The Greatest Pickleball Camp In America!

Intro

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welcome to Simply pickleball the podcast where we discuss all things pickleball

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the fastest growing sport in America and around the world we’re interviewing the founders industry leaders athletes

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lovers of the sport that are driving the spectacular growth if you love pickleball as much as we do listen in

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hi I’m Crystal Brown and I was lucky enough to catch up with Wayne Dollard owner of U.S pickleball magazine founder

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of LevelUp pickleball camps Pro pickleball player himself and much more he shared his journey into the game his

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wildly successful camps and a few key surprises about what’s next okay now to

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the show thank you so much for joining uh Wayne dollar so excited to have you you were a coach and the leader at the

Wayne Dollard Background

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pickleball camp that I attended in Newport Beach and I was really excited to learn about your business and I was

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wondering if you can just start to sort of let me know where have you always been super athletic were you a hitting a

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racket when you were little because I know your tennis Tennessee on the ground well I wouldn’t I would say super

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athletic but yeah I started playing foreign I played to Penn State got in the

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college played at Penn State so yeah I was in the tennis for a long time and then after college I started playing

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platforms tennis I played that competitively until about 10 years ago I’m now 53 years old so I’m I play the

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competitively until about 10 years ago I traveled what is how do you differentiate uh platform tennis platform tennis has a uh a much heavier

Platform Tennis

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paddle with holes in it and it has a bit of aluminum a very rough grit that’s

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sprayed onto the aluminum and there’s screens that go around the cord it’s the same size the tennis court as a

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pickleball court but there’s an out of balance area where there’s a fence around it and you can play the ball off the screens so there’s a ball in the

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middle you serve overhand you serve in volley you play balls off the screens it’s a really fast pace game a lot of

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great tennis players gravitate to apart from tennis after college so maybe that’s a little precursor to pickleball

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absolutely so yes friends who in their 50s who played a very competitive platform tennis are now jumping into

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pickleball too interesting interesting so so yeah when’s the first time you had heard about pickleball and decided to

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pick up a paddle I think the first time I heard a pickleball was probably about 10 years ago or so 12 years ago I was in

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The Villages visiting my my in-laws and uh we were playing platform tennis and of course we heard the pickleballs next

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door to it and so we went and we played a little pickleball and people are yelling at us what’s your rating you

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shouldn’t be here what’s your rating yeah and then and then because you guys were too good because you were so good

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in the beginning well they were they were Advanced beginners probably yeah and being that we were already had

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racket skills we were already better than that advanced beginner level the first time we played

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I’m not gonna say we were too good but I I’d say they were they were beginners they’re very that’s very fair

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so where is The Villages is that is that I’m sorry The Villages is uh it’s the it might be the largest senior community in

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the country it’s in it’s in Florida it’s its own it’s its own place it’s probably like 100 square miles of uh of Senior

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Living 50 and over 55 and over something like that and they’ve got something like 300 pickleball courts there I can’t

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remember the number wow and they’ve got it’s it’s a spreading a little towns all around in the Villages it’s just a big

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hot bed for for pickleball that’s awesome that sounds like a place I’d like to go when you got home from

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visiting the villages what what happened next so that was I’m gonna say I’m gonna say

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10 years ago and nothing happened right and nothing happened for a long time and then in 2015 I was at my office in

Pickleball Magazine

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Pittsburgh for for a living I published magazines yeah I wanted to hear about that too well I own 40 magazines they’re

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mostly Community magazines across Pennsylvania I also published the Pittsburgh Steelers magazine I published

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the national magazine for platform tennis and one of my advertisers in platform tennis was Wilson racket Sports

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and the vice president marketing for Wilson was Terry Graham and Terry Graham calls me and I worked with her for about

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15 years or so or more and she called me one day and said hey Wayne I’m leaving Wilson I want to give you a goodbye but

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I’m also calling you to see if you’d consider starting a magazine for pickleball I’m leaving Wilson to start

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something called the pickleball Us open in Naples Florida and I thought you got to be kidding me

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you’re leaving Wilson to start a let’s open for pickleball and she was very serious and she’s very smart and a smart

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lady and so uh so I took that a little bit seriously and later that day I went golfing and I was golfing and uh a guy

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named Chuck Wittmeyer who’s the uh in charge of product development for gamma Sports was that my at my driving range

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with me and he said wait I need to talk to you about something that’s what says we talked about starting a magazine for pickleball I said you’re the second

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person today that is so strange I mean serendipitous I guess it was so because

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Chuck said that and Terry said it on the same day I decided to look into it and next thing you know I guess five months

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later we have a pickleball magazine going it’s been the best thing we’ve ever done um I absolutely love it so were you

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always in publishing since college and was was that a family business pretty much a few years after college I jumped

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into the publishing business just because I I thought it’d be fun I didn’t have any particular experience but I thought it’d be fun and I I started a a

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Golf Magazine and I started platform tennis Magazine first because I like the sport and I just replaced an existing

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black and white newsletter they had and that magazine took off went really well and then I quit my day job which is a as

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a color lasers uh specialist for for Canon copiers and printers and I left

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that and I started Community magazines in Pittsburgh and then in Erie Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and I just

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I just loved doing what I was doing my quick experience is this I went to my first national championships in uh that

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was Casa Grande Arizona in 2015 and I saw all these families I saw in Selkirk

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I saw the Barnes family and in engage I saw the the Elliott family and I saw the

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Smiths together in paddle Tech and I saw these family businesses I thought wow wouldn’t that be fun to start a magazine

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for pickleball and I could travel around with my wife and my kids and just have some fun playing the game maybe playing

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tournaments getting article ideas and it wasn’t until maybe about a two years

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later later that we started aggressively playing tournaments and doing that type of thing but it was just it was a family

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idea yeah and we spent time together as a family and it worked great to this day two of my kids are working with me my

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wife and I we travel together so so your wife did she get into it right away like you did did she pick it up and love it

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she did she was a she was a full-time tennis pro so she was teaching a lot of tennis and she liked pickleball right

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away and uh in 2018 we played our first tournament it was

Tournament Pickleball

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the I think it was the gamma classic in Pittsburgh and it was a 5-0 we won it and then we played quarterly in four

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five we won it we played the US Open and Nationals four or five we won them all and when you win all those tournaments

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it’s pretty exciting it’s like okay you know what we’re gonna we’re gonna start playing pickleball now that’s when it got serious when we

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started to have good success at the four or five level we thought this is a lot of fun that is so great so we took off

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of it together so you started the pickleball magazine and how did that do right away did people want to read it

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people buying it the first first big success we had was with the U.S APA and the major manufacturers we went to that

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first Nationals in 2015 and I talked to the usapa Justin Malouf was a big proponent of the magazine if it wasn’t

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for him we wouldn’t have started a magazine but Justin ran right off the bat said the usapa would love to be involved with this and so his

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involvement in the usapa really helped us because they provide the content we needed and then I talked to all the

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major manufacturers then I talked to you know Polytech and head and Wilson and Selkirk and Gamma and engage and all

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these people and they all said yes you start a magazine we’ll support it and so their support allowed us to start that

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magazine into and and I guess late fall winter 2015. so it wasn’t for all those

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people it wouldn’t have happened how about circulation was it easy to get people were they interested were they wanting to read it like what what did

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you find it’s hard it’s hard to sell subscriptions to any magazine in any of our magazines it’s always hard getting

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someone to physically go to your websites put a credit card in and even if they want the magazine it’s hard to

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get people to go do it right so our big success we had was with advertisers the

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ASAPA agreed to send the magazine out digitally to all their members on day one that’s great I think we had like 10

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000 members getting the magazine digitally and we had basically zero subscribers at first uh hard copy and

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it’s grown and grown with the USAPA and I think we now send it out to like 80 000 of their members we mail about 20

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000 hard copies to people who buy the subscription and then we email the magazine to an additional I guess that’s

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a traditional 180,000 people something like that so wow Magazine’s going to almost 300,000 people per issue now not

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quite but almost that’s amazing and it’s only just begun I mean the craze so so

Pickleball Instruction

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then when did you guys transition into teaching and the camps and um you know

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like I said that we crossed paths at one of your amazing camps in Newport Beach and and curious when that started we

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were visiting a torment in uh since Australia I think it was uh in

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Washington state it was called the indoor Nationals at the time self-proclaimed indoor Nationals in 2017

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I think it was and uh there’s a guy there named Rob Davidson who’s a really well known well-liked Pro Player and Rob

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basically said to me hey I’m looking for a job um in pickleball are you hiring any editors and I said no but do you like to

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teach pickleball and he said yeah I loved it I said I said tell you what let’s uh let’s get some camps going so

LevelUp Pickleball Camps

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I started LevelUp pickleball camps and Rob was our first pro started doing small camps of eight people he was doing

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them for me I was assisted in him for him actually yeah and we had like eight or 16 people our first few camps and it

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was a lot of fun and then a year or two later we hired Tyson McGuffin and we had

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we had more camps we went 20 camps a year to I think 60 or 70. then the next year we went to 100 some and then we

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just kept adding camps and pros and at this point in time we do about I think

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this year we’ve got about 205 camps scheduled for this year wow and there’s not there’s nothing right there’s about no yeah so the head

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Pros there’s I saw my wife and my son Brendan is a great 5-0 player as well we have Joel Wickes out of Orange County

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California amazing Pro and Coach Cal McMakin out of San Diego fantastic Mike

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Patterson is in the San Luis Obispo area um he teaches at Templeton Ranch he’s a

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great head pro we’ve got um Larry Vanderoos who’s uh New Haven not New Haven he’s up in Michigan somewhere I

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can’t okay Grand Haven I think it’s gone yeah okay and we’ve got a couple other Pros as well and and then assistance we have about 50 assistants that Trevor on

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with us so we’re just coming up how did you know that there was an appetite for camps and you know I mean how did you

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know to invest we didn’t we started we started camps as a fun thing to do we

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thought it’d be my account called the camp business level what pickleball camps my most expensive hobby because at

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first it was costing us money traveling around but we’re having a good time as a family and then as soon as we started

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getting you know 24 people per camp and 32 then 48th and 64. we’ve had camps as

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big as 120 people in in Naples, Florida even as soon as it became a larger number of people attending the camps it

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became a monetary Source at that time business and now this year we’re scheduled to see over 5 000 people at

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our camps last year was 4 300 I think and it just grows every year it does it’s kind of amazing and so you guys and

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I know you you you invested in a trailer that you guys ride around in right yes we did we bought a 43 foot RV uh pull

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along it’s 14,000 pounds I had to buy a big diesel truck to pull it and last

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year I drove from Pittsburgh across the country six or seven times and I drove

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to Florida about four times it’s over 12 month period and then that’s just what we did we travel around and we travel

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around my wife usually she likes to fly across the country but uh we meet her on the other side and we stay in we stay in

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this it’s it’s a very luxurious luxury yeah I know it look I remember seeing it and um that’s amazing so and so as a

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family you guys spend a lot of time together you must you really connected over pickleball and you kind of

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mentioned that with some of the other brands that have come into pickleball so what do you I mean what do you see next

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because you’re you’re busy you’ve got you’ve got the magazine do you guys still play in tournaments there’s a

Pro Pickleball

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quick story for you we after winning the the the 4.5 uh Nationals we thought we

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were going to be pretty good players and we’ve entered the pro category I think we were about the oldest Pros in the Pro

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Tour in 2018 our first pro match was against Catherine pranto and Joey farius

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I remember our first match I just looked my wife I said just pound that your ball at that little girl over there I’ll help

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you put it away my wife smacks of all Catherine and Catherine just smashes them all right past me I look at my wife

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I go that was that was weird needless to say the whole match we got blown off the court we we had to learn

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how to play the game properly and we started practicing doing our drills and within the next couple years in 2021 we

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won the the 50 and over uh National Championship U.S open uh we won the 5-0 championships do it so and my wife won

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the 35 she’s 53 but she won the 35 and over wow as well so we it took us a few

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years after the four or five level to really get to that that level where

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we knew what we were doing at a pro level and so at that point in time we’re kind of done we pretty much stopped playing tournaments in 20 and 2021 we’ve

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only played one since then and we just traveled around teaching it’s just so much fun just traveling around teaching

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that’s what I love to do that’s amazing so so you’re okay not you still play I imagine for fun oh yeah we still play

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very competitively with our pros and all of our friends we play with are at the highest level in our our teaching Pros

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are all five five plus and so we still play completely with those guys we just don’t play in made torments because

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we’re either working on our magazine or other projects or we’re out there teaching camps what do you think

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I mean you’ve got Rocket Sports and other sports in general and you’ve been able to see

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Trends what do you think has just happened in you know this explosion lately well I think it all comes down to

Why is Pickleball so Popular?

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the USAPA the USAPA  really helped out in in 2010 there’s a hundred thousand players and they aggressively marketed

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the sport starting in 2010. okay and when they did that the sport was ready to take off but it never was and the

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reason it’s ready to take off is because it’s a very inexpensive barrier to entry to in the sport yeah and anyone can play

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Pickleball at a basic level if you came to me and said hey I’ve never played tennis before can you teach me how to

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hit the ball six times in a row of the net with my partner I’d say give me give me six months can you teach me how to do

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that in pickleball I’d say give me five minutes so the barrier to entry to to financially get into sports very small

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and the the playing ability to basic level is also very low so if you’re older it was a great demographic for

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people who couldn’t play tennis anymore yeah my dad’s 90 years old he still plays tennis but the games aren’t very

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good applicable and have a nice game the usap really promoted the game taking off and they helped out so much as soon as you

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you start a magazine for the sport you had torments in the right places you had the right vendors pushing it yeah it

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just all just took off together what do you think is sort of the next thing to come I mean I I actually

Youth Pickleball

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interviewed someone about college pickleball and Collegiate pickleball and I’m just curious what do you think the

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trend is because I I mean it’s obviously the demographic ranges from you know young kids to like your dad 93 but what

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do you think where do you think it’s sort of missing its moment and and yet to come exactly what you said I think

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it’s missing this moment with Juniors I mean I’m seeing kids playing all the time now I mean it used to be in one

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from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania that for for 30 years all the kids in high school and middle school I should say have uh

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pickleball is one of their elective classes right it is I was curious about that yeah we’ve had it I’ve we played it

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a couple times when I was in high school back in the in the mid 80s really wow Middle School yeah exactly but uh it’s

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it’s I think that’s the big Market that’s that’s to come is going to be well the pro market will continue to grow

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at the highest level but also I think that the Juniors you’re going to see a lot of kids more kids jumping into it

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it’s hard to get into colleges and high schools and push this as a new sport because you have to deal with all the

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high schools across the country and all that stuff and colleges but I do think it’s a natural progression I think things continue to

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go the way they are it will happen it’s just my same thing with Olympics it’s going to happen if it continues the way

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it is so how do you think it would look in college I mean would you imagine it would look more like tennis or do you

Collegiate Pickleball

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think it’ll look more like hockey or you know how do you manage a sport like that in in college or high school I really

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don’t know I could only imagine that it’d be something like like like a college maybe where in college you have

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six single teams you’ve got three doubles teams competing I could very very much see something like that or

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maybe more doubles I really don’t know um I wouldn’t be the person to ask about that but I mean I’m just curious because

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you’re out there talking about it and you know sort of like where where else you know and what about tournament play

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like I know that right now there’s a sort of I don’t know if it’s more of a fun tournament but it’s at a lot of the

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ballparks the there’s a pickle pickleball today actually today it’s in San Francisco where I am at the giant

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Stadium um but what do you think about the pro tour do you think it’s going to start heating up and really just you know kind

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of hope so yeah I’m not sure I hope so um I know the teams are going for a lot

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of money right now and I I don’t know if there’s really any money being made right now in the tour I matter of fact I

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assume there’s probably not but I really don’t know on the the the um not that not that the Torah so much

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as like the PPA or APP I mean I’m not sure about the the major league pickleball and I’m not sure how that’s

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working yet I can imagine one day there being pickleball teams and all this major cities and it’s like a real League

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like Major League Baseball or NFL yeah I think they’re trying to do that right now well they are trying to do

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that right now I don’t know the success is you need a big audience and the most important thing you need is you’re gonna need um TV coverage as soon as you get

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the make it a mainstream thing on TV that’s when that falls into line and I’m guaranteed that people lots more than me

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are trying to do that right now the major league pickleball I’m sure that that’s what their next step is well it’s fascinating to watch any I mean you know

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it’s fun to watch so with your camps how much more can you scale I mean you’re only one family and you know you’ve got

Growth of Pickleball Camps

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incredible demand and you’re selling out in all these cities um how much more can you how much more

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do you even want to do than you’re doing so you can still have your life it’s a good question it’s again we have 50 Pros

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that work for us and so they they do a lot of the work last year I personally did 52 camps

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this year I did something like 30 and next year I’ll probably do something like like 20 and I’ll spread those other

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camps out with other Pros it’s hard to in order to maintain the quality you have in your camps you can’t hire a

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bunch of Pros you can only make one ahead Pro per year yeah what else we do

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is we try to develop one pro into a head pro over a year so if someone came to us and said I want to be a head pro for

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level go up they have to be a 5-0 player they have to be very personable they’d have to do camps with us probably about

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40 camps or so for a year and really get the system down and a lot of people have

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tried and we have not you know we’re very choosy on who you pick as headquarters of course it’s not easy for

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sure but I could see us adding one more Pro maybe next year and maybe one the next year after that and I could see us

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going maybe from 200 camps next this year to 205 this year to maybe maybe 240

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maybe next year or maybe 260 or 280 the next year but the slow process is not going to be okay let’s do 400 camps now

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you it’s just yeah it is all your quality but the demand’s there right you’re seeing incredible yeah I’d say

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the demands there yeah if we if I if we wanted to run 400 camps right now we

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could probably sell them all out but finding the right people to do it is the biggest issue I think it’s really hard

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to find those Pros we’ve we’ve worked with the best teachers in the game and I’ll tell you it’s just hard to find those those perfect Pros hey if you know

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anyone out there who’s looking well so maybe someone’s listening

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really personable of great energy and uh that are interested they want to try us

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out by by baby assisting in some camps or we’re always looking at it yeah I know I met your son he was uh teaching

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at the camp that I attended and he’s great now does he does he play does he compete otherwise or does he play

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torments yet all he does is teach and play with the pros when he’s teaching he’s he’s getting very good very fast

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he’s already he’s already passed up my wife and myself um so he’s very good he’s also only what

Pickleball Facilities

21:05

25 years old he’s getting very good but no torments

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on the schedule yet because he’s always traveling around teaching right now he’s in Denver uh he’s in Colorado Springs

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last week he’s just always traveling next week he’s in East Coast for for two weeks uh or next two weeks he’s always

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traveling and teaching so do you guys still have time for to for family bonding and and you and your wife where

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you can maybe talk about other things besides pickleball or like do because you’re busy you’ve got two basically

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huge businesses growing yeah we talk pickleball all the time but so last year

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we were so busy this year we took the summer off where we’re only doing three camps this whole summer uh personally

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with our family my wife and I and that is we did one in Hilton Head and we vacationed for a week we did one in

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Ocean City we vacationed for a week and we did another one on vacation for it so we’re basically taking the summer off

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and then the schedule starts back up heavy uh late August again yeah we cut way back in our our camps this year

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personally but one reason I didn’t tell you this but one reason is because we’re actually launching a couple facilities we’re looking to build two uh to think

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about facilities you know where where will they be

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the other one’s uh somewhere else but one’s in Pittsburgh we’re going through approval process right now and we hope

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to have that open by January or so and that’s going to be 16 indoor courts to restaurant things like that that’s great

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the other one’s a little a little bigger but yeah and yeah you know it’s interesting in um in San Francisco we

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have a huge shortage of Courts there were there were actually only 11 dedicated ports

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for you know fairly big city and I know this has been an issue in LA and sort of across the country the cities

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can’t keep up with the demand so then a lot of the indoor courts are being built

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and I guess you’ve heard about malls and things but I feel like it you know that’s such a it’s right for

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that kind of a business and we even traveled to Las Vegas because they have a really nice outdoor it’s like Sunset

23:04

Park with 24 courts but where are you seeing that you know that kind of investment going right now in terms of

23:10

building facilities and do you think that the demand is there in every city because you know I only have perspective

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of the Cities I’ve been to but um I know it’s growing and in every city that you’re doing camps and are you just

23:21

seeing a need for more courts everywhere we go they need more courts before we go they’re building more courts and the

23:27

first thing that happens of course is the repurposing tennis courts that aren’t getting much use anymore yeah I’m an avid tennis player and I hate to be

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the first one to admit it but tennis is not growing I mean it’s not significantly growing if anything it’s

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declining and tennis players like myself hate to see uh tennis courts going away being replaced by pickleball lines but

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the same time that’s progress and that’s the future and and that’s yeah tennis players hate to see that in places like

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San Francisco where land is just so expensive you’re not gonna be able to just build new courts unless you’re

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using existing land so your choices are either build them on top of tennis courts or go into malls or things that

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are being shut down and fill in those places um that’s what most people are doing right now as they’re repurposing those

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things what I’m doing in Pittsburgh is I’m I’m we have three and a half acres we’re building a brand new facility from scratch because in Pittsburgh we still

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have some land in places but in the major cities they have to find other Solutions like indoor malls closed up

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Bed Bath and Beyond stores it’s true or tennis courts or whatever so

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they’re just going to keep doing those things I think think about the difference between indoor and outdoor in general are you more of an outdoor

Indoor Pickleball

24:33

player or more of an indoor player does it matter you know well I’m from Pittsburgh

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what that means is we have to play indoors a lot I mean I like playing Outdoors of course more than indoors

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it’s much more fun the environment all that’s better uh when I go to Florida it certainly gets very hot after 12 o’clock

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you don’t see many people playing 12-5 that’s a problem but I like the indoor courts because you always know what you

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get you always have that same 72 degrees the lighting is always perfect if you get good indoor courts right most don’t

25:04

have a good lighting but the ones we have are all good lighting the surface I don’t like playing on on hardwood floors I don’t play on hardwood floors

25:11

it’s a different game yeah like temporary Nets very much so the outdoor courts the permanent Nets are always

25:18

much more fun to play on what’s the what is the court made out of or what’s the flooring that they use on indoor that

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you do like what will you play on well ideally tennis court surface a lot of

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places will put have the regular tennis court surface down the best is if they will put asphalt indoors and then

25:37

coat that with either a some type of Deco Turf paint or rubberized surface whatever they don’t have to but asphalt

25:44

is definitely the best surface to play on it’s easiest on the knees the joints and if you could put that rubberized

25:50

coating over top that that’s even better most people don’t do that most indoor surfaces are either wood or or concrete

25:56

concrete is part of the knees the ball balances a little too high would the ball skid so that’s not ideal so asphalt

26:03

Outdoors or asphalt indoors is by far the best surface for pickleball yeah it’s interesting I think you’re right

26:08

there’s a lot of interest in building quartz but it’s almost like as soon as they open there’s more demand than there

26:14

was before because yeah it’s like if you build it they will come and I I the

26:20

numbers are just astounding and what about sort of you know paddle technology I know that when you go to your camps

26:26

you let people demo a lot of paddles how are you guys keeping up on the latest technology and and knowing which paddle

26:33

people should use because you know because I’m sure you’re getting asked that all the time which title should I buy and you know just sort of become a

Best Pickleball Paddle

26:39

de facto expert so I’m gonna give you a little surprise here I’m going to give you a little heads up on something that I didn’t talk

26:46

about and my son is actually coming up with a paddle but we he’s great I’ll show it to you be the first person to

26:52

see it how about that you’ll be the first Christmas that’s awesome great I wasn’t attending on doing that here but I

26:57

actually have one here we go to our camps every major manufacturer wants to put their their paddles on a table so we

27:03

could sell them and we picked the best paddles that we like for our campers and our campers are mostly 3.5 players

27:10

looking to move up to that four or five level so we pulled certain powers we like from Power Tech I love I love that

27:16

the Tempest way to Pro okay I just absolutely love that paddle it’s just there yeah I like it can we hold that up

27:21

one more time getting something with it but yeah okay

27:26

just a fantastic paddle it’s got good pop good little power punch to it it’s

27:32

got great feel I love the cell truck paddles particularly the the Vanguard Series I love the the Epic is a great

27:38

seller for us the new ones they made I don’t like as much as the old ones although you see the ones the whole cut

27:44

out although you see on the pro tour a lot of people using this I like the old ones the Vanguard Series a lot still

27:50

other Palace mother manufacturers you know the new Yola paddles I like the the new purchase paddle and the one Ben’s

27:56

using and some of those paddles are like the Scorpius I like those I didn’t like some of the older ones they used let’s

28:02

see the carbon paddles I like the carbon one the carbon two and there’s a lot of just a lot of Pals we like we

28:08

demo everything and we know what we will play as well so what my son did is

Trnity Pickleball Paddle

28:14

he found out some of the technologies that people are using and I’ll grab one this is one of the paddles that he’s

28:20

come up with oh that’s awesome so what’s the name this one is called the pathos Revolution it’s a 19 millimeter thick

28:27

paddle and uh it got approved by the USAPA and Shameless Shameless plug I

28:34

love it I love it please it’s my son’s company and so he’s making those he’s also making a um cold pressed paddle

28:40

which is that’s called a heat press or thermal press paddle it’s a very difficult process making those types of piles they’re very expensive to make

28:46

he’s also make the standard paddle uh that he likes modeled off some of our favorite models from Yola from carbon

28:54

and from um from paddle Tech he’s kind of taken some aspects of those paddles he’s made his his own power series off

29:00

of that as well so those should be out by the end of the year sometime but so how did he decide to do that because I

29:06

mean that’s kind of my question is is you know there’s a lot of different paddles you guys are becoming a source right every every people want to know

29:12

what should I play with and you know I was talking to a paddle manufacturer that that you could have a tennis racket

29:18

for many many years you could restring it with the paddles people are moving through paddles pretty fast I don’t know

29:23

if it’s because they think it’s going to improve their game or what but they’re you know they’re moving and what are the questions questions you’re getting asked

29:29

I imagine a lot of people they want their game to get better I think people do we call them a Neil Friedenberg of

29:36

prolight once told me that people who buy paddles a lot he calls them paddle collectors yeah basically what happens I

29:42

think is people use a paddle and they they start playing poorly or they they demo someone else’s paddle they play

29:48

well they win a game that’s that’s they want to buy that paddle then it happens a lot it happens a lot more in

29:53

pickleball than it happens in tennis but it does happen a lot what we tell people is we look for paddles that have a good

29:58

weight to them we’d never recommend lightweight paddles lightweight paddles are very flimsy if a ball misses The

30:04

Sweet Spot the pile is gonna shake on you so you want to have a good weighted paddle I say the heavier you can go the

30:10

better especially if you’re if you’re female I hate to say it but if you’re especially if my wife plays with a 9.3

30:16

ounce paddle um I play with an 8.5 ounce paddle interesting the more weight if she has

30:22

Riley Newman smacking a ball at her at 55 miles an hour she better have a lot of power and weight behind that pallet

30:27

hit that ball back right I don’t need quite as much weight behind the paddle as she does so she has that and so you

30:33

see a lot of women on the tour most of them are over nine ounces on their paddles and so that’s the one thing is I like the people to know you want a good

30:39

paddle a wide paddle with a big sweet spot and you would have some good weight on that paddle then the different

30:44

materials you could you could choose fiberglass a little bit more pop a little bit carbon fiber has more feel I

30:50

think that’s why almost all the manufacturers been switching to carbon fiber over the past three years um pretty much all of them are doing

30:56

that now and whether you want to paddle the hole in it or not or if you want a paddle that’s 14 millimeters which is a

31:01

little more power or 19 millimeters thick is a little more feel just depends on what you’re looking for but we we

31:09

like dimming all these paddles and there’s paddles from each manufacturer that we really really like like I named

31:14

you the the soccer epic the paddle Tech Tempest wave Pro the the um the Perseus

31:20

and the of the Scorpius of Yola the carbon one carbon two armor paddle has a

31:25

great paddle by Steve Wong there’s just a lot of really good models out out there if we bring all those to our camps

31:31

you do why my son launched this this power line called yeah I was going to ask you what what needed young he’s

31:38

young and basically he sees the best of all these different paddles and he’s basically said why don’t we make a paddle like this or like this like this

31:44

I said well if you want to go for it he made paddles combining the best elements of those paddles and so so you know so

31:52

he’ll have those at our camps and as well as the other manufacturers as well so the name of his the the paddle

31:59

company is Trnity or what I’ll show you is it backwards or forwards that’s backwards isn’t it no no I can see it

32:06

pathos it’s Trnity it’s called t-r-n-i-t-y I like it I like it and as I

32:12

said I think that’s a really good you know point I I I I see I think that evolution is people start and they’re

32:18

just interested in it and and then they something switches and they really want to be good and they they sort of can see

32:24

themselves as one of the pros whether they ever get there and I think that’s why they want to

32:29

come to your camps and and what do you find is the Tipping Point for for players when they can really move from

How to Get Better at Pickleball

32:35

just like you said kind of what happened in your game against Catherine apparently you’re like I better learn these rules I better learn the strategy

32:42

and and is that what you’re seeing at your camps I’m not sure when people decide they want to get better or whatnot but but when they have success

32:49

at that three five level and the big separator we see from three five players to say 4045 is their ability to stay

32:57

close to the kitchen line not backing up and attacking shots that’s that differentiator when we do our Advanced

33:02

camps they’re not backing off that kitchen line our intermediate camps they’re backing off quite a bit so

33:08

that’s like as soon as players hit that that that that that moments in their game when they start developing raw

33:14

volleys and attack shots and it’s staying on that line that’s when they start getting good and that’s one of our

33:20

main focus is a level of pickleball camps is we get people to stay close to that line at the intermediate camps and

33:25

attack those shots yeah there’s times you’re going to want to back off the line especially at the advanced level to hit some dinks and wide shots things

33:31

like that but in general you want to be at the intermediate level you have to control the line I call it controlling

33:37

the line so that’s a big thing that when people overcome that hurdle that’s when they start getting good that’s awesome

33:44

and what are the other things you know you mentioned a lot of tennis players move to pickleball and they just kind of

33:49

assume they’re going to be really good at it but what about if you’re not a tennis player you know do you think that those players can be or you didn’t have

33:55

racket skills before let’s not only tennis do you think that those players can become just as good as as a former

34:02

Rockets tennis program just as good so one of our headphones his name is Joel ickes Joel was a AAA baseball player and

34:09

he could have probably even gone NHL in hockey um never had her played a racket sport

34:15

in his life he’s now a five five six oh Pro it just took him a couple years he’s just a great athlete I know a lot of

34:22

really good athletes that never played tennis or any racket sport uh they’ve just jumped into it um Rob Cassidy was

34:28

one of the best pickleball players in the world for quite a while and he was in a racket sports player at all I think my my young son took him on the tennis

34:35

court one day and taught him how to play tennis it was funny just watching Rob try to play tennis because he couldn’t Rob just an amazing athlete

34:43

take my plan there’s a lot of those players a lot of um you know Dave Weinbach was an Olympian alternate I believe for in

34:49

table tennis a lot of table tennis guys out there and um a lot of you know baseball and hockey and yeah soccer guys

34:57

soccer men and women think about players because they’re footwork I’ve seen a lot of really good pickleball players who

35:03

said they came from that soccer background interesting you see it all we see it all in pickup that’s so great

35:08

that’s so great so so what’s next for you you’re going to continue to grow the camps and and play and what’s next for

35:16

me is is I’m going to continue to grow the camp business we’re going to continue to grow the pickleball magazine

35:21

and we’re going to be launching these two facilities and and that’s it then we’re done I don’t believe you

35:29

I believe myself my plan is at that point in time we’re running those two facilities we’re

35:35

running all of our camps across the country and then we’re just cruising for that that’s our intention but things

35:40

seem to have a way of changing every few months and pickleball for us but that’s my intention it’s really exciting Wayne and I really

Conclusion

35:47

appreciate your time and I’ve been really excited about what you guys are doing and hopefully people all include

35:52

in all the show notes all the links to everything and when your son launches his Paddle Company and hopefully we can

35:58

check in you know in a few months and I can hear more about the the facilities but I really appreciate your time and and I it really changed my own game and

36:06

my perspective being at the camp more than just the skills that I learned which were incredible

36:11

was kind of like I don’t know if you remember there was a pro tournament going on while the camp was going on in

36:18

Newport Beach yeah and just seeing the interest and the enthusiasm and the

36:24

community I think the community was so warm and anyway I just that it really

36:29

sparked something for me personally like that it’s bigger than just learning a sport it’s it’s a community yeah awesome

36:36

newport’s awesome too yeah I know that’s a good place to attend well thank you and enjoy the rest of your day hopefully

36:42

you get some pickleball in yeah I’m actually gonna go play right now that’s why I’m thank you so much for having me today I

36:48

loved it and I I really hope you do check back in a few months and I’m sure it’d be a very different place than

36:53

we’re in right now because things just keep evolving so it’s amazing thank you all right happy thinking bye hey guys

37:01

thanks for listening to Simply pickleball we will be back very soon with great interviews discussions and

37:07

more all about pickleball don’t forget to subscribe to our channels on YouTube Twitter Instagram or any of your

37:13

favorite podcasting Outlet until next time happy dinking