It was a dark and chilly 54°F evening but I left work about 6:30 p.m. to head to Scotts Valley. Today would be my third day in a row playing. Not the best thing for a sore knee, but I could use the exercise. I think I must’ve eaten 4 million calories of chocolate at work—you have to love the holidays and all the gifts of sweets!
I arrived at Skypark at 6:44 p.m.
Paddle Rack
The wood paddle rack had been moved to outside the courts. There was some really snarky anonymous note left by someone scolding the pickleball players for have rack inside the gate on the tennis court side . . . which is right where the pickleball players typically hang out since there are rarely tennis players actually playing. It’s far less convenient to have the paddles outside the gate, but we want to be good neighbors.
And?
As has been the case recently, I was really unhappy with my performance tonight. For example, I was hitting service returns too long and simply handing my opponents a point.
Sydney Sweeney?
According to social media, in a somewhat indeterminate video, actress Sydney Sweeney was spotted at a pickleball club in New York City playing. I’ll believe it when I see it verified for more than one source, but it wouldn’t surprise me. More and more celebrities are being spotted playing pickleball: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSC4TIbDuPE
Number of days on a court: 880 Number of total hours: 3,342 Number of paid coaching hours: 185.5
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
I’ll point out here that when I use “voice to text” on my phone to make notes for these entries, it’ll make the funniest errors sometimes. One is instead of recording “Brommer Park”, it sometimes records it as “Groomer Park.” Grooming for better pickleball, I hope!!
I seem to be missing a pair of sunglasses in the house somewhere and the only pair that I can find is the one where one of the wings partially snapped which I had reinforced with tape. So, yesterday I ordered another pair on eBay for about 15 bucks. It’s nice when the sunglasses that you like are cheap! [I’ll note here that I later found the missing sunglasses when my wife opened the passenger door of my car!]
Meeting
Today, is our monthly Santa Cruz Pickleball Club board meeting, so I took most of the day off from work. Today’s meeting was my third nonprofit board meeting in five days. Between that and working six days a week, it doesn’t leave a whole lot of extra free time. I spent about an hour yesterday finishing the November SCPC minutes (since our board secretary quit with a notice), then I spent about an hour this morning finishing the agenda for the meeting today.
It was a beautiful day, but not a cloud in the sky and a temperature of 55°F.
Brommer Park
Surprisingly, when I pulled in the parking lot at 10:31 a.m. there were about half a dozen parking spots open. That was a bit of a shock for me.
During club play, the blue color is supposed to be 4.0 and higher. I was signing up in blue and one of my partners was obviously a 3.0. I’m always verbally kind and supportive of my partners, and generally, I don’t really care too much about playing with a weak partner if I have strong players to play against, but when your partner can’t keep a rally going, that starts to get annoying. I mean, how many drives can you just hit into the net! Still, I didn’t say anything negative.
The best game of the day was when I was paired up with a guy named Thomas against Mo and Soji. (Mo knew Thomas, but he was new to me.) My play that game started at a little rough, but then I dialed it in just in time for Thomas’s play to get a little rough. Eventually things fell into place and we were both playing better. We ended up winning the game. I will say that Soji has gotten significantly better over the last year.
I finished play at about 12:10 p.m.
Our board meeting was called to order at 12:16 p.m. We covered a variety of topics including setting membership dues for 2026 and setting the amounts for optionally prepaying annual court fees as a lump sum instead of paying two dollars in cash every time.
And?
I felt my play was ok today. I had my share of errors, especially early in the session, but I got more and more consistent as time went on.
Today, there was a new experience of feeling somewhat consistent knee pain even during a game. I specifically remember standing at the net waiting for my partner to receive and noticing that my knee hurt a little bit. It is not good.
Pickleball is Dying!
So this guy, affiliated with Bluejay Capital Group, because some indoor pickleball complexes are going bankrupt, posted on social media on November 24 that pickleball is dying, comparing it to the rise and decline of racquetball. His claim is that, “I expect pickleball to fade out of our lives over the next five years.” I can’t believe just how ignorant and wrong that is! https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRdlB3YDs9L
I thought this was complete biased nonsense and posted a rebuttal at the time…
pickleballjourney:
“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.”
It was an absolute beautiful day, much like for the parade yesterday. Sunny with only traces of clouds and 57°F. While that may seem a little bit chilly, it doesn’t take long to warm up while getting exercise in the direct sunlight.
Paddles
Andrea, from Aireo sports, says she’ll be dropping off some demo paddles to me on Friday while on her way to a paddle event in Monterey. That will be good, that way I can share them with my students and local players.
Knee
My right knee has been bothering me more than normal. I was walking the dog yesterday morning and with every step, it was a 3 or 4 out of 10 in terms of pain. In Harry Potter books, characters would not say the name of the Dark Lord—”he who shall not be named”—out of fear that somehow simply doing that would conjure him up. Dare I say it? In the back of my mind has been I thought that someday I may have to subject myself to a knee replacement. That is no little surgery. It’s a long recovery time with a lot of physical therapy and, of course, a lot of missed pickleball time too.
No Teaching
I am off from teaching for a few weeks. It’ll be a nice break. I have a new pickleball classes starting in a month. My Advanced Beginner class sold out as of yesterday, but my Beginner class at the moment, has zero sign ups. I’ll likely convert that to an Intermediate class. At this rate, it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to fill a Beginner class. It seems that pickleball is starting to get saturated locally.
Brommer
I pulled into Brommer Park at 9:15 a.m. The parking lot was full, but there were two cars pulling out just as I arrived, leaving me a spot.
Lefty Game
Regular Ed and I played against Carson and a guy named Dave. Due to injury, Dave was playing lefty though he is a righty. I switched to left myself. We lost 13-11. Amusing game. A lot of fun. Carson won on an ATP—pretty good for lefty!
Righty Games
Soji and Dan Dewey played against René and me. We are up up 6-3 but went on to lose 11-7. It was not entirely my fault, but mostly me. This was my first game after switching back to playing righty, after playing that other game lefty.
Soji and I won 11-5 versus J.P. and René.
Kent Shain—part of the local pickleball “OG”—and I played against Ed and someone. We won 12-10. That was a lazy game.
Oren and Aaron played against Alex and me. We won 13-11, then won again 11-6.
Conner & Jim
I teamed up with a weaker player against Conner and his dad Jim, 8-11. I’m surprised we kept it that close. I made three errors in the whole game. Conner and Jim didn’t speed up on me in that game after I countered Jim’s speedup with a winner back to Jim’s feet.
I teamed up with Pavel against Taylor (Track & Field Aaron’s girlfriend) and Nari, who sports a beard. I don’t remember the outcome, but I’m sure we won.
Rick Arnold and I played against Pavel and young Track & Field Aaron. We won solidly. I think it was 11–5 or 11–6.
The last game I played with Oren against René and Rick Arnold. For every error that I made, my partner made two. It was not his best game. We lost 5–11.
Track & Field Aaron has super-quick hands, probably the fastest that I’ve played against. (People tell me I have super-quick hands. Now I know how others feel!) Aaron is a challenge. He can rip balls hard too.
I felt that I played ok today, but there were no elite games.
I checked the time. 1:31 p.m. It was time to go home and have my first meal of the day.
Number of days on a court: 878 Number of total hours: 3,339 Number of paid coaching hours: 185.5
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
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