My staff was very quick closing out at work this evening, so I arrived at Skypark at 6:31 p.m. That’s pretty early for me. There was a much lighter crowd tonight which I was kind of expecting given it was 54°F according to my car thermometer, a fairly chilly night.
The first few games were not very challenging but that’s pretty good considering I’m so out of practice with only Sunday under my belt after a month and a half away after tweaking my right knee.
Tim F. (Casey’s dad) and Tim, the tennis coach were hanging out when I arrived.
There was a couple games where Tim, the tennis coach, and I played against Tim (Casey‘s dad) and Avery. Avery continues to get better and better. That was a challenging pairing and Tim and I lost both games. Neither of them was in doubt. I wasn’t very happy with my play in those games.
The most fun thing of the evening was Rachel, my former classmate from Harbor High School, was there and Tim (the tennis coach) and I convinced Rachel that we had known each other for years and years. Truth be told, Tim and I only ever really met in the last few months and I’ve only played a handful of games together.
It was close to 9:30 when the game of Kourosh (Tim’s former star tennis protege) and I against David and Minori came to an end. When I was driving away after 9:30, the court lights were still on. I think that they have not been changed for daylight savings time. If that’s the case, then they’ll continue to be on until 10:30 p.m. I suspect sooner or later the neighbors will complain and they’ll change the lights setting.
Knee
My knee continues to hold up pretty well, with only mild pain there and there. There was one point where I moved a certain way—lunging to my left usually does it—and my left hip was very painful. It’s a chronic thing. Across the net, Tim (tennis) though I was smiling at the outcome of the game (my side lost) but I was grimacing in physical pain! What’s ironic was it was my left hip and not might right knee!
Number of days on a court: 561 Number of total hours: 2,523
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
It would be a nice day today, it was already sunny by the time I left my house for Derby Park to open up the courts. This would be the first time me opening the courts for a month and a half when I was last out and injured my right knee. The backup site coordinators have been very helpful filling in for me.
Last night, I had dug out the simple knee brace that my dad had given me a few years ago and would wear that today. It’s basically an elastic sleeve with vertical semi-flexible metal strips on the left and right sides. While I was trying to get to sleep, the inside of my right knee was very mildly aching. The pain seems to shift, depending on what I’m doing and it comes and goes. About a week ago, walking up the stairs at work brought a sharper pain below my kneecap. Other times, it feels like a dull nail is being hammered to the left of my kneecap. Or an ache to the right of my kneecap.
Derby
I arrived at 8:50 a.m. and the two city nets already had games going on them.
It would be a pretty mellow day as I had originally planned. Initially, my thought was I would come and see how my right knee would manage things. That could have meant part of one game, just one game, a few games perhaps, but I was not expecting my knee to hold up as well as it did and I ended up spending four hours at the courts.
Newbies
A surprise, I’ve been gone from the courts for only six weeks and, looking around today, I didn’t recognize perhaps as many as a third as the players, perhaps even as many has half! People are still coming out and joining the pickleball movement!
Two relatively new players with only a few weeks of experience underneath their belts came today. A woman named Terry and her friend Nikki. I covered some of the rules with them as well some strategies. We played a few games together and Nikki proved to be the better of the two.
Skill Time
By the time 10 a.m. rolled around and we were breaking up court signups into skill levels, I saw that Eric S. ahd arrived and had started an advanced box. Eric asked if I wanted to sign up with him and I added my name below his. After about 5 or 10 minutes, Eric said, “I don’t think there any other players here who consider themselves advanced.” Sure enough there was no one to be seen. A few minutes later, Charles arrived but he signed up as an intermediate. I later discovered that he was still dealing with an injury to his right shoulder so he decided to play left-handed today. That explains why he was signing up as an intermediate instead of advanced.
Over the course of the session I got two, maybe three, solid advanced games. The rest of the time I was training first-time players. There is a woman name Ellen who came, who has some tennis background. And then there was a married couple who arrived, Dave and his wife Denise who supports a British accent. I played a few games with Ellen as my partner against Dave and Denise. I had to be careful. I forgot once and hit a shot more normally—not easing off—and the point immediately ended in our favor.
At 12:45, I showed my three charges how to put away a net, then after stowing it, answered a variety of questions and explained about local courts, the club, email blasts, etc.
Knee
As I mentioned, my knee held up shockingly well. I have an appointment set up for December 12 with the same orthopedic surgeon who did my rotator cuff. The MRI had shown a small tear in my knee and he was looking to operate on it then, but it wasn’t chronic in any sense. Now, it’s more chronic. It’ll sometimes mildly ache for hours.
Monday, November 21, 2022 (No Play)
With all this DUPR, UTPR, WPR, PBR rating consolidation stuff going on, I discovered that I have a WPR rating through PickleballTournaments.com. Currently, they my WPR at 3.549 for men’s doubles. My USA Pickleball UTPR rating sits at 3.580. Here’s a graph of my WPR history…
It’s a bit confusing as the list at the bottom (shows up on the website when you click “March Details”) is not chronological for the last tournament, though if the algorithm is well written, it shouldn’t matter what order since a player’s skill set isn’t going to change in course of the few hours of a tournament.
Four Colors at Brommer
Speaking of ratings, Jason, my tournament partner for Chamisal a few months ago, stopped by work last week and said that Brommer has instituted four colors for signups. Dan Bliss mentioned something to me about this possibility some months back. Jason said that the new color is for 4.0+ tournament players. Since we’re both have 3.5 ratings, that leaves us out of that top group.
The issue I have with this signup system is it’s biased for age. I’ve mentioned this before. A 60+ woman came to me about 4-5 years ago and was successful as a 4.0 tournament player. But she wouldn’t even be a 3.5 in the men’s tournaments. She complained to me that the advanced “red” players wouldn’t let her join them even though she was very much official recognized by the national association as a 4.0. Som which is it? 4.0 or not? Jason shared that he felt we could easily compete with those in this new 4.0 group. It’ll be interesting to me to see who is in it.
I will admit that I looked up some of the local old guard players and was shocked at one who is rated as 4.5—I think he’s a high 3.5 on a good day. Ah, well. We’ll see how this goes.
Number of days on a court: 560 Number of total hours: 2,520
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
Before I got up, my wife told me that it was pretty wet outside. I took a look and figured at least some courts would be playable. I decided not to delay play and take my chances with the headaches of not all courts being playable.
Last night, Ted had emailed me a sign to print out announcing the upcoming Parks & Rec Commission meeting, but had erroneously included the physical location of the meeting chamber. I made up a new sign in Adobe InDesign with only virtual meeting information and printed it out. There was some back and forth with Ted and John regarding whether the meeting was “hybrid” or just virtual. It turns out the eventual City Council meeting will be hybrid but the commission meeting is only virtual.
Regardless, this all made it so I arrived at Derby with no time to set up prior to opening. There were about 8 players already there. I spent about 10 minutes using towels to soak up the wettest areas of the courts, which were opposite corners of the courts. I left the portable net bags on those two courts as a warning to just use them for dinking. Fortunately, they were dry enough about an hour later to play full court games.
I played pretty well today, got some compliments.
At the end of the session, I played a game with Rosie against barefoot Terry and also Lisa whom I don’t know well. They barely hit to me—Rosie got a lot of work—which was good as my right knee was bothering me. By shortly after 2 p.m. I was hobbling a bit. At 2:18, we were done and I was checking my phone.
My knee got worse. I iced it and was elevating my leg. I was noticeably limping. Kneeling down on that leg was excruciatingly painful.
Monday, October 10, 2022 (No Play)
Today at 4 p.m. was the Parks & Recreation Commission meeting. On the agenda was the proposal for the city to enter into a 10-year agreement with U.C. Santa Cruz to replace two dilapidated tennis courts at a UC property on Delaware Avenue with eight pickleball courts for public use.
It took about half an hour to get through routine meeting things, such as roll call, approval of previous meeting minutes, a report on progress of the closure of a massive homeless encampment in the flood zone. (On a side note, the city removed 200 tons—TONS—of trash after they cleared about half of the encampment.) After that, the commission moved on to the first agenda item, the new pickleball courts. Tony Elliott, the P&R director gave an overview of the game, the growth of the sport, and the need for more courts.
The commission meeting on Zoom.
I was one of five speakers lined up to speak by Santa Cruz Pickleball Club board member John Pacholski. There were a handful of others who spoke including two tennis players. One was against the proposal, wanting to keep Delaware for tennis. Another had no qualms about giving up Delaware, but wanted the plan of Derby being used solely tennis to be formally written into the proposal.
There were 2-4 speakers who jumped in on behalf of pickleball who were not lined up by SCPC to speak, but did a nice job.
Bathroom concerns were brought up and also someone suggested lights for night play. Lights were not even discussed due to the cost, but a Port-A-Potty was discussed among the commissioners. While one commissioner was pushing for a toilet, the vice chair of the commission instead suggested that the club could hold a fundraiser to cover the cost of it. Another commissioner suggested that it might not be really necessary given many people play for only a couple of hours. (There can be some truth to that. I know at least one or two players use it every session, but personally, in the nearly six years that I’ve played there, I’ve never needed use the bathroom, even with me drinking entire bottles of water and having sessions up to five hours.)
After the discussions, the commission vote was unanimous to proceed with the agreement with UCSC for 8 new permanent pickleball courts! If the City Council approves it, it’ll be the largest permanent facility in the county . . . Skypark and Brommer both have only 4 permanent courts.
So, Mr. Rubin decided to take an indefinite leave of absence from tennis a few weeks ago at age 26. Yesterday, October 10, he announced he was switching to pickleball.
Wednesday, October 12, 2022 (No Play)
I’m hobbling less, but my knee is still very much problematic. Going up and down stairs is painful. I’ve never had a knee injury like this.
Thursday, October 13, 2022 (No Play)
René checked in on me for the upcoming tournament. I told her I was closer to heading to the doctor than playing and that I was planning on making a decision on our tournament over the weekend. But she was worried about being able to get a partner, so she found a replacement and arranged to have me be refunded my entry fee. Probably for the best. At this rate, I don’t see myself being ready to play in 10 days.
Thursday, October 20, 2022 (No Play)
It’s been 11 days since I tweaked my knee. Kneeling is still quite painful. Going up and down stairs is sometimes mostly ok, but other times, it’s one step gently at a time and still uncomfortable.
Waiting for my doctor to look at my knee.
I met with my GP doctor this morning. He is almost certain that it’s a meniscus issue. He said to give it a month and see how it is. If it’s still the same or worse, we’ll proceed to an MRI. He said that if he were to send me to a specialist immediately, that doctor would just tell me to go home and wait too.
Tuesday, October 25, 2022 (No Play)
Sad news. The club sent out an email this morning notifying all of us that local player Susie Dougan died. She was playing at Brommer Park on Friday and fell on the courts, hitting her head. She was taken by ambulance to the ICU and tragically passed away yesterday (Monday) morning.
Susie was upbeat and genuine. She’ll be missed. She played in 70+ at Nationals and regularly up and down the west coast for years, and was on the medal stand frequently.
Note from a few days later: Jennifer Yoder said Susie suffered a stroke and collapsed on the court. Another said she was having balance issues after a stroke. I haven’t been able to confirm a definitive story.
Susie (and a cropped out Dan Bliss).
Wednesday, October 26, 2022 (No Play)
This amusing video came up suggested by YouTube, which was uploaded two days ago.
I think it describes a number of us players!
Thursday, October 27, 2022 (No Play)
Pickleball appeared on national television again, on CBS Mornings. This was five days ago, but I just stumbled upon it.
That’s a pretty long segment!
Wednesday, November 2, 2022 (No Play)
Matt Babb texted me this morning checking on me since they hadn’t seen me at Skypark in almost a month. Quite thoughtful.
I found this video online today with Susie Dougan giving a promotion 9 years ago for Prem Carot, “The Pickleball Guru”:
Andrew’s Knee
I don’t want to be a whiner. Such as asking for an MRI when I don’t need one. It’s been 3 1/2 weeks since I injured my knee. Walking briskly currently has some mild pain. Kneeling is still solidly painful, maybe a 5, with 0 being no pain and 10 being “stop, stop, ow!” Taking stairs is much better, but still not comfortable.
Thursday, November 10, 2022 (No Play)
I keep going back and forth on getting my knee scanned. Overall, it’s trending well, improving. But it’s slow going. Walking is mostly much fine now. Sitting can still bother the knee. I flew to New Orleans for about 48 hours for a trade show and walking off the airplane Saturday night and into San Jose Airport was like someone had hit me in the knee with a hammer. Sitting for so long made it worse.
Monday, November 14, 2022 (No Play)
Being that our family business is part of the Santa Cruz Downtown Association, I get emails from them. A few weeks ago, one was sharing that registration would be opening for the annual Christmas…. er, “Holiday” Parade. Recalling that I’d seeing on Facebook a pickleball club participate in a parade, I contacted the SCPC board—passing along the registration information—and they came back saying the club wanted to participate. There was some back and forth with some board members lining up people to support the event. By the time I registered, we were placed on the eating list. When I wrote the association asking about getting off the waiting list, they gave me permission to pay the fee and to participate.
Today, I paid the $107 fee, so we are formally a “go” for the parade on Saturday, December 3. We just need to get someone to figure out a roller system for a portable net so we can push it along the parade route and demonstrate the game.
Thursday, November 17, 2022 (No Play)
This morning, an email blast went out explaining: “Pickleball.com, along with its subsidiaries, the PPA Tour, PickleballTournaments.com, and PickleballBrackets.com, will adopt DUPR (Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating) as its official and exclusive rating system.”
We’ll have to see what this means for USA Pickleball’s UTPR rating system, which it is known for a while has deficiencies. In the meantime, UTPR will be used for placing players in sanctioned tournaments and DUPR will be used for unsanctioned tournaments using the online tournament service.
Pickled!
Back in March, it was announced that CBS would broadcast the brain-child of comedian Stephen Cobert, “Pickled”, a celebrity charity pickleball tournament.
Today is the day. I set a phone alarm and plopped down in front of my iPad to watch. (I have a device that pulls broadcast signals from an antenna in my attic and shares it on my local network.)
There were 16 celebrities taking part. Of those, I only knew a handful: Will Ferrell (comedic actor of Elf and many lame movies), Emma Watson (actress of Harry Potter fame), Sugar Ray Leonard (boxer), and Luis Guzman (support actor). The remainder I didn’t even recognize… ok, maybe I’d seen some commercials for shows with Daniel Dae Kim in them.
Stephen Cobert acting the part of sports announcer host.
I will say, I almost turned it off after about 15 minutes. It was corny and the play was horrendously bad. Rallies were nearly nonexistent . . . and if they lasted more than a few shots, it was a series of newbie-style pop-ups.
As the show went on and the better teams advanced, the play got better and more entertaining. The championship match had some play that was on par with what I see locally in 3.0 games.
Things of note…
Emma Watson is a halfway decent player, The winners included a country music singer, who could easily hold his own with probably any of our local intermediate players.
Unfortunately, the show featured a short segment about that story I shared a few months ago about pickleball players taking over a children’s playground in New York City . . . that was negative publicity for the sport. Overall, though, I think the PR impact was good. It showed the sport as fun.
Oh, and a very pleasant and welcomed surprise, they had an authentic pickleball referee actually enforcing the rules. When Sugar Ray hit an apparent winner, the ref called him on a NVZ foot fault and the show took the time to share the ref’s explanation. Another similar moment was a violation of the double bounce rule.
Overall, I think it was good.
Number of days on a court: 559 Number of total hours: 2,516.5
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
Recent Comments