We had my nieces and brother in town from out of state to celebrate my dad’s birthday, my nephew’s birthday, and my niece’s birthday. My son Nicholas also drove down from Santa Clara for the party last night.
This morning, at the last minute, I figured I’d ask Nicholas to join me. He responded, “Where are you going to play?” When I told him Brommer, he said he was going to stay home. So I offered we go to Derby Park instead. I hadn’t been to club play at Derby since last August when I relinquished my role as a volunteer club site coordinator after nearly 7 years.
Derby Park
Nicholas and I arrived just before 10:30 a.m. The neighborhood was full of cars, so we found a spot a block away.
Once in the park and at the courts, we could see that things were hopping.
Stan Rathbone had started a box in red on the court board and I added Nicholas and myself. Ted Benhari jumped on later. I figured Nicholas is probably approaching their skill level and I could take up the rest of the slack.
First Game
Nicholas and I teamed up and found ourselves down quickly to Stan and Ted. We had some warming up to do! It was already 4-8 and so we had to score at least 7 before they scored another 3 points or we’d be off the court with a loss and back into the queue. But we were starting to get dialed in. We went on an unanswered 7 point run and closed out the game 11-8.
It was busy, so there’d be a little time for our next game. Nicholas and I volleyed a ball back and forth near the grass while we waited.
Next
We stuck together and played Brian and Manda. Manda was targeting Nicholas and Nicholas was getting himself into trouble by running through his drop shots and hitting them into the net. We lost that one 6-11.
Our next game was also against Manda, but he was partnered with a tall, middle-aged guy named Marin. This was a better combination for us and we won on 11-4.
Eight boxes in the queue waiting.
There was a tall guy named Aaron who teamed up with Manda against myself and Nicholas. We lost by a 2:1 margin.
Frabrizio
Frabrizio teamed up with Aaron and played against Nicholas and myself. The two of us got clobbered.
Improvement
I played with Nicholas about a month or so ago, but he is much improved from the last time I played with him at Derby Park. Nicholas was better than half the players there. He only had trouble when he faced the strongest players. I’d put Nicholas as a strong 3.0 at this point. (I’m talking DUPR or the old UTPR, not the new UTR-P system.)
We left Derby Park at about 1:10 p.m.
The conclusion we came to was the Nicholas needs to work on getting set before making his drop shots. He was hitting a number of them into the net but he started doing better after I pointed it out to him.
Faces
It was nice seeing some of the familiar faces at Derby whom I had not seen for half a year. I had a few people make the effort to come up and say hello. Ted, Karl, and others.
Colleen and Sycha were there although I didn’t get a chance to play with either of them. Those two, I occasionally see at Brommer Park.
I woke up a little stiff and with the Chamisal event south of Salinas today, I took two ibuprofen.
I arrived at Dave Cox’s house at 11:09 a.m. At his invitation, I would be his teammate for the day. Dave had offered to drive, so after moving my gear to his car, we headed to Live Oak to drop off his dog, Brewster, then we were on our way to the south end of the Monterey Bay.
About 45 minutes later, now in relatively-rural Corral de Terra, California, a parking attendant in a fluorescent vest directed us to a spot. It was a touch chilly but with the sun out, I decided to leave my sweatshirt in the car.
Parked nearby was a car which I pointed out to Dave. It sported a “Pickleball Hoe” license-plate holder. Funny!
As we walked into the Chamisal Tennis & Fitness Club, I checked the time. 12:07 p.m. We’d have plenty of time to warm up.
Dave called out to a few people, including Vi, the tennis/pickleball instructor from Monterey County whom I played against in a gold medal match about six years ago. Dave is a former member of the Chamisal club, so it was not a surprise to me that he knows people there.
Registration
Dave and I got in line at the registration table and we checked in. I also forked over my $25 payment. Pretty cheap for a tournament these days.
Warm Up
To warm up, Dave and I split a court down the middle with Vi and his female partner, a woman Dave knew.
After Dave and I had a volley firefight at the net, Vi blurted out: “I’m glad you guys aren’t playing in 4.5!” Though I suspect Vi could have easily handled whatever we were showing!
We warmed up for about half an hour and after Vi and his partner had left, we drilled crosscourt dinks.
Announcements
About 1:10 pm, they started announcements. They pushed repeatedly—and comically—that “Love Dinks” was a social event. No medals, no tracking scores. Well, that changes things a bit. I didn’t know that, I was expecting a more formal tournament. Of course, I’d keep track anyway. I’m big into numbers. And teams will still be wanting to win.
Speaking of, Mike said there were 210 players participating and 268 signed up, meaning some were on the waiting list.
We’d be playing to 15, win by 1, switching sides mid-game. The grouping sheets were taped up on the window of the main building. Dave and I would be in 4.0, Bracket C. We’d be on Court #6, which was broken up into pickleball courts 6A, 6B, 6C, and 6D. (Later, it got changed so we’d on play on 6D, and also on 7A and 7B.)
Round 1
We’d be playing against Brian and Michelle Ford. I recognized Brian. I was pretty sure I’d played against him before.
It was looking good, we were ahead 12-9. Not to throw my partner under the bus, since I wasn’t perfect myself, Dave made a few mistakes in a row. We lost 13-15. It was a close and fun match.
Round 2
For our next game, we were over in the Court 7 side. We played against Vern and Michelle Russell. (Two Michelles in a row!) Vern is a big, stocky guy whom you’d be afraid of if he wasn’t such a nice guy. Vern was unquestionably a stronger player than Michelle. Mid-game, I started making an effort to intentionally hit to him rather than treating them equally. Even then, we won 15-8.
Round 3
This was a case of never judging your opponent by appearances. We played against Sue Brown and Kaustabh “KD” Duorah. Neither of them are tall and neither appeared to be overly athletic. But both were solid players. We lost 13-15. I felt we should have won that one.
Round 4
This was a the game of the day. We played against Jackie Signor and Geogiana “George” Foletta. (Jackie is on the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club board with me.) As the game went on and others ended, we collected more and more observers lining the fence. Dave and I built a hard-earned big lead. After I won a hands battle against George, Dave complimented me, “She has fast hands, but you have the hands to handle it.” We were ahead something like 8-3, though I don’t recall the exact score.
Once we switched sides and we were now facing the sun, aside from targeting Dave, they started lobbing us over and over. Lobbing and using the environment is part of the game, but I will admit that I was starting to get annoyed when we had to repeatedly look up into the sun to deal with them. Jackie and George probably won half a dozen rallies when Dave or I couldn’t see a particular lob. (I understand why Anna Leigh Waters’ mom lost her temper a year or two ago when her opponents lobbed them over and over and she had to look into the sun every time.) I remember one that I reached up and ended up hitting the ball into our side of the net. It was frustrating. It was a strategy that we could’ve employed ourselves when the sun was at our backs, but we had chosen not to.
In the end, I’m glad we still managed to close out that game and win, 15-13. It was a super fun and challenging game… and not just the lobs and sun!
Round 5
Our next opponents were quite different, Debbie and Brett Stocksick. They had watched our last match and explained to us that we were on a different level than them. (I’m not sure why they ended up in a 4.0 bracket.) Nonetheless, Dave and I found ourselves down 0-2. We were a bit fried from that last game and had no downtime before rolling into this match. But their lead didn’t last. We quickly scored a series of points then started taking it easier on them. Even with that, we won 15-3.
Round 6
For this round, we had a bye. Being that the matches were staggered and we didn’t have to wait for a specific time to start, we merely had to wait for our opponents to be ready to play us and it wasn’t too long. We just had to deal with getting stiff and cold.
Round 7
Next up were McKayla and Matt Deal. We were up 8-4 and we appeared to be cruising to an easy win.
After I knocked a speedup at the net from McKayla back with an off-angle passing shot down the sideline for a winner, Matt asked me, “Pingpong?” I responded, “No, just eight years of pickleball.” I had gotten very low and hit a scorpion-style shot.
Something that I had not expected, they came back and tied up the game 14-14. Dave then asked them if they wanted to play win by 2, instead of 1. They agreed. Smart, since it gave them an extra point to try and win, but we finished it off with a 16-14 win.
It was just before 4 p.m. when we wrapped up that last game.
Results
Not everyone was filling out the master sheet with the scores, so it was hard to tell how we did overall. We’d have either likely ended up with silver or maybe bronze out of the seven teams. But again, “social event”.
Food
Dave and I ordered a burger and french fries in the restaurant to split. While standing in line, a random woman asked if I could show her the paddle I’d been using. I turned around and looked in my backpack. Bizarre. That paddle was gone! I racked my brain. No, I’m sure I put it in my backpack. It made no sense. After what seemed like an eternity, I got a tap on the shoulder. My paddle. Manda had helped himself to yank my chain! Stinker! He’d come down from Santa Cruz and played with Christine, a regular at Brommer Park back home. They played in the 3.0 bracket. I figured they would have been in the 3.5. *shrug*
Dave and I headed out at 4:42. I needed to get back to Santa Cruz for a family dinner at 6 p.m. (The crazy thing was I didn’t get over to my parents’ house until 6:41 p.m. And they were already opening birthday presents. My family, which is notoriously late to start dinner, ate at 5 p.m.! Ah, well, I still got to see my brother Mike and his daughters—they all live out of state.)
Overall, a fun day.
Number of days on a court: 770 Number of total hours: 3,086.5 Number of paid coaching hours: 111.5
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About 2 p.m., I left work and I headed north to Stanford University for the 1-year followup scan on my right (surgery) knee as part of a 6-year research study. As of last year, there were only two of these MRI combo machines in the entire country—world?—and both were doing research. They wanted me there at 3:15 p.m. to do paperwork for the 3:30 p.m. appointment, but it was raining and there ended up being an accident on Highway 17 North. I texted them warning that I’d be a little late and that ended up being 3:27 p.m. It worked out fine, regardless.
After the scan—no injection this time and just one scan instead of two—it was time to head to my son Nicholas’ apartment and from there we’d carpool to his pickleball class. Unfortunately, it was already almost 5 p.m., so instead, we arranged to meet at the Santa Clara Adult Education Gym for the 90-minute 6 p.m. class. He had previously let Cindy, his instructor, know that I was coming and that I could be a volunteer coach, if she wanted that.
It took me about 45 minutes to get from Stanford to the gym. The lot in front of the gym was full, so I parked in the overflow lot. As I walked back, a few spots had opened up… figures! Fortunately, it was only a few minute walk either way… it was just cold and still spitting annoying random small drops of rain.
The Gym
I walked into the gym to find only 4-5 people, but I was also about 15 minutes early. There were six pickleball nets already set up, filling the space.
I found a woman who appeared to be in charge, “Are you Cindy?” She smiled and said she was, then she started asking—but I answered her barely-started question, “I’m Nicholas’ dad.”
Cindy pointed out, “You are wearing your USA pickleball cap!” I asked if she was a USA Pickleball Ambassador too, but she explained that she’s just a USAP member. When I asked where I could change, she kindly walked me to the double doors and pointed to the Men’s restroom. Easy.
When I got back, things were a little busier and Nicholas had arrived. Cindy asked if I’d played indoors before. I told her that I had, though it’s rare. (I think I’ve played indoors maybe half a dozen times out of over 700 outings.) She explained that the ball takes a little getting used to. She also said she opted for blue-colored balls since the yellow ones had been difficult for her to see against the tan wood floor.
Warm Up
Nicholas and I warmed up doing crosscourt dinks—”aggressive dinks” as Cindy suggested to us early birds.
A candid photo of Nicholas and Cindy at 5:59 p.m.
Cindy gathered everyone to one side of the gym next to the collapsed bleachers. Cindy introduced the two coach volunteers, Tony and Cathy, then she also introduced me and explained that I was visiting from Santa Cruz.
She lead us through about five minutes of warm ups, jogging, lunges, sideways shuffles. I was going to sit out and observe the warmups with Tony—who said he was sporting a sore hamstring—until Cindy yelled over, “Coaches too!” So, in I went!
Drills
Cindy ran fairy quickly through a series of drills. Drive followed by drop, speedup readiness, lob defense, transition defense, others. I felt like we had 10 minutes tops to run though each drill. The acoustics are pretty bad in a gym for drill explanations but she managed ok. I rotated groups for the drills.
Game Time
At 7 p.m., it was time for 30 minutes of games.
For the last set of drills, Cindy had put particular players on my court. It turned out that she’d picked the strongest players, so when it came time to roll into games, the students would be challenged.
First, I played with Mike against Kristen and a female partner, we’ll call her “S”. (I was never introduced and Cindy wasn’t 100% sure how to pronounce her name.) I later learned Mike has only been playing for about five months. Some skills transferred from his tennis background—I’d put him at a low 3.0 level. Kristen was a strong 3.0 and I’d put S as a very strong 3.0 or even a 3.5 level player. For S’s first two serves to me, the ball didn’t come back up—blue indoor balls!—and I hit them into the net. Embarrassing! But after that, I figured things out and returned her serves just fine. This was a pretty close game with the most balanced pairing.
In the second game, Mike played with S, and I played with Kristen. This was a lopsided game, I think they scored just two points.
At 7:30 p.m. sharp, it was time to clear out and make room for the soccer players.
Cindy and I chatted for a few minutes. She had nice things to say about Nicholas’ progress. She asked if I’d be back again soon, and I told her I had no idea. It’s uncommon for me to come over to the Silicon Valley, unless it’s a trip to/from the airport and that’s not long enough for pickleball. If they were all 4.0+ players, it’d be more enticing.
Cindy had done a good job “herding cats”. 24 students is a lot to manage.
And that was that. After dinner with Nicholas at a Mongolian BBQ place, I headed back “over the hill” to Santa Cruz and sleep!
Friday, February 7, 2025 (No Play)
About a week ago, USA Pickleball held what they called a “Media Day”. This was the first one I’d ever heard of. Guests were limited to pickleball paddle manufacturers and a few media outlets. It was mostly to explain their paddle testing procedures and seek feedback from paddle makers.
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