Barb Gerry offered to cover for me today and open up Derby Park. That worked out great as I have still family in town from the memorial events yesterday. Mid-morning, upon request, I gave my mom’s cousin Linda, her daughter KC, and their friend Linda a tour of the family business founded by my parents in 1968. Once that was done, I went home, ate lunch, changed and headed out to Scotts Valley to teach my two afternoon classes.
One student was a little late to the Beginners class. For the Advanced Beginner class, my brother John filled in for a student, Larry, who had to drop out of the class after the first meeting due to a knee condition he was hoping wouldn’t interfere, but it did, unfortunately.
After the classes were done, one student, Cynthia, wanted to play a game. I played with Cynthia against John and another student Mary. I played lefty. Cynthia stepped out and her husband—Milton, I think—came in and played with me. He’s about the same skill level as his wife. After the second game, we called it a day and went our separate ways.
Monday, July 22, 2024 (No Play)
Dave Cox texted me asking me to help promote the local tournament on August 17. It’s been a very busy weekend, I still have some out-of-town family here for another couple of days, though most are gone now as of today. I asked if he’d already found a partner and he said that he did.
Vandalism
So, up in San Francisco, about 90 minutes north of here, there have been some big problems between the tennis players and the pickleball players over court space. Recent events made it into the newspaper there: Slashed nets and angry words: S.F. pickleball wars escalate https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/pickleball-court-tennis-feud-19584590.php
It’s unfortunate that there’s not plenty of room for both or some system that can be worked out to share.
Number of days on a court: 690 Number of total hours: 2,897.5 Number of paid coaching hours: 55.5
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Late afternoon yesterday, René invited me to go play as a group with her, Connor McNicholas, and Dave Ryan—whom I haven’t formally met or played with—at Brommer Park. We have full staffing today at work, and though the day wouldn’t be not busy for me, I figured I could spare a few hours.
I left my house at 8:50 a.m. It was sunny and 63°F. I figured it was probably going to be a warm day. My body was a little stiff and sore from play last night, so I took a couple of ibuprofen before applying sunscreen.
Brommer
When I got to Brommer Park at 9:08 a.m., there was plenty of parking. Some of the courts were still empty and on the far side, I could see René with Connor and Dave. When I introduced myself to Dave, he said we had met before. Drat, I hate it when that happens. I had totally forgotten, though he was very familiar to me . . . I had seen him around Brommer a few times before, we just generally play at different times and places.
Sean Lynch was there doing a private coaching lesson with a woman on one permanent court.
Games
The first few games would be René and Dave against Conner and me. René and Dave are doing a tournament together and are preparing. Conner set up his iPhone on the court dividing fence and was recording those initial games.
Game #1
Conner and I went up 5-0 on a lot of initial errors by René and Dave. But then things turned completely around and Conner and I slipped more and more behind.
We ended up losing badly. Great start, horrible finish.
The analytics by Pickleball Vision AI Inc. aren’t perfect (yet), but still provide interesting insight. Just in case the link goes away, I’m going to copy some screenshots here. This doesn’t include all the stats, but gives a good taste.
I can take some solace in my serve depth being really, really good. That was balanced by my returns depth being about as horrible as my serves were good. Assuming that the analytics are correct in this regard!
Game #2
Conner and I took the second game, winning by a few points.
The “average serve speed” percentiles are interesting: Andrew – 32MPH, 42nd percentile Conner – 33MPH, 27th percentile René – 29MPH, 50th percentile Dave – 35MPH, 16th percentile Aside from the percentiles being backward from convention, based on our performances in this second game, if you put 100 people in the room, Dave would be in the top 16 for fastest serves. I’d be in the top 42, Conner the top 27, and René would be completely in the middle at 50.
But, in the first game, if we look back, we’ll see: Andrew – 31MPH, 27th percentile Conner – 25MPH, 72rd percentile René – 33MPH, 27th percentile Dave – 32MPH, 42nd percentile What weird is how can 33MPH and 31MPH both be in the 27th percentile when 32MPH is in the 42nd percentile. And my 32MPH serves in the second game were 42nd percentile and my slower 31MPH serves were in the 27th percentile.
That really doesn’t make sense to me and must be a bug. It’s currently free to use the system… they are almost certainly in “beta” phase and working through kinks in their program before they release it officially and start charging for their service.
Game #3
Conner and I lost the third game, even though the analytics say that we won. Attention programmers: obviously if the last shot of the game is Dave hitting a winner, we can’t be the winning team!
Just to be clear, there are more errors and/or situations than mentioned above that confuse the A.I. system. One screen showed that I had a failed serve that started about 3 feet outside of the right sideline, went straight ahead, and dropped about a foot in front of the plane of the net… this is completely erroneous!
Playing Dave, aside from the fact that he’s better than I am and has some great inside-out shots, it’s like playing a mirror image of myself at the net. He has very, very fast hands.
It took some adjusting in these games. I had to be much more patient and adjust my mindset a bit more “not to lose” versus “playing to win” and forcing speedups. I have work to do on that yet.
More Games
I played with Dave against René and Connor. We won 11-2. That was the most lopsided game of the morning.
For the last game, we went back to the original configuration of Dave and René against Connor and myself. Conner and I lost 7-11.
I left the courts at 11:45 a.m. and headed home for lunch, then work.
Dave was unquestionably the best player of the four of us today… not like a 5.0 or something, but he had some shots/consistency that made him better.
Dave is really good at driving the net forcing pop-ups and following up by crashing the net and driving the ball for winter. I told him it’s like a solo “shake and bake.” He smiled and corrected, “Auto bake!”
So?
I could really get into this private game circuit. The quality of the games was night and day compared to playing club play at Derby Park.
Tourny Invite
Dave Cox texted me tonight asking if I’d partner with him for a local tournament on Saturday, August 17. I was in the middle of an ad deadline for work and told him that I’d get back to him.
Thursday, July 18, 2024. (No Play)
I had a nonprofit board meeting tonight for the Santa Cruz Art League that ran from 6 p.m. until 8:41 p.m. That’s 11 minutes after the lights already went off at Skypark. No pickleball for me today. It’ll probably be Sunday before I touch a pickleball again.
Friday, July 19, 2024. (No Play)
Two days ago, there was an article appearing at 3DPrinting.com: Accel Digital Solutions, a 3D printing startup in Walker, Michigan, has developed a quieter pickleball to address noise complaints from neighbors near public courts. The co-founders, Brandon Teets and Tyler Marvin, designed the ball to emit a soft, low-decibel “click” instead of the typical loud “pop.” https://3dprinting.com/news/3d-printed-quiet-pickleball-unveiled
The new 3D printed pickleballs from Accel Digital Solutions.
What’s interesting is that Accel Digital Solutions has already received approval for their ball from USA Pickleball, so it has quietly been in the works for a while. (Hmmmm, inadvertent pun!)
USAP Membership
I renewed my USA Pickleball membership today. With the new website being kind of confusing and not entirely “visitor ready,” I let my membership lapse this week. I renewed it today. $60 for a year for the competitor level. A recreational membership is cheaper, $25.
Family Stuff
We’re having a memorial service tomorrow for my great-uncle John “Bud” Penniman. He had a long live, passing away at 102-years-old back in March. He was living in Oregon near his daughter (my mom’s cousin), but he was born here in Santa Cruz.
Saturday, July 20, 2024. (No Play)
“Uncle Bud”—as my mom called him—was a hysterical guy. I fancy myself to have a pretty quick wit—and have been told so by others—but Uncle Bud could easily give me a run for my money. He did substitute teaching into his 80s and students would request him as their sub when they found out their regular teacher would be out. He admitted he was not the best student in school himself, but he turned out to be an amazing teacher.
Family members gathered at Santa Cruz Memorial for the 10 a.m. service from Santa Cruz, Southern California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Colorado, and Texas.
Uncle Bud had been a Navy pilot during WWII, flying domestic transport, so we had four Navy sailors there for a flag ceremony and the playing of Taps. (With too many veterans dying from old age, The Navy has to rely on bugles that play a recording instead utilizing actual musicians.)
After two of Bud’s children eulogized him and his wife Margaret, it was my opportunity to play “Amazing Grace.” I have an assortment of bagpipe competition medals—including a trophy—so it wasn’t difficult to pull off a strong performance, even being rusty. (About 10 years ago, I was the Executive Secretary for the Western United State Pipe Band Association.)
The bagpipes that I played today originally belonged to Bud’s older brother, Warren… who was my grandfather—my mom’s dad.
Deacon Mike and me after the ceremony.
Number of days on a court: 689 Number of total hours: 2,897 Number of paid coaching hours: 52.5
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The board and other site coordinators have been very supportive of my decision to relinquish my role as the Sunday Site Coordinator at Derby Park. And Barb offered to cover for me this Sunday. That’s great, as I have a boatload of relatives in town—including from different states—for my great-uncle’s memorial service this weekend.
Skypark
I left work and arrived at Skypark just before 7 p.m. and sunny skies.
It was a light crowd and rotations in the games off of the whiteboard happened fairly quickly.
Rachelle stopped me and thanked me for getting her driver’s license back to her. She said my daughter, who dropped it off to her a few weeks ago, was very nice. I had picked up her license on the ground at Skypark and my daughter Charlotte was heading out past Rachelle’s area of the county anyway, so it worked out.
First Game
My first game was paired the Rachelle. She’s a lefty, and still a fairly weak player. She is still learning the game . . . I had to frequently remind her of the score and where to be on the court. We played against Barry and his wife Christy. Rachelle and I fell behind really quickly. Then we crawled back and tied up the score, but we couldn’t pull off a win. Yes, it was my first game, but, boy, I was not playing well in that game. There was no way I could make up for Rachelle’s inexperience.
In that first game, I played horribly. That generally came from me underestimating my opponents—doing net speedups or drives from the baseline, where Barry or Christy then put the ball away. There were a couple instances where I decided mid-shot to return a serve intentionally to Barry (who is the better of the two players) and I distinctly remember hitting two of those into the net. It was just weird.
Next!
Roman and I played against Barry and Christy. I played so much better. We clobbered them.
Lefty
I played with Beth against Mark Dettle and Laura (formerly from Visalia). We won.
In the rematch, I decided to play the entire game left-handed and Beth and I still won. Mark wasn’t playing his best.
Tall vs. Short
I played with Roman—young guy—against tall lefty Aaron and tall Mike. Aaron and Mike are about the same height, both over 6 foot. Roman and I are also both about the same height . . . but shorter! About 5’8″. Aaron is getting really good. While I was able to return all of Aaron’s serves, but Roman wasn’t so lucky, he missed a few. Mike has also gotten quite a bit better over the last few years. But Aaron is definitely the stronger of the two. After the game, Roman thanked me for playing with him and apologized for his performance. I told him he had some really nice shots, which he did. He just needs to be a little bit more consistent and not try to be so tricky with his shots . . . like trying too hard to add spin.
Spencer
Spencer was there tonight although I didn’t get a chance to play with him. Someone told me this week that he and Diego had taken silver in the 4.0 bracket in recent tournament. Between rallies, I congratulated Spencer when he was playing next to me on an adjacent court. Spencer is a good guy—upbeat and a good player.
Last Game
The last game of the night was Mark and myself against Beth and Laura. I decided to play lefty in that game too and for a series of side outs, the score was stuck at 5-3 with Mark and I leading. Then Beth and Laura went on a 4-point run and when their service ended they were leading 7-5. When they were up 9-5, I decided to switch to my right hand. For whatever reason, I had a hard time switching back to righty after playing three games left-handed and I missed a few shots, so I can’t say that the loss was all on Mark for this one.
Night, Night!
There were still four games going on in the twilight and Laura, Beth, and I wanted to play one more game, but we couldn’t find a fourth. With that, I helped out Ofer by taking down one of the temporary nets. After that, I was in my car and on my way home.
Tennis elbow is kind of acting up and my right knee was a little sore. *sigh*
Number of days on a court: 688 Number of total hours: 2,894.5 Number of paid coaching hours: 52.5
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
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