Category: Pickleball (Page 7 of 331)

Tuesday, August 18, 2026 (Court Day #955)

Officially effective yesterday, the City of Scotts Valley is implementing their trial of cutting off the lights every night at Skypark at 8 p.m. As of last week, the lights still went off at 8:30 p.m., Sunday through Thursday with an extra hour tacked on for Friday and Saturday nights. With the loss of 30 minutes of lights, there was an imperative for me to leave as soon as possible from work.

Unexpected Stop

On my way to Scotts Valley, I noticed that the gas light was on in my car. I looked at the miles left in the display: zero. Oh well, I would need to stop for gas on my way into Scotts Valley.

As I entered Scotts Valley, it was 75°F and sunny with traces of high thin clouds. Very warm.

Knee

Playing on Sunday had stressed my knee and it hurt while walking the dog this morning. It wasn’t intensely painful, probably a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being excruciatingly painful.

Skypark

I walked into the courts at 6:15 p.m.

The parking lot was full tonight but it was a relatively light crowd. I think at the peak, I think there were only 3 to 5 people waiting to get onto a court.

The first game was Chuck and myself against Scott Anderson and a young guy whose name I forget who has curly blond hair that flops out under his cap. His play could be a little bit rough, but he had quick hands and good skills. They went ahead, but then Chuck and I made a game of it only to lose by a couple of points in the end.

Aaron Hicks and I played three games against Pauly and Maria. We won all three games, however, the second one was a little bit closer.

Friendly Fire and Friendly Feeding

Over the course of the evening, I got hit in my upper body four times. Two of them were off of either my paddle or my partner‘s paddle. The first one was early in the evening, in my second game, where a drive and hit me square in the right pec muscle. It was almost like I was waking up from a dream. I should’ve been paying closer attention since I think I had my paddle down. The second one was Pauly hitting me at the armpit, catching me in a chicken wing.

In that last game, there are a few shots that Matt popped up which I just drove with my forehand up to the left side of the court. Between me getting hit with the ball (“friendly fire”) off my partner’s paddle, Matt suggested that I should title this blog post “friendly fire”. Later, after he had popped up a number of shots, he suggested that I should add “friendly feeding“ to the title as well!

Playing with Chris

The last three games were Hispanic Chris and myself against Paul and Aaron Hicks. We played three games. In the first game, Chris and I lost by a sizeable margin. In the second game we lost, but the game was very close. In the third, I played a very clean game. I made only one or two errors. Chris reduced his errors too, though he had quite a few more than I did. From the very first service of the game, Chris and I went ahead 4-0. Pretty soon it was 6-2. Then 8-2. Then 10-2 Then a win at 11-2.

Lights

Though we had been told that the lights were going to be clicking off at 8 o’clock, they were still on at 8:10 p.m. Matt was ready to go home and I had it in my head that I was going to be forced to leave at 8 p.m., so 8:10 p.m. sounded pretty good.

What to work on

When I was on the right hand side, receiving a serve, there were three serves down the middle, low and fast to my backhand that I was unsuccessful in returning the ball over the net. That is a consistent weakness.

Number of days on a court: 955
Number of total hours: 3,519.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 228.5

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

Sunday, August 16, 2026 (Court Day #954)

It’s been a whole week since I played. I’m sure it’s not coincidental that my right knee was feeling better this morning and barely hurting when walking.

It was 61°F and completely overcast when I left my house.

Brommer Park

I pulled into the parking lot at 9:27 a.m. and took the only open parking spot. *whew*

Games

My first game was with JP and we lost 10-12 to Zach and Irish Tracy.

I teamed up with an Asian man I’ve seen once or twice before named Hing. We won 11-2 against JP and Eric.

Kim and I teamed up and won 13-11 against JP and Hing. Kim pointed out during that game that I had just hit an outball. Hing had hit the ball hard and it was going up. In some instances, it’s hard to get past “see ball, hit ball!” I do a reasonably good job—though not perfect—of letting balls go that are wide of either sideline. It’s the ones coming faster at the net that are difficult for me. This continues to be my #1 Achilles Heel.

Next up, JP and I played against Mickey and Shreyes and lost 9-11.

John and I won 11-7 against Art and Alex, the bird researcher. 

My last game wrapped up at 11:38 a.m. There weren’t enough players for me to get into a game. John had jumped back in to another game and that left Alex, Art, and me. At 11:44 a.m., I figured there wasn’t enough time for me to get in a game before needing to leave around noon. I gathered my things and off I went!

It was still overcast, but it had climbed to 70°F.

Teaching Adventures

With my classes at Skypark in the afternoon, parking was a total nightmare for my students. It was the day of the annual Scotts Valley Art Beer & Wine Festival and there were cars parked everywhere!

Number of days on a court: 954
Number of total hours: 3,517.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 228.5

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

Sunday, August 9, 2026 (Court Day #953)

I was awake for about three hours in the early morning dwelling on work. It was miserable. I eventually went back to sleep shortly after 7 a.m. Later, I woke back up shortly before 9 a.m. then lounged around groggily in bed.

Pickleball Dream

It’s funny, when I was driving to go play, I remembered a snippet of one of my dreams. This dream involved me arriving to play pickleball and discovering the soles of my shoes being mostly detached and flopping around unusable. I have little doubt that this was work stress manifesting itself in my subconscious.

Injuries

I wake up every morning with very degrees of tightness in my left foot from plantar fasciitis. My right knee has very degrees of pain with each step. It’s usually maybe a 3 out of 10, but sometimes it’ll creep up to a 5 or 6 out of 10 in terms of discomfort.

Brommer Park

It was sunny and 63°F at my house, but Brommer was under fog when I pulled in at 9:55 a.m. The parking lot was completely full. There was a soccer game going on, which is very unusual. I ended up having to park down the block and around the corner and walk to the courts.

It wasn’t a huge delay, I was still walking into the courts at 10 a.m. sharp.

I went from game to game to game today, which was great, and most of the games were at least somewhat challenging. Though there were a couple that were not as much.

Games

My first two or three games were pretty rough. I was not playing very well.
Dieter and I played a game against Mickey and a woman named Tracy with a thick Irish accent who I don’t believe I’d ever met before. Dieter and I were initially not expecting much from her. She turned down to be a good player with quick hands.

Mickey and I played it against a middle-aged man named Greg and his friend, also a middle-aged man. Initially, it was close, but then Mickey and I got dialed in and won 11-4. They wanted to rematch, but Mickey was not interested and told them straight that he was interested in playing a higher level game.

The fog burned off and then came back again. It got a little breezy, that was likely pushing the cloud cover around.

Shawnté and I played against Mickey and Jordan Rein. It was back-and-forth game with a lot of rallies that went more than just two or three shots. Shawnté and I lost but the loss wasn’t just on me. Throughout a few games, Shawnte was complaining about his paddle. It’s a year-old Gearbox paddle and Mickey was saying that when Shawnté hit the ball, it sounded inconsistently bad.

There was a guy who came who had not seen for quite some time. Maybe an inch taller than I am, tan and stocky with a Star of David tattoo on his shoulder. His name is John. I told him that I hadn’t seen him for a number of months and he said that it would’ve been a year since he lives in Arizona and he only comes to visit annually! We played against Mickey and Shawnté. We were leading most of the game, but they came back and won.

It was 11:57 a.m. and time for me to get home, eat, and get ready to teach.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2026. (No Play)

I didn’t play pickleball tonight, instead I got invited by my brother to go see the new SpiderMan movie (“Spider-Man: Brand New Day”) in the theater along with his son Patrick and daughter Gigi. I was kind of wondering why his two other kids weren’t with us, then I learned that Patrick and Gigi had already seen the movie and this was their second time around. I would give the movie a thumbs up.

Doctor Visit

Today, I had my annual physical with my GP, Dr. Atkinson. Years ago, I suggested that he take up pickleball and it turns out that he finally has. He says he meets up with a group of other dads on Saturday mornings at Derby Park to play. Good for him! We talked about the plantar fasciitis in my left foot and also the pain in my right knee. You recommended some foot stretches and demonstrated one of the ones that he does. He said that he’s been dealing with plantar fasciitis for years. And he said, “You know what makes plantar fasciitis worse? Pickleball!” Well, he has firsthand experience with that!
He recommended an inoculation which I opted to get. The nurse came in later and asked which shoulder I wanted the shot since she said that it would hurt for a few days. Of course, I said my left. I don’t want my swinging shoulder to be hurting!

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Thursday, August 13, 2026 (No Play)

Mark Dettle forwarded an email announcement to the pickleball club board from Scotts Valley Recreation explaining that the lights at the Skypark Courts will be turning off at 8 p.m. every evening from Sunday, August 17 through Friday, November 13. We knew it was coming, but it’s a disappointment nonetheless.

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Friday, August 14, 2026 (No Play)

John Kew in this video explains the paddle wear “cliff” that he discovered:
https://youtube.com/shorts/qfBbLEdwUBQ
Fascinating stuff.

I had a nonprofit board meeting last night so I didn’t play at Skypark. So neither of my traditional Tuesday or Thursday nights this week.

After optimistically changing into my pickleball gear, I left work around 5:30 p.m. and headed to the big field at Skypark to set up a canopy and table so that our family business could participate in the annual Scotts Valley Art Wine & Beer Festival to be held tomorrow and Sunday. We’d have art activities for kids. One of my staff, Ariana, would be manning the table both days.

After getting everything set up—which took about half an hour—I drove around to the courts on the far side of the field. As I slowly rolled through the courts parking lot, I spotted two tennis players and two sole women hitting a pickleball back-and-forth at the far end of the court. Very slim pickin’s! Well, that wasn’t going to fly! I simply continued through the lot and headed home. Fridays are apparently not the nights to try and get pickup games!

Pickleball History

One version of the naming of pickleball… it’s the one that I like to believe myself:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcE6dWUyMZg/
The other version is that the sport was named after the family dog, but one of the founders explained that the dog wasn’t around until later and was named after the game, not vice versa!

Number of days on a court: 953
Number of total hours: 3,515.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 225.5

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