Saturday, January 24, 2026 (Court Day #893)

In March last year, the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club put on a halftime show demonstrating pickleball—I was one of the four playing.

We were invited again this year, but this time it would be before tip off. Our demonstration was scheduled to take place at 6:20 p.m., 40 minutes before the basketball game was to start.

Club president Mark Dettle arrived early, around 5:15, and I was there by our arranged time of 5:30 p.m.

Mark and I set up the temporary net which he had previously stashed at the end of the bleachers near the concession stand. Then we decided to carry it out back behind the arena and there we started laying out the temporary orange nylon court lines underneath it.

Mark, Elise Hansen (Warriors Group Experiences Representative), Pauly

Once we had the court lines set up, we formulated a plan to walk them in with a group—us SCPC people and some Warriors staffers.

It was nice that it was not raining, so instead of 2025 when players had to warm up in a cramped covered spot, Pauly and I warmed up outside during our wait.

We were getting a little nervous since we were told that we’d be going out on the court at 6:17 p.m. and Jackie and Katy were still not there yet as of 6:05 p.m. But, fortunately, they showed up with five minutes to spare! Cutting it close!

We strategically collected the net and court lines and—unlike last year, when the lines were a completely tangled—this time was a relatively smooth and quick process getting the lines laid out.

I dropped my backpack off on the side of the basketball court, helped with the lines, then grabbed my paddle and lensless protective glasses.

Jackie and I—wearing matching green SCPC club shirts—were on one side and Pauly and Katy were on the other. As the strongest players, Jackie and I normally would have split to balance the teams, but—hey—it’s just a demo game and we visually matched.

Since it was still about 40 minutes to game time, the seats were still significantly more empty than full. But we were given more time to play than the four minutes allotted during a halftime span.

Me walking to my backpack. I was oblivious to the turtle mascot about 10 feet away!

We got to playing and, fortunately, while we had no fences, we had a few of their staff to act as ball retrievers for us. We had several balls at the ready for when one escaped. Pauly was good for at least one tweener or a behind-the-back shot.

I will say, it was a much better experience to have court lines—unlike last year! While Jackie handled little to no warmup better than Katy did, still we had some good rallies. The announcer warned that we had time for just one more serve. We finished that rally then we all went about removing all our gear.

Obligations complete, I ignored my ticketed seat and instead sat in an empty spot next to local pickleball player David Ang and his wife Heather.

Me sitting with David from Aptos, and his wife.

The local basketball team was down by double digits but came back to lead by a few points at halftime. I was tired and hungry and called it a night right then. (Curious, I checked later and found that the visiting team had won by double digits, so I had picked a good time to hightail it out of there!)

The halftime experience in 2025 was much more pressured and limited in time, but the much larger crowd had been into the game more. If we do it again next year, I think we’ll push for halftime again.

Instagram Smack Down

I was hit by a notice saying Instagram removed my joke comment because it was in violation of community guidelines! Wow! That’s a first for me.

Here’s the original post again by Third Shot Sports:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DTy752ZEbIR

And here’s the notice from Instagram:

Sheesh. No sense of humor!

Number of days on a court: 893
Number of total hours: 3,370
Number of paid coaching hours: 191.5

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