this time I think René was kind of done. This game was a lopsided game in our favor. I noticed that René and Alex were trying to hit the ball more to me, and it wasn’t because they thought I was the weaker player, René wanted the best challenge.

More Games

There was a guy named Darrell at Brommer today whom I’d never seen before. He and I played a game against Alex and René. We lost.

In between games, Darrell was asking me strategic advice on how to improve. I told him that he might want to try something other than drives all the time but he explained that he has really strong drives from the baseline.

Juls and I played a game against lefty Greg and Darrell.

Ironically, in that last game, when I was paired with Jules, Darrell drove four shots in a row at me with the fourth one getting returned right to his feet, ending the rally. René, who was watching said to me from the wall, “Why would he keep driving? You were returning all of them right back at him.” I gave a smile and a shrug.

As I was leaving for the day, Jules was asking how I get so much power on my volleys at the net with so little backswing. It has to be wrist.

I left at 12:45 p.m. after 2 1/2 hours of play.

Derby Park

I arrived at Derby Park at 2:20 p.m. to meet John and his friend Melissa. John told me that when they arrived at 1:50 p.m. there was only one game going on. By 2:30 p.m., all the courts were full. 

We did a little bit of hitting back-and-forth then I suggested we do some “2 on 1.” I would cover the entirety of one side of the net and they would cover the other. I told him that if they started beating me and I would only cover half of my side of the court. As it turned out, there was no worry. The first game ended with me winning 11–2 or 11–3. We switch sides and played again and this time I won 11–0.

For about 30 minutes, they wanted to work on serve returns, so I was just serving to them over and over and over with no rallies. Then we played again with me covering my side of the court by myself and again I beat them 11–0.

We returned to them working on their returns until John decided it was time to go at 4:15 p.m.

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Tuesday, September 16, 2025 (No Play)

Here’s more about that San Diego street closure to accommodate a community pickleball event that I previously mentioned:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNtuNab5Gad/

It’d be fun to do something like this in Santa Cruz. It’d also be fun to visit my mother-in-law in San Diego the next time they do a pickleball event like this and participate myself.

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Wednesday, September 17, 2025 (No Play)

Pickleball is returning to the National Mall in Washington D.C.:
https://nationalmall.org/content/nmop2025

Skypark

Work continues at the Skypark courts in Scotts Valley. They originally said that resurfacing would be complete in 4 weeks, but we already passed that. My August pickleball classes were delayed and had been scheduled to start last weekend, Sunday, September 14. But the courts weren’t ready and I was forced to postpone my classes yet one additional week. It was pretty stressful for me trying to coordinate the delay with students and find new students to register and replace students dropping out due to scheduling conflicts.

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Thursday, September 18, 2025 (No Play)

This afternoon, to my great relief, Allison from the City of Scotts Valley Parks & Recreation Department contacted me and let me know that the court resurfacing—while it wouldn’t be completely finished—would be finished enough for me to hold my classes on Sunday afternoon.

Allison also gave me the numeric code to the gate lock so I would be able to let my students in. She’s stressed that I needed to make sure to re-lock the gate so that the general public could not get onto the courts. Easy enough!

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Friday, September 19, 2025 (No Play)

The courts in Scotts Valley are nearing the finish line.

Pickleball in the NFL

NFL quarterback Joe Flacco—currently with the Cleveland Browns—plays pickleball and went on the record talking about it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DOycTIdDqkP

Halloween Costumes

Target has pickleball costumes now…

https://www.target.com/p/adult-pickleball-and-paddle-halloween-couples-humor-costume-apparel-top-hyde-and-eek-boutique-8482-one-size-fits-most/-/A-93116098

And JCPenny’s has some costumes now too…

https://www.jcpenney.com/p/unisex-adult-pickle-ball-paddle-ball-couple-costume/ppr5008382702

Pickleball continues to grow and become more and more mainstream.

Number of days on a court: 852
Number of total hours: 3,284.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 161.5

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

Thursday, September 11, 2025 (Court Day #851)

I trekked all the way out to Brommer Park on Tuesday night, and while it was worthwhile, I didn’t want to do that again today. I texted René, who is recently moved to Santa Cruz from the San Jose area, to see if she wanted to drill. We agreed to meet at Derby Park around 6 p.m.

Derby Park

René had been there for a few minutes when I arrived. We got about to drilling and we didn’t even get 10 minutes in before we got invited into a game with Simon and his friend Saunder.

René and I won the first game something like 11–2. Then we switched sides and played a second game and this time was a little bit closer but again we won by a good margin, something like 11–5.

Simon invited their other friend Joel to replace him. Joel is definitely a better player than Simon. René and I were not playing our best and we surprisingly lost that game by a pretty strong margin.

Then we switch sides and this time we won.

Joel has some pretty strong spin on shots and is really good with angles. He’s also kind of deceptive where that ball is going to go. I have to give him credit for that.

At 7:30 p.m. it was after sunset and it was starting to get a little bit chillier and people were getting hungry. It was still in the mid 60s but the breeze and no sun made it seem colder. It was time to call it a day.

And?

I felt kind of bad since we didn’t really end up spending much time drilling at all, but I believe that René was OK with playing given that the wind would’ve affected any kind of drilling we might’ve been able to do.

Kind of ironically, or perhaps not so much, when René asked me what I wanted to work on I told her, “not hitting out balls!“ Later on while playing, I hit an outball that very likely would’ve hit the fence behind me. René admonished me for that one! And deservedly so.

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Saturday, September 13, 2025 (No Play)

This short reel on Instagram shows the difference in cores between Gen 2, Gen 3 and the newer foam core paddles:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNDvEAHAGJa

Number of days on a court: 851
Number of total hours: 3,280
Number of paid coaching hours: 161.5

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 (Court Day #850)

Conner McNicholas started a small text group of players that live on the westside. Being that today I had to leave work around 3:45 p.m. for a non-profit board meeting, I figured I’d take that opportunity to not return to work afterward and instead get some play or drilling in. I reached out to Conner’s text group, but none of them were available to drill and instead Conner and Alfred said they were heading to Brommer to play.

My meeting ended early and when I went home and offered to walk the dog, my wife told me I should go play. I was pleasantly surprised that the traffic was light on Highway 1 South as I headed to Brommer. 

Brommer Park

I pulled into Brommer‘s parking lot at about a quarter to 6 p.m. It was sunny and 73°F. It was kind of a weird day today, it lightly rained this morning.

Alfred was sitting on the wall when I walked in. He said he had been at the courts for about half an hour. While we were both sitting sitting there, Monica asked if we wanted to play. I was up for a warm-up game. And Alfred was agreeable.

First Games

Alfred teamed up with Monica and I played with a woman named Rose. Rose asked if we had played together before and I told her, “not that I remember.” She said that I looked familiar. I told her that I was the vice president of the pickleball club and that I also teach classes locally and that maybe it was from one of those. It wasn’t until later that I realized that maybe she had seen my photo in the newspaper from one of advertisements for our family business. Who knows?

Rose and I had a significant disadvantage with the sun low in the sky behind our opponents. There were several shots that I lost in the sun. While our opponents did a good job of not lobbing us, the sun was still annoying and at times very frustrating. Had are opponents lobbed, I would’ve insisted on a side change at 6 points instead of keeping the challenge of hitting into the sun. We did end up losing that game 9–11… not bad considering our opponents had an advantage of at least 2 to 3 points with the sun. The sun was a complete nightmare on our side. 

Once that game was done, Alfred wanted to get into a game with a couple of his friends, Ryan and Jonathan, who were in a game against Tim Feickert and Pauly.

Once that game ended, we joined their court. Alfred and I teamed up and came away with a very lopsided 11–2 win, even though my team was once again playing looking into the sun. But at least the sun was getting lower and starting to get blocked by trees.

We switched sides and had a rematch, and once again the outcome was not that different. This time Alfred and I won 11–5.

More Games

I teamed up with a man named Bobby against Sam and a younger petite woman I’ve seen more frequently lately named Taylor.

Bobby has a habit of not coming up to the net quite as quickly as he probably should. Nonetheless, we won 12-10 versus Sam and Taylor. 

We switched sides, and played again. It was very obvious that our teams were very balanced. There were a lot of side outs in this game as well. The light was fading fast.

Once again, Bobby and I squeaked out a win, this time 14-12.

It was getting dark when I left at 7:35 p.m.

Surprisingly, I was still 73°F though the temperature was sure to drop soon. As it was, while I was not drenched, I was somewhat sweaty.

And?

I left feeling happy about my play, though I was not perfect. I hit three or four shots into the white tape. I popped up some shots on volleys, most often while on the run. Generally, my errors were shots that were made difficult by my opponents. For instance, I don’t believe that I hit any dinks into the net.

Inbox

Just for kicks, here’s a pretty typical morning of pickleball emails, after deleting some non-pickleball messages.

I get a lot of pickleball related email messages. And I’ll send notes to myself via email from my work account to my home account.

New Ball

Franklin is making some new foam pickleballs that are coming out in mid September, so soon:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNrTf0Nwp0W
From the comments on that reel, it won’t be official and will only be for drilling and non-tournament use.

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Wednesday, August 10, 2025 (No Play)

A funny one! Good at pickleball or…?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNbJ6B0JRQ4

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Thursday, September 11, 2025 (No Play)

A week and a half ago, an article was published in the New York Times analyzing the boom of pickleball courts in the USA.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DOYQ0nij37f/

“Thousands of tennis courts across the U.S. have given way to — or now share space with — pickleball, according to a New York Times analysis.”

I grabbed a couple of screenshots from their social media post linked above and here they are:

Here’s the actual article, though you need a subscription to read it:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/09/01/upshot/pickleball.html

“By analyzing nearly 100,000 aerial photographs, we were able to identify more than 26,000 outdoor pickleball courts made in the last seven years – a majority of them at the expense of once-exclusive tennis spaces and created since the onset of the pandemic in 2020,” [Ethan Singer] writes. “In total, we found more than 8,000 tennis courts that had been transformed for pickleball.”

Number of days on a court: 850
Number of total hours: 3,278.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 161.5

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