Month: November 2025 (Page 1 of 3)

Thursday, November 27, 2025, Thanksgiving (Court Day #876)

The thermometer at my house read 44°F and the one in my car, on the other hand, which have been sitting in the sun, was reading 48°F. Regardless, it was pretty cold! I slipped on a sweatshirt before heading out.

My wife didn’t want me to play too long this morning. We’d be meeting my son’s girlfriend for the first time at our house at about noon. My wife wanted the house to be perfect, plus there was food prep to do for the family Thanksgiving gathering at my brother’s house at 2 p.m. this afternoon.

My right knee continues to be sorer than normal, so I wore my knee brace today. I figured I’d probably do some icing when I got home.

Given that my body is generally sore for some reason—as I mentioned in my Tuesday entry—I figured it would be a good idea if I didn’t have an extended session anyway.

Brommer

I pulled into the parking lot at 8:39 a.m. to find an abnormally large amount of parking… early on a holiday!

Games

It didn’t take too long for me to get into a game. A woman visiting from Reno named Ita (“ee-tah”) asked me to warm up with her. Soon Leslie and Monica joined us and we had a game.

Leslie and I were on one side and Monica and Ita were on the other side. Leslie and I took a huge lead before they even got to serve once. They scored a few points bringing the score to 4–8. From there, we went on to wrap up the game and win. Leslie played really well. 

We mixed it up with me playing with Ita for the second game. She and I won in a solid fashion against Leslie and Monica.

Marco

Marco arrived and he took Monica’s place and he played with Ita against Leslie and myself. I don’t remember much about the game other than I was going out of my way to try to hit to Marco to make the game as challenging as possible. One shot sticks in my mind, only because Leslie mentioned it. There was a rally where we were all at the net and the ball got popped up. Marco slammed it hard down the middle between Leslie and myself. When I saw the ball get popped up, I took one step back then stretched out and did a forehand volley reset, dropping the ball into the kitchen in front of Ita. It was a great defensive shot. The game was close and honestly, I don’t remember who won. Maybe it was us, maybe it was them, but it could’ve gone either way.

Visitor

Marco and I played a game against a local man named Brent, who is a new player, and his son Andrew from San Luis Obispo, who is in town visiting his dad for Thanksgiving. I tried to hit more shots to Andrew, but we even then we won in short order 11–1. I could tell that Andrew was just still warming up. I’m sure he would’ve played better in later games. Brent‘s biggest problem was being in the wrong place on the court and not being properly prepared for the ball, but his serves were good, and his drives were also good.

Cool Game

The game of the day was Oscar and myself against Marco and tall lefty Aaron B. Oscar and I had first service and scored three points.

Service went to their side and they scored one point before the service returned to us.

We added one point and went ahead 4-1, then they scored two more points, bringing it to 4–3.

Oscar and I scored another point taking it to 5–3.

They scored a couple, then we scored a couple. 7–5.

Service was going back and forth, but then we went ahead 8–5.

We scored one and they scored two, so it was 9–7 in our favor.

Then they went on a run of three points, taking the lead for the first time in the game, 10–9. One more point and they would win the game.

There were some back-and-forth, then we tied up at 10–10. We held them on their service and then we scored one more point to bring it to 11–10. Then we scored one more and won 12–10.

More?

Oscar asked if we want to play another, but I asked Marco what time it was, telling him that I would need to leave if it was 10. He said, “It’s 10.” I peered over this outstretched watch—yep, 9:59 a.m. Time to go, unfortunately. It was painful to walk away from a game like that, but duty calls! I actually got into dink battles for the first time that the day. 

It was partly cloudy in 57°F when I left.

And?

How did I feel about my play today? Far better than I did Tuesday night, that’s for sure! Tuesday night was a disaster. Today, I felt like I played decently well.

I felt my right knee during games a little bit. The back of my right hand is hurting a little. The inside of my right elbow is also giving me a little bit of pain but nothing to write home about.

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Friday, November 28, 2025 (No Play)

Just for fun, Colin and Ben Johns toying with 5.0 players:
https://youtube.com/shorts/WvinJU9Jr14

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Sunday, November 30, 2025 (No Play)

Staying bad at pickleball may be the secret to happiness….
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRr1P8XAHZf

Teaching

I didn’t play any pickleball in the morning, but I had 3 1/2 hours of teaching in the afternoon from 1 p.m. until 4:30 p.m.

I had an odd number of students for my second class so I ended up pairing up with various students for the drills. Once the class ended, the students wanted to stick around and play a game. I left at 4:45.

I got a lot of happy “thank you” for my students. One couple, Jocelyn and Oliver, give me a gift. It was a bag of Vlastic Pickle Balls… dill pickle flavored corn puffs. Vlasis definitely played up the game connection. There’s a photo of an actual pickleball on the back of the package! Anyway, thoughtful. I’ve never tried them before, and I like pickles, so who knows…

New Indoor Facility

New indoor pickleball facility about 2 hours north in an old theater complex in Rohnert Park. Clever and creative, I hope that it will be financially feasible.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRqqWzKii7_

Blast from the Past

Someone posted a 2017 video of Kyle Yates and Ben Johns playing a match against Tyson McGuffin and his partner, Matt Gobel:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DRnLuUWj7SD

I posted my own comment on this video clip:

“I’ve been playing since then. I met Kyle and Ben here in California when Ben was just 19. They were #1 at the time and Ben was quite humble.

Tyson and Morgan Evans were there too. I didn’t talk to Tyson, he scared me! He looked so intense!!”

And it’s true. And I regret not approaching Tyson at the time. I believe he’s much less fierce than he appears! You can read about my meeting with them in this post.

Number of days on a court: 876
Number of total hours: 3,333
Number of paid coaching hours: 185.5

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

Tuesday, November 25, 2025 (Court Day #874)

I was sore today. It was odd. My forearms were sore. My body was sore.

As I left work, it was dark and felt unusually nippy at 54°F.

My right knee has been bothering me more the last couple of weeks. Sometimes it’ll just ache. It generally does not bother me when I am out playing, but it did bother me enough that I noticed it once or twice while playing on Sunday.

Skypark

I arrived at Skypark at 7 p.m. The temperature was even cooler in Scotts Valley, 52°F. I was hoping that I would not regret not bringing a sweatshirt tonight.

Ugh.

Oh, my goodness. I was playing so badly tonight. To top it off, during one game, my partner for that game was playing at her 3.0 level and a shot got popped up as a result. Jens slammed that high ball and it hit me square in the side of the jaw. I had turned just in time to not get hit in the mouth or nose! That one stung.

We’ll just leave it at that. There weren’t really any games of note tonight. All were pretty iffy games with short rallies.

PPA Comeback

Here’s a lesson in never giving up. Christian Alshon and Andrei Daescu were playing against J.W. Johnson and C.J. Klinger in a semi-finals match. They got toasted in the first game 4-11. Then they were down 0-8 in the second game—3 points away from losing the match. It was looking extremely bad. But they came back to win that second game then go on to with the whole match!

Here’s where it popped up on social media:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DRYPItvjA9O

You can watch the full match here:

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Wednesday, November 26, 2025 (No Play)

Nearby Carmel is in the news again. S.F. Gate is reporting that Carmel has now formally banned pickleball:
https://www.sfgate.com/centralcoast/article/carmel-moves-to-permanently-ban-pickleball-21193222.php

And Fox News picked up the story nationally as well:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/wealthy-california-town-bans-pickleball-noise-complaints-paddles-hitting-balls

Apparently Pickleball Dying

This guy, supposedly a knowledgeable financial expert, is claiming that pickleball has peaked and is on its way out like racquetball:
https://www.instagram.com/reels/DRdlB3YDs9L

It is such a wrong take.

In reply to the video, one guy said this (unedited):

“I’m a career tennis pro and in California and when Pickleball started on the rise around the pandemic time, I called it and said give it 4 to 5 years and between all the ACL hip injuries in the ER and the hype and all the PR that went around Pickleball on social media and racket industry companies it would fade and I’m so pleased to see that it’s fading. I’m all four people taking up new sports I don’t consider Pickleball much of a sport yet, but I’m off for people enjoying it.
What I have been really opposed to is the fake hype about how amazing this so-called sport is and that everyone should quit sports like tennis and take a pickle ball. Over my dead body is what I always say and I am not surprised there’s a decline. I also think the racket sport industry blew it when they did not redesign the equipment. They should’ve patted the rackets at the very beginning and they should’ve changed the wiffle ball to a low pressure tennis ball. The noise frequency from pickle ball, the annoying temperament of Pickleball players who play in this high-pitched game is part of the reason of the decline. If they change the equipment and made it more absorbing and quiet, it would be so much more acceptable.”

To which, I replied:

“There is no decline. Pickleball continues to grow. It has grown 311% in the last three years and the Sports & Fitness Industry Association is projecting double digit growth for at least another four years.
just because people don’t want to pay to play inside when they can play outside for free, doesn’t mean this sport is dying.”

Talking to a Wall

So a tennis player—well, he has a ZeroLoveTennis handle—posted a video meme on Instagram to complain about the sound of pickleball and how it annoys tennis players. The meme features Will Ferrell playing a cowbell during a rock song recording. (You can see the full original Saturday Night Light comedy sketch from 2000 here.)

Here’s the link to the Instagram post:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DP2fjosCYSr

Now, me, ready to poke fun back, posted this comment:

“This is totally inaccurate.
There would be 20 Pickleball players and 1 tennis player.”

This lead to an interesting (but later infuriating) discussion:

born_in_the_303 @pickleballjourney Guess a lot of folks don’t like to do hard things
[shrug emoji] I see the appeal of being able to pick up a paddle, rally, have fun and feel good about it. Tennis on the other hand, well it’s gonna take some time to rally consistently, let alone play a match.

… to which I replied:

pickleballjourney @born_in_the_303 True, though it takes some time to get really good at pickleball too.
There’s been a number of times of playing “doubles” but me covering one side of the net by myself and kicking the other side’s butt. The bar to entry is low, but there’s a high ceiling for those who really get into it.

…then the original poster chimed in:

zerolovetennis @pickleballjourney yeah I agree with that. IDK if it’s really that easy to get great at anything but it’s easy to play and be quite functional off the jump with pickleball, which is attractive for the sport.

…and I followed up:

pickleballjourney @zerolovetennis USA Pickleball is working on the sound concerns through their Quiet Initiative. New sanctioned paddles are out and new balls are in the works.

…I wasn’t quite sure what this was directed at, likely my joke:

jnicholson771 @pickleballjourney 
[Three laughing face emojis]

…then we get a cocky comment:

mpkpm88
@pickleballjourney and I can still beat you left handed [shrug emoji]

…I was curious:

pickleballjourney
@mpkpm88 We can play each other offhanded. I won a PB gold medal playing lefty while I had very bad tennis elbow on my dominant right arm, though it did take a year of adjustment.

…someone else chimes in:

bgthndr
@pickleballjourney of course there would be. It’s much easier to pick up than tennis…

…my response:

pickleballjourney
@bgthndr Indeed, the basics are easy to pick up very quickly. It makes it very popular. But just like tennis, the better you get, the harder it is to get into challenging games.

…a new face, replying to my Quiet Initiative comment, maybe?

georgegustin @pickleballjourney that would be nice.

…and the troll arrives:

antipickleball
@pickleballjourney it’s a racket sport, you need 2 to play you absolute I.d.i.o.t sandwich

…I take the bait, but hey, he called me an idiot:

pickleballjourney
@antipickleball I seriously doubt you want to compare your SAT score with mine. You used two fallacies, both a straw man attack as well as an ad hominem attack.

(And my SAT score was in the 90-percentiles. I also got a national award certificate for my score on the PSAT for who scored in the top 5%. I am far from an idiot.)

…he’s back with a lot of misspellings:

antipickleball
@pickleballjourney your fallacy was the inaccurate statement that you’d play a racket sport with 1 person…. [laughing face emoji] and that was dumb. No need to try to flex and speak Latin. We actually know exactly what you tried to stay and understand it, but the effort of you using was extremely flaud since your primary assumption was wrong and simply said, quite dumb ALSO: We never had to do or did an SAT. It’s just an ignorant test and means nothing to us, especially since your country doesn’t really scores high in schooling compared to mine and about 99 procent of people taking SAT’s couldn’t point to the place I’m from on a map, but I know all 50 states [wow emoji]. Which is why we think you ignorant and arrogant people are into pickleball. are into pickleball. It’s just simply as dumb as your statement was You’re only showing how local of a trail of thought you have. #pickleballsucks

…I reply:

pickleballjourney
@antipickleball Another straw man argument. I never said that a racquet sport would be played by one person. Your argument is the logical equivalent of
“Kangaroos have two legs. I have two legs. Therefore, I am a Kangaroo.” And nice use of the word “flaud”. This discussion is a complete waste of my time.

…another new face:

eibach20
@pickleballjourney true as with any activity and that’s what | call it. An activity not really a sport.
Like ping pong. An activity. To get really really good, the best of the best you have to practice a ton and be really talented. But to be the best of the best in tennis, requires crazy amount of dedication and athleticism, and working out. Not so nearly as much for pball.

…another new person chimes in:

prnrjones
@zerolovetennis not a sport

…I can’t let that lie:

pickleballjourney
@eibach20 Regardless of what a few claim, it’s a sport. See you in the Olympics.

…I like this guy, the original poster, he’s reasonable:

zerolovetennis @pickleballjourney I agree. It’s a sport. It’s not the most intense or crazy but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a sport. What else would it be??

…and the troll is back continuing with the straw man:

antipickleball
@pickleballjourney straw man or not. We actually HATE #pickleball and your general innuendo does NOT help changing our mind ONE bit, au contraire. The general air and arrogance you have around your own persona when you were so OBVIOUSLY wrong when you said there would be only one person showing up for a tennis game is such a legacy to all #pickledinklers and

pukeldinklers and is exactly why we created our page. We truly believe you lot are a bunch of bullies and have not gotten the memo about what it means to respectfully doing physical activity. We hope your fad dies together with the people the activity who it was meant for, seniors….

…I try to be kind and also set things straight:

pickleballjourney
@antipickleball I am sorry that you feel that way. Pickleball is very social sport and easy to learn, but it is difficult to truly master.
And by the way, it was originally designed as an activity for youth, not seniors. The current average age of a player in the United States is 35 years old and getting younger every year.

…OMG. Seriously?

antipickleball @pickleballjourney you’re
ABSOLUTELY wrong yet again, it was invented in Washington state. By 2 neighbors who lived absolute miles away from each other, so they never realized the noise pollution it would create decades later. They just wanted to connect more, which is OK in private situations, but the rest of the world does not need to hear you doing it. Also, they were not really young or interested in young people playing AT ALL.
They just wanted to get to know their neighbors, which is admirable, we admit. Too bad it became becoming the bullies IN MANY NEIGHBORHOODS in
AMERICA

…this guy is obtuse:

pickleballjourney
@antipickleball And how exactly am I supposed to be wrong again? [laughing emoji]
l’ve been to the property on Bainbridge Island with the original court.
Ok, you can claim whatever you want at this point, I’m out.
There’s a quote I’d like to share from Mark Twain, but I’ll behave myself.

…he had one more comment:

antipickleball
@pickleballjourney because it was never meant for younger people to begin with, as you now unwittingly admitted. You’re just arrogance itself who believes that after a simpleton BA has taught the world how to spin. Glad you’re saying goodbye because the worst a smart person can do is never admit that they were wrong and you embody that statement. You can copy statements from others (like Twain) all you want and you’re welcome to share their wisdom, but your personal thoughts are exuberayting stupidity and you should indeed keep to yourself….

When I said I was “out”, I meant it. He wasn’t interested in facts, just his own errant narrative and he was repeating himself and throwing insults.

Oh, that quote attributed to Mark Twain? Honestly, I don’t remember. There are a number that are (often widely and mistakenly) credited to him.
“Better to be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
(Sometimes this is credited to Lincoln, also probably mistakenly!)
Though maybe this quote was apropos:
“Never argue with an idiot. They’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”

I don’t think he beat me, but he certainly frustrated me with his nonsense. Maybe he had an unfortunate experience with some pickleball player somewhere. I hope not, but if so, I feel bad for him. But don’t lash out at everyone over your limited experience.

Number of days on a court: 875
Number of total hours: 3,331.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 182

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

Sunday, November 23, 2025 (Court Day #873)

Yesterday morning, my wife Kristen hopped into my daughter’s car and they drove to Oregon for one of my daughter’s 4th year medical school rotations. Kristen will be flying home tonight. In the meantime, I am on dog duty.

While it was only 54°, it was a sunny morning and really nice outside.

Brommer Park

I pulled into Brommer at 9:30 a.m. sharp. Surprisingly, they were only two parking spots left and I took one of them.

Once I got inside the gate, I spent a little time on the wall waiting for a game.

I teamed up with a regular, Ken, and we lost 7-11 against Dan Dewey and Mike Sullivan. Ken apologized to me frequently during that game. It was unnecessary, we both knew when he made an error. Of course, I’ve been in his shoes, in stronger games, and I do the same thing.

We mix things up, and I partnered with Dan Dewey against Mike and Ken. We were down 8–10, but came back and won 12-10.

Given that it was a close game, we opted to have a rematch. Coincidentally, we found ourselves down again, 8–10, but then again we went on a 4 point run and won again by a score of 12–10.

As we walked off, Dan said we weren’t playing great, but we continued to just hang around. Our biggest problem was not communicating well enough for shots in the middle. There are times when I wasn’t covering the middle well enough and there were times that he wasn’t either.

More Games

Ken and I teamed up again, this time playing against René and Mike S. We lost 6-11.

Next up, it was René and me taking on Kim and Mike S. We won 11-4.

René and I played again, this time against Kim and Frabrizio. This was a bad game. We lost 3-11. We were both off. I needed to take a break. There was a rally we lost purely because I hadn’t moved fast enough to the correct position. I was moving a bit too slowly. René messed up in the last two rallies and that was that. It was obvious that she wanted to be done and into another game.

But I didn’t take a break. I rolled into a game with Pavel against a guy named Darin with a wicked forehand and Nari. I must’ve hit at least four balls that were sailing far out. Pavel would shake his head and smile. So bad. We lost that game, but not by much. We would’ve won had I not hit all those outballs.

Marco

Marco arrived. I ended up in a game with Nari against Marco and a young woman who may have never seen before named Taylor. (There’s a Taylor with brown hair who is petite and comes fairly often, but this was a different Taylor.) This Taylor is the friend—girlfriend?—of Aaron, the young guy who sports the track and field T-shirts.

After a few shots, it became very apparent that there is a big disparity between Marco’s skill level of 4.0–4.5 and Taylor, who I would place at a 3.0 skill level.

During that game, I was hitting virtually every shot I could to Marco, and it was apparent that Nari was doing the same thing. Even with that, we won the first game 11–7. Marco got more warmed up in the second game and played better. We continued to target him. We did lose that second game 9–11. It wasn’t for not playing well. It negatively impacts the dynamic of the game when you’re not hitting optimal shots by intentionally hitting to a certain player. Shots can be slightly awkward or delayed while picking where to hit instead of it being more automatic. And I was intentionally hitting my serve softer to Taylor.

I was getting hungry and tired. I checked the time after last game, 1:18 p.m.

The aside from being tired and having not eaten since the night before, I played pretty well. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to be in a game was all stronger players. I was a little bit rusty.

It is 66°F and still sunny when I left. It was a beautiful day.

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Monday, November 24, 2025 (No Play)

So, the latest real estate trend is an uptick is home listings that feature a pickleball court on the property. Courts aren’t cheap to install, tens of thousands of dollars typically, but they are desired!
https://www.aol.com/articles/pickleball-courts-hottest-backyard-trend-124500937.html

Number of days on a court: 874
Number of total hours: 3,330
Number of paid coaching hours: 182

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