Sunday, December 7, 2025 (Court Day #878)

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.

Tuesday, December 2, 2025 (Court Day #877)

I was hoping to leave right at 6 p.m. from work as I had told my staff that I would, but it turned into 20 minutes after that.

Jackie, one of our SCPC board members, said that somebody told her that the newly resurfaced courts at Skypark were already bubbling and cracking in spots. Given how poor the communication was between the City of Scotts Valley and the contractor, and how long it took for the contractor to complete the work, I won’t say that I’m shocked that there is some issue. Although, I am slightly surprised that it happened this quickly. It hasn’t even been three months since the courts reopened.

Skypark

When I got to Skypark, it was dark and a chilly 54°F evening. I asked someone about the bubbles and he pointed to the first court, nearest the gate. Though I couldn’t see anything from my advantage point off the court and I didn’t get the opportunity to inspect it closer later.

First Game

Jens and I played against Alex and Manda. I played quite well, I missed no more than three of my shots that whole game. We lost 11-6. Jens apologized to me afterward for his errors. No need, of course.

David, Alex, Mike

David L. showed up and I convinced him to join us for a game. Alex and I played against David and big Mike. It was David’s first game so he wasn’t completely warmed up. Alex and I won 11–6.

We played a rematch, but this time we lost 8–11.

We played a rubber match and, this time, I was no longer playing as well and Alex and I lost 3–11. There is no question that I shoulder most of the blame for errors in this game. It was not a good performance on my part.

Frabrizio and Me

Frabrizio arrived and he and I teamed up against David and Alex. I knew this would be the toughest combination for me to play against. Sure enough, Fabrizio and I lost the first game by a significant margin. 

We had a rematch and we lost 0–11. It was painful.

We played again and lost again. I was continuing to not play well.

David and Me

I wanted to play again with this combination, but David wanted to mix it up. David and I played against Frabrizio and Alex. David started out a little rough, making mistakes. I suspect that he was trying too hard. We found ourselves down 0–3. But then we came back and went on to win.

Alex and Me

We mixed it up. I played with Alex against David and Frabrizio. We were playing well and found ourselves up 6–3. But they went on a run and took the lead at 7–6. During this game we had an incredibly long rally. It was one of the longest ones of my life. They had to have been at least 20 shots between the dink battle, Alex’s lob over Frabrizio‘s head, their battle to get back to the net, another dink battle—it was great! We just scored two points and tied up the game 8–8 with Alex continuing his first server, with the lights clicked out at 8:30 p.m. Such a bummer. That was a fun game, I was finally starting to get really warmed up!

As I drove home, my thermometer read 50°F. It’s December now and it’s starting to get noticeably cooler in the evenings. It’s also not heating up as much during the days, generally staying in the low 60s.

Overall, I was not happy with my play tonight. I hit at least three or four outballs. There are a few shots where the lights affected me and I had trouble judging the distance of the ball.

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Wednesday, December 3, 2025 (No Play)

The Lifetime Network has jumped on the bandwagon and has a TV movie coming out called “A Pickleball Christmas“. Here’s a trailer that’s been posted on social media:
https://youtube.com/shorts/u13RHAkHQoo

What’s amusing to me about the trailer is the fact that for the event that they are covering, they have three reporters, including two sideline commentators, but the court looks like it’s in some small neighborhood park with a mere handful of fans. It doesn’t make any sense.

Playing Against Kyle Yates

Someone posted a comical video about what it’s like to play against Kyle Yates, former #1 doubles player in the world:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRUx2ebjrhf

Carmel Ban

There’s been a lot in the news, at least in the pickleball world, about Carmel banning pickleball in their city. Carmel is a little bit over one hour south of me. I’ve never played down there, but I can sympathize with the local players. The city didn’t even give the players as a chance to police themselves to use quiet paddles and quiet balls to play and keep the neighbors happy. Instead, they voted to simply ban the sport altogether:
https://www.ksbw.com/article/carmel-pickleball-misdemeanor-offense-california/69596554

Rohnert Park Again

Here’s another video providing more insight into the new pickleball complex in a former movie theater a couple hours north:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DR2O6bYCUIK

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Friday, December 5, 2025 (No Play) 

DUPR announced today that they are now the official rating system for USA pickleball.

DUPR and USA Pickleball Announce Landmark Agreement to Adopt DUPR as Official Exclusive Rating System

I think this is a great thing. UTR-P was announced as the rating system for USAP in April last year. It was a new thing and it always seemed to be kind of forced and cumbersome. Now, we have a system that is in common use, DUPR.

Ben Johns

Here’s a good breakdown of a game where Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio lose to Hayden Patriquin and Federico Staksrud in upset at PPA Worlds, 11-8, 11-5.

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Saturday, December 6, 2025 (No Play)

Today was the day of the annual Santa Cruz Downtown Holiday Parade. I got the pickleball club involved for the first time a few years ago. As the USA Pickleball Ambassador for Santa Cruz County, it’s my role to increase the profile of pickleball and the parade seems a really good way to do that.

I told club members to show up by 9:45 a.m., some came earlier, some came a bit later. We used to be in the last third of the parade, but this year, we were in the middle. With the parade starting at 10 a.m., I figured we wouldn’t start any sooner than about 10:15 a.m.

There was a bit of an adventure Sean M. was supposed to bring the mini parade net and the banner, but his girlfriend needed to be taken to the ER after a slip and so Jeff H. had to race over and picked them up. Fortunately, Jeff made it with a comfortable margin but for a bit of time, we were worried we’d have no banner and nothing to hit a ball over!

We got a bystander to take a photo shortly before we were to head onto the parade route.

As the SCPC organizer, I was disappointed to see over 100 roller derby kids, but out of about 500 pickleball club members, we had just 11 show up… 2.2%. I heard that Skypark was busy with players in games but not supporting the club. Just how impressive would it be to get 50 pickleball players out showing the need for more courts?

As in prior years, there was a lot of cheering for our group!

We were done with our participation in the parade by 11:10 a.m.

You can watch us from the livestream here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB7m-oSNAOw&t=3353s

Number of days on a court: 877
Number of total hours: 3,335
Number of paid coaching hours: 185.5

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

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.