Tuesday, November 18, 2025 (Court Day #872)
The big news for today is that the Santa Cruz City Council voted to prove the draft plan for redesigning Harvey West Park. Club president Mark Dettle told me that there is no funding attached to the plan, which could be a concern given the project will cost upwards of a staggering $140 million! But it is at least a step forward. The plan includes either five courts or eight courts and, however many they decide, we are pushing to have those courts lit.
Driving
I’ve been doing a lot of driving over Highway 17 to the Silicon Valley in the last couple of days. On Sunday evening, I drove to San Jose Airport to pick up my mom. Yesterday, I met with my son Nicholas to watch the Raiders get clobbered on Monday Night Football. The original plan was for he and I to meet in Los Gatos, but my sister asked me if I could pick up her brother-in-law Joey from the airport. So instead, Nicholas and I watched the game in Santa Clara. All was well until the flight was delayed by two hours so instead of me picking up Joey immediately after the game ended, I went to Nicholas’s apartment and hung out for a couple hours instead.
Tonight, I got to drive Highway 17 again, although this time it was abbreviated with me only going as far as Scotts Valley. Thank goodness!
Skypark
I arrived at the Skypark Courts at 6:45 p.m. after work. It was dark and 54°F. Given all the rain we’ve had over the past several days, I was expecting it to be busy. When I got to the courts, however, there was plenty of parking. Perhaps the cold weather scared people off.
I immediately got into a game and played a few with Pauly against Kim and Ahbi.
This evening, one of my weaknesses became apparent. It’s not a secret that serving to your opponent’s backhand can be a very effective weapon and result in a weak return. Aaron Bartley’s wife Kim has a fast serve and she’s also very good at targeting specific locations. She served hard to my backhand and my return went into the net. I told her, “Keep those coming!” And she did. I think she made six serves my backhand. Several ended up in the net and all were poor returns. My backhand service returns are generally not that bad—though not stellar—but not that bad. Perhaps it was a combination of not playing for a week, playing under lights, having a long day of work, but still adjusting to a new paddle. That reminds me, I still need to add a layer of grip to the handle since it is still factory spec and the grip is little too small for me.
More Games
My next series of games was with Max against Pauly and Maria. Max was having a rough night and as we walked off the courts for the evening, he apologized to me. It wasn’t necessary, I enjoyed the games regardless.
The games tonight were pretty relaxing. No pressure. There was no one to impress and no DUPR ratings on the line.
Carmel
So, it’s a 52 minute drive—with good traffic—from here in Santa Cruz to Carmel by the Sea. Aside from being a very expensive place to live, Carmel famous for being home to movie icon Clint Eastwood and a whole lot of art galleries. It has also been gaining notoriety this month for looking to ban pickleball!
https://www.sfgate.com/centralcoast/article/carmel-moves-to-permanently-ban-pickleball-21193222.php
It seems crazy to ban a sport completely due to noise when there are solutions. We’ll see how this plays out. (No pun intended!)
Path to the Olympics
This week, two international pickleball governing bodies decided to merge, the United World Pickleball Federation (UWPF) and the Global Pickleball Federation (GPF).
Now, the problem I have with this article is it completely ignores the International Pickleball Federation (IFP), which was originally the IPF but was disbanded and immediately reorganized as the IFP.
Ok, wait. I missed something.
Back in June, the IFP merged with the WPF and later formed the UWPF:
https://theipf.org/assets/pr/MergerResolution.pdf
How I missed this, I don’t know.
This means we truly are down to just one international pickleball governing body. This is great news since to get into the Olympics, pickleball needs just one international body to interact with the IOC. We’re now finally there!
Wednesday, November 19, 2025 (No Play)
The USA Pickleball Nationals are being held down in San Diego this week. Bob Hansen—retired UCSC tennis coach—and Jackie Signor—current SCPC Board member—won 70+ mixed 4.0 at Nationals! Nice! Kristin Long (also a board member) posted a photo on Facebook to commemorate the win.
Number of days on a court: 872
Number of total hours: 3,324
Number of paid coaching hours: 182
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