I arrived at Skypark about 6:45 p.m. It had been fairly windy earlier but the wind had died down quite a bit . . . still a slightly breezy but not enough to affect play.
Six courts were full and the lights were already on when I arrived—it’s getting dark earlier and earlier! Sharyl and Judy were playing against Kristin L. and Maria. Tim and Janet were on another. Larry L. was around too, but the majority of the players were people I don’t remember seeing before! Crazy. This sport is exploding!
I played one game of Debbie B. and newbie Sabina—has played three months—against Sabina’s friend “Weezy” and me. It turned out to be a more fun and challenging game than I expected. Still 2.5 maybe 3.0, but we had some good points.
Tim, for being in his mid to late 60s, is a very solid player. Not flashy but gets the ball back over the net. He was his normal self tonight.
I was really impressed with Janet, she makes so fewer egregious mistakes than she was making a few years ago. One could make an argument for her being a low 3.5 player . . . but unquestionably a solid 3.0 easily.
Play wrapped up at 9:40 p.m. It was court closing time, the ladies were complaining about being cold, and I was hungry. Aside for the time, I probably would have played more games.
My Play
After playing great as Sunday ended and being really happy with my play, tonight was back to reality. A bit more in the way of “dropshots into the net” . . . some not even making it to the dreaded white tape!
A bright spot was my serving. I did miss 2, maybe 3, serves tonight over the three hours. But I could serve hard and fast and reliably. I overheard Tim commented to his partner about it during one game.
My arm was hurting a bit, but it was the inside of my right elbow, not the typical tennis elbow. I guess that’s good.
Number of days on a court: 420 Number of total hours: 2,095.5
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I arrived at Brommer a few minutes after 9 a.m. under sunny skies. This would be my last day at Brommer before resuming my duties as site coordinator at Derby Park nearer my house. I’m hoping to stronger players will turn up at Derby. Brommer is typically the hub for higher level play.
Mark G. was warming up with a woman I didn’t know. Mark invited me to join them. It turned out that there was a reason that I didn’t know Jenna—she just moved to town. She grew up in Valencia and her parents (in their mid-60s) are fanatical pickleball tournament players. With a degree in Marine Biology, Jenna moved to town for a part-time job teaching middle school kids about the ocean through some educational outreach organization that I’ve never heard of. Jenna has very good hand-eye coordination, but she likes to stay back from the net and is still pretty green. If she sticks with it, she will a solid player.
Today was very light day. We topped out under 25 players. I mentioned to Mark that maybe there was a tournament going on . . . but he said none that he knew of. It was odd that they were so few players.
77-year-old John at the net as his partner Tim M. looks on! Dave Cox on the far court.Chris—seen him a couple times before—and new-to-town Jenna taking on John and Tim.
Play
I played all right early on. Ok. Not great. But not bad either.
Toward the end of the session, I played with Art against Patty and Dave Cox. I was playing fantastically well in our first game. I maybe made one bad shot the whole game. Dave and Art were the weak players in this game. Art and I won. We played a second game . . . early in the game, I made three mistakes in a row, but I dialed it back in and played really well the rest of that game. This game was closer, but Art and I still won. There was one shot where I drove a ball low over the net between Patty (across from me) and Dave (to the right) and neither had a good shot. “That was lucky, Andrew!” It was Patty. But that shot was not luck. It did exactly as I wanted. “Luck? The more I play, the luckier I get!” (I think the actual quote is something like, “The more I practice, the luckier I get.”) A few shots later, I made another shot much like the first with a similar result. More skill than luck. Not that it’s 100% reliable.
Today was an “up day” on the skill growth curve. I was very happy with my play.
Toes Stepped On!
I found a YouTube channel today with the name of . . . yes, Pickleball Journey. It looks to be about 7 months old. Nevermind that I’ve had a blog called that for nearly five years and I’ve had PickleballJourney.com as my website for nearly 3 years now. It make me mildly annoyed. You’d think you’d look around and see if someone else is already using the name you wish to use for “branding” your channel. Maybe he saw mine and it stuck in his subconscious as good one.
Monday, October 11, 2021 (No Play)
I’m now on the Google group/forum/email list for USAPA ambassadors. One digest came in today with a link to an interactive round robin generator found at the Pickleball Tournaments website: Round Robin Chart Generator https://www.pickleballtournaments.com/rrgenerator1.pl
Court Board
I had been asked by Leslie (site director for the club) to refurbish a dry-erase board for use at Derby Park. I finished the lines, then this morning, I came early to work. Being that we run a custom framing shop as part of our business, I headed to our warehouse and cut some old discontinued metal frame moulding to use as a tray for the bottom edge. Aside from bolting it on, it was done by the opening time for our business.
Bolts and locknuts from the hardware store and done!
Number of days on a court: 419 Number of total hours: 2,092.5
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It’s been a very long time since I’ve played at Brommer on a Friday morning. Fortunately, we had enough staff at work to allow me to take the morning off and attend the Santa Cruz Pickleball’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) . . . after playing some pickleball first!
I was going to get there by no later than 9, but my daughter needed a ride to work, so I dropped her off and didn’t get to Brommer until about 10 minutes before 10 a.m. The courts were all full, including all the temporary net courts.
Lots of players waiting for their turns!
More the Merrier
There was about as much waiting as they was playing today. Carol (Shawnte’s mom) said she would normally be playing at Skypark but had come for the AGM. Normally, I’d be working, so, yes, there were a lot of extra people at Brommer today.
Games
My first game was Steve B. (who is on the SCPC board) and me against Dan Bliss (also on the board) and a woman who I’d seen before, but didn’t know well. In the middle of the game, I turned to Steve and said, “Have you been in a game that you just want to flush?” Yeah. I wasn’t playing the best. Sure, it was my first game, but . . . man. Steve and I did end up winning, but ick. I made far too many bad shots.
I played a game with Dave Cox—who had signed up in red/advanced—against Hemi and her friend Brendan. It was a very contested game. I think we lost, but regardless, it was close. I didn’t play my best in that game either. Today was one of those “down days” on the skill growth curve. I don’t consider any of us as 4.0+ players, we’re all more blue/intermediate players.
After me playing what I felt was poorly in that game, I signed up in an intermediate box. I won’t mention any names—they are players I barely know anyway—but I played lefty and slaughtered them. They weren’t true intermediates. That’s the challenge of a signup board . . . people invariably sign up in a skill level above what they are. No one wants to sign up as the bottom skill level. Shawnte and I were talking about it. He’s contention is that we should have four skill levels for signup since no one will ever use the bottom skill level! In the meantime, we have three levels and people sign up in two.
Migrating
It was funny, I’d barely seen Terry and Karen Long—maybe once in the last six months—and I asked Terry if he just got back . . . there was some snickering by someone next to Terry . . . no, they were just about to leave for Arizona! If I’d thought about it for a second, I would have realized that with the weather in each area, they are in Santa Cruz during the summer and in the hotter desert during winter!
Group Photo
At noon, Leslie immediately started taking down the club nets to prepare and signal the pending AGM. I helped take down a couple myself. Once that was done, Karen Long corralled the herd for a big group photo to use on the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club website for the next year or so:
The group. I’m in gray toward the right behind the guy in the light blue long-sleeve shirt.
The AGM
We gathered over in the picnic area right after all the club nets were removed from the courts at noon. Some players continued to play on the permanent courts, expressing no interest in club plans for the area, officer elections, etc. New SCPC officers were elected by acclamation as they all ran unopposed. John Pacholski took over from Dave Witte as Treasurer for a two year term, Mark Dettle took over as President from Karen Long who was leading this meeting. Tony S. took over as Secretary from Dave Allenbaugh.
Dave W. gave a report on the state of finances of the club which is good.
Rick A. was announced by Karen as the new site coordinator for Derby Park on Wednesday and I was announced as the Derby Sunday site coordinator. Since it wasn’t clear that I was resuming my role, I proclaimed, “I’m back!” to the group for the benefit of those people whom I didn’t know. Jim D. was announced as the site coordinator for Willowbrook.
The meeting concluded about 1 p.m. Two years ago, the AGM included a potluck, but with the pandemic limping along, they kept it simple this year.
My Play
It seems that this past week, I have been more frustrated and disappointed in my play than anything. My forearm is holding up but it’s still a touch sore. It really needs a break of about a week to heal up, I think. But I doubt it’ll give it that.
Number of days on a court: 418 Number of total hours: 2,089
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