COLLEGIATE PICKLEBALL TAILGATE EPISODE 1

0:05 my name is Suzanne chap Parov um I obviously go to the University of Michigan I am a senior I'm studying 0:12 economics and my hometown is Seline Michigan which is about 20 minutes south of an arbor my name is Sam hutner I'm 0:19 the president of the pigle ball Club at Indiana University I'm a junior studying information systems and economics and 0:25 I'm from forland Indiana I'm jce Fitzpatrick I'm a junior at the Ohio State University um studying chemical 0:32 engineering I help uh run the competitive team and organize practices for the club pitball team at Ohio State 0:40 at the University of Michigan we have two teams a social team and a competitive team um both practice on 0:47 Monday nights and the um competive competitive team also practice on Tuesday nights as well for a competitive 0:52 team we do have tryouts um and we have a coach who helps run those and decide on on the teams themselves um and then the 0:59 social aspect ECT just anyone can come open play um come as they choose whichever time they want to come um 1:06 competitive team is run where practices are mandatory and then you're expected to be able to be available for all the tournaments that we come to as well and 1:12 our practices are kind of Run for the competitive team we do an hour of drilling and then an hour of implementing those drills in our play um 1:19 and then on the social side it's just round robin getting to know each other um getting to play with new faces and on 1:26 Mondays we have the competitive team playing next to the social team too so we're still all in mingling getting to say hi meeting new faces and um making 1:33 sure everyone knows that you know we're excited to have them try out again in the fall if they decided not to try out 1:39 or try to give them an experience so they feel comfortable enough to try out um their next semester at IU we just 1:44 started our Like official competitive team this semester uh last semester we just had like you know four or five guys 1:50 that played a lot and so we just kind of informally gathered together and started playing in some of the tournaments but 1:56 on our social side we were about like 600 to like 700 people and we just go 2:01 out and play like twice a week we just got indoor courts which are huge so we get to go there and then we're working 2:08 on getting uh courts on campus to get people out and going so we usually do like open Play we call it hangover 2:14 pickle ball like a Sunday morning so that's usually fun and then we do like a couple like ladders throughout the week 2:21 for more of the social people that want to gear up towards that like uh development or like development or 2:27 competitive program and so right now our competive programs kind of in flux because we just started it we're 2:32 figuring some things out but we have uh 24 people 12 guys 12 girls two practices 2:38 a week and we're still trying to figure out that format um so yeah it's really 2:43 exciting stuff nice OSU um we do the same thing have competitive practices as 2:49 well as social play our social play is Fridays from noon to 4 so kind of give a 2:56 wide open range to allow everybody in between classes is to kind of stop by on 3:01 Friday have some fun um right now our competitive practices are Wednesday 8: 3:06 to 10 p.m. which is kind of a odd time but that's the only time we can reserve the indoor courts um we have two tennis 3:14 courts with lines on either side so four roll out courts helps out um but during 3:21 the winter we can't get as much play in but during the fall and then when it warms back up we have eight courts 3:28 running 8 to 12 depending on how many ports we're able to reserve as far as competitive goes I think we have about 3:34 40 members I think it's 25 guys 15 girls around there um and our social club has 3:41 around 250 members um and we try and run social tournaments get back together 3:46 have everybody in the club intermingle kind of stuff like that I started playing about almost two years ago be 3:53 two years in June actually uh my mom had invited me to come with her to the US Open she was playing in it with her 3:59 partner and I was like you know what it's a free trip to Florida and I went and I watched her and I got to watch the 4:05 pros play specifically Jay duub and his sister and I was like I have to play this game this is awesome after that I 4:12 joined the Michigan pickle ball Club um started as the tournament match coordinator um now the president um and 4:20 just kind of got addicted from that moment with me I played High School tennis growing up and I was huge on 4:26 tennis and then I had a cow had a really bad chiropractor experience and uh broke four of my vertebrae and I couldn't play 4:33 tennis anymore and so part of my PT was they like oh like play some pickle ball 4:38 you know and so I started playing with the old people at to Li and uh quickly it became like my new thing so yeah I 4:45 gotta ask Sam like I know a ton of people come from tennis like it's all like the converion I never played any other racket sport before this other 4:51 than like ping pong with friends there like a big difference between like all your strokes and stuff because we have I 4:57 think like two or three tennis players on our club team but not a ton yeah well for me it was weird because I always was 5:04 like a baseline player in doubles and so I would get to the net but not as much and so like pickle ball you know you're 5:10 all at the kit and all at the net so that's big to adjust and then just like the St like the backstrokes a little bit 5:16 different because in pickle ball you know you're noten doing the full swings usually when in tennis you are but after 5:23 I gu it takes a while but you get uh you get used to it I think it helps having the background and being to know like 5:30 you know what Top Spin is slice Etc my story is kind of weird so my brother's 5:35 girlfriend's mom introduced me to it she's like the one that like got me into the sport um about not this past summer 5:43 but the summer before that I played with a bunch of friends I got like a call at 9:00 a.m. like hey we need one person 5:49 like can you get to the park so like I went and played with them at the beginning of Summer and then I didn't play until August and then got like an 5:57 intro class and then from there it kind of just took off and started playing like three four days a week and now I'm 6:02 playing like five if I can and just playing as much as possible kind of right yeah I wrestled and played 6:09 lacrosse so kind of like two sports that like I yeah but Tyson McGuffin wrestled so 6:16 I'll take it there's I did not know that neither did I until up and coming yeah I 6:22 was listening one of like the podcast and they were like oh they mentioned something I was like Hey There we go there's the 6:27 connection make makes sense there my family is actually from Ohio I was born in Ohio and so they have like paddle is 6:33 kind of a bigger sport there um so I played paddle tennis a lot with like my grandparents and my family so I had that 6:40 background a little bit um I also played competitive tennis like in Middle School I'm not really sure that counts so I 6:45 kind of had some sort of Swing some sort of understanding of how to play a racket 6:51 sport which was super helpful but for me in high school I ran track played soccer and played field hockey so kind of 6:57 opposite from any you know with my hands or anything like that so Goa I think 7:03 like that's probably like one of the big things though is like an athletic background definitely helps like it's not like the only thing that helps but I 7:10 would say like I feel like most of our competitive team members probably have that more athletic background that kind 7:16 of competitive I guess to them I've gotten to let's see two duper Nationals 7:24 and going on my fifth Regional I believe um and we see a lot of the same teams 7:29 and it's always super exciting because you get to see the people you play with and there's always such a great Community everyone's you know cheering 7:35 for each other from different teams during matches and saying good job and a lot of times we all kind of stay at the 7:40 same hotels too so we'll plan to like go get dinner hang out get ice cream so 7:46 it's it's fun to like see everybody and then outside of even like the duper stuff um some members from my team we've 7:52 traveled to Columbus to play um in just like normal tournaments and we've seen Jace and some other teammates from Ohio 7:59 State and it's just fun to play with them outside of duper two and every time you see anyone from the community it's 8:04 just welcoming with open arms and it's hey great to see you again how have you been um and we all you know keep up on 8:11 social media which is a big platform and um we I probably have everybody's phone 8:17 number um at least from like the big 10 and probably more than that so we're all 8:22 in contact all the time yeah it's really weird because usually like when I've played other sports you walk in like 8:27 wanting to like kill your opponent you know and and pickle ball it's so weird because as soon as you're done you guys 8:33 are all good friends again yeah you're like oh hey that was a great shot that you had even like in the middle of the 8:39 match like you know you're saying like good shot you're laughing you know and it's I've never experienced that with 8:44 any other sport or competitive thing yeah me neither and I love it honestly 8:50 yeah it keep lighthearted it keeps it super fun definitely a massive difference from me coming from wrestling which is like oneon-one it's like me 8:57 against you physical sport and and like it's not like a super friendly thing like there's a mutual respect that 9:04 you're like you're doing something super hard but like not like pickle ball it's like okay nice shot like I'm not 9:10 congratulating people in wrestling it's like okay move on to the next thing like I want to break you do this y y but 9:18 pickle ball it's everybody kind of is Friends afterwards like you said um tournaments are definitely a nice 9:24 environment Nationals was super fun um in that was November down and Georgia like that was a ton of fun nice weather 9:31 to play in Indiana was there but Michigan didn't go to the AP Collegiate one right no we wanted to but I was um 9:38 we had a team and then everyone was like it's our winter break we'd rather go on vacation and I was like you know that is 9:44 fair enough so unfortunately we didn't get to send anybody but I heard it was a great start for the AP tournaments so 9:50 yeah how was it I tested positive for Co the morning of so oh no screwed I'm 9:55 still mad about it but definitely like it was fun like great team environment like ton of Courts um good playing but 10:02 it was a lot different than duper like instead of running scoring was weird yeah so like it was rally scoring but 10:08 you would switch sides like when you scored the point so they they kind of combined aspects of side out scoring 10:14 with rally but like whoever was on the right when the ball came over that's who would be 10:19 serving um and then it ran women singles men's singles women's doubles men's 10:25 doubles one thing of mixed and like each round count counted for a different 10:30 number of points and then they tallied total points too so like it was just a 10:35 way different format than how duper runs their team stuff with the gender doubles 10:40 and then two games of mixed with the dream breaker I would not want to be the person counting all that points and 10:46 keeping track of that that's for sure yeah it was definitely a lot different um I think for the refs too that were 10:53 that was nice like we had refs the whole time so like they made sure you were in correct position and everything with the new format so like that was super nice 11:00 but definitely a lot different than all the other tournaments I've played in still a good experience but just a way 11:06 different tournament feel yeah so did you Vibe with having singles like not being a dream breaker or would you 11:13 rather have singles only be part of the dream breaker it kind of depends like I personally don't I don't play singles a 11:19 lot um I have somewhat of a bad knee from wrestling so pickle ball doubles is super nice for me but singles isn't the 11:25 best I kind of like having it as a dream breaker just to signify that like it's 11:30 just like another part of the sport but I think it's like a change in Focus as far as like AP wants I think singles to 11:38 be more involved whereas MLP and that side of things wants it to be like more 11:44 of a double sport so I think kind of if you just look at like growth of the sport and like where each company wants 11:49 it to go I think they just have different Visions as far as doubles versus doubles and singles I kind of 11:55 like it being a dream breaker to be like okay we're just going to go head onhe head and see who can win after you play 12:02 the doubles matches and only have one game of mixed too so it's kind of send 12:07 your best out each time mix is probably my favorite to play so I'm not sure that would be up my like because like I'm not 12:14 a singles player even though I was a track runner in a past life you know running is still not my thing and that's 12:19 a lot of running um but it's it is cool like you said to have like the different tournament setup so that if that is 12:25 something you're interested in then you can have a tournament that is more catered to it I did hear they're bringing out Regional events too they're 12:31 going to have like five of them I guess coming out I don't know if you guys heard anything about that or not or have 12:36 any more details but oh is that the Cincinnati one no the Cincinnati one is run by Ben racy at Whitewater okay 12:45 gotcha so that's just another tournament in Cincinnati it's not like duper or anything yeah same thing with the one 12:52 I'm hosting here in Michigan gotcha you guys will have to send me the links because I have to figure out all of our 12:58 competit schedule that's like on my to-do list I have some really cool 13:03 prizes coming in and a lot of sponsors giving a lot of good great goodies um so 13:09 I'm hoping that'll be a draw in for a lot of teams and it's something a little different too it's um we're running kind of like a later night tournament just 13:16 kind of in one day because um like traveling for like a two-day tournament or even like a three-day tournament it 13:22 gets kind of hard especially being in school and having class on Monday and sometimes class on Fridays and getting 13:28 coordinated getting back and forth so we're hoping that that event style will maybe stick a little and be a little 13:34 better for for schools for sure Sam can you elaborate on Timber's Big 10 tournament idea I love it yeah so I 13:42 think it's official I think we're actually have having it it's going to be sometime in April and we're going to 13:47 have all the uh big 10 schools down in Bloomington for a big it will be the 13:52 first time we have like Washington and Oregon as part of the Big 10 I'm excited we're working on getting I we're working 13:58 on getting some type of deal where we can actually print it off as like the big 10 the official conference thing so 14:04 that'll be sick some sick merch um then so far we have most of the schools 14:10 except Wisconsin so I think we're just going to replace them with like Wisconsin Whitewater yeah so I think 14:15 that will be a lot of fun and then we have like our first big match against our first Like official head-on-head match with Purdue next weekend so are 14:22 you guys gonna maybe stream that at all like on social media or anything because I would love to watch that yeah yeah I'm 14:28 sure will we're still trying to figure it out and we're trying to figure out uh like how we're going to structure it and all that but I think it's yeah it's next 14:35 weekend so I'll let you guys know so you running next weekend duper and that oh 14:41 wait shoot it would be two weekends my bad two weekends yeah I was thinking the same thing jayon I was like double 14:47 header you know that's I love it run run Friday night against Purdue and then 14:52 show up to the duper Regional yeah always do it we can do it do you guys do like with 15:00 Yola or like selker do you guys have like paddle sponsorships for the club or no I'm actually working on a cirk one um 15:08 so where we play as Wolverine pickle ball and an arbor and they're sponsored by cirk and so I'm kind of using that as 15:14 a little bit of an end to be like you know we're the Wolverines you're sponsoring Wolverine pickle ball we 15:19 practice here we want to represent so something that's in the works for us for sure we have a couple like players that 15:25 are individually sponsored like mevin Carter but other than that we got super lucky we had a dude on our like social 15:31 side of the club and he tutored uh kennan's math class and helped him out with a math test and that kid's dad 15:38 works at paddl Tech and so padd us like 30 paddles like 30 misprints so we have 15:44 a bunch of those but other than that we don't really have anything official for the club yet gonna say because I know 15:49 like Franklin I think has sent us balls a couple times just kind of help out with the club but like a different 15:55 League I play in um like my home place they get like cirk has like I think some 16:03 sort of sponsorship with like just that individual league and we get cheaper balls so I didn't know if you guys had 16:09 anything like that that I should be searching around for Jay is your home court pickle Shack or pickle and chill 16:17 pickle Shack for me it's like 10 minutes down the road for me pickle chill's a 16:23 little closer to campus it's probably 20 minutes from me but it's only about 12 minutes from campus I'm jealous have 16:28 courts on campus though we don't have any courts on campus and we have like one indoor court with lines on a 16:36 basketball court at our I IM building but that's really it so we got to play um at Wolverine like I mentioned a 16:41 little private place we have so Timber Just opened up like his place and it's like five minutes off 16:48 campus um I us trying to get more involved um they have they're setting up like lines and stuff on the tennis 16:55 courts but it's all still tennis Nets so we're working working on we're just going to buy our own Nets and like P our 17:01 own lines down once it gets warm enough so roll out Nets are not necessarily my 17:06 favorite they kind of give you a lot of funky looks that's what we have to play on is we have lines on either side of 17:12 the tennis courts outside and then lines on either side of the two tennis courts 17:18 inside so we only have those Four Courts indoor that we can play on and sometimes it gets a little iffy with the tennis 17:24 players because they'll just sit there for hours on end and you're like a I'm probably never going to get on this court time to just go lift or something 17:32 so gets a little streaky on if you can play or not why I try to I come home a lot and 17:39 play which is super nice but not everybody on campus has that option to just drive away and go play indoor 17:46 somewhere yeah for sure definitely the teams I've traveled with for tournaments those are probably the people I'm closer 17:51 to um just gotten to know them pretty well over the tournaments and kind of as we stay in the airbnbs and go get dinner 17:57 and stuff um so like we have a separate group chat like off the group me um of about eight 18:04 to 10 of us and then there's kind of like the guys have their own group chat I'm not sure if the girls do or not but 18:09 like we've got the specific guys that we hang out with all the time um so those are probably the guys all hang out with 18:15 we'll go out we haven't been out in a while we're trying to figure that out but we went out last semester had a good 18:22 time um it's like it's nice a couple of us are older and have our apartments and 18:27 stuff so we'll go hang out there and of switch around but it's definitely been a nice like change of pace like different 18:34 group of people that I hang out with um as opposed to all my friends that I had from high school coming in so definitely 18:41 a new set of friends and super good times to the tournament I don't know about you guys I know you guys mentioned 18:46 like dinner with the other teams and stuff but I don't know if you do just like individual go with your team 18:52 somewhere oh yeah we are kind of in the same boat like all of us on the competitive team we hang out outside of 18:58 practice all the time meet up for dinner hang out each other's houses have the same group chats Etc um but again like 19:05 you said too um definitely us on the competitive team we're a lot closer unfortunately than on the social team 19:10 which we're trying to work that bridge and kind of have more fundraisers and social events um it's just hard when 19:15 like you guys said too there's hundreds of people that are interested in different bases come out each week um so 19:21 definitely s something in the works but like for example when the four of us um on the comp went to like Minnesota we um 19:28 ended up going to Mall of America and spending a good amount of time there because our flight was at night so you 19:34 know we do that we hang out by the pool at tournaments it's I always look forward to them um we also you know cram 19:41 all four of us usually into one room so that's some extra bonding right there um 19:47 so yeah we're all super close they are my pickle ball family through and through I think we'd all do anything for 19:52 each other no matter what so I I love the community that I've gotten to have because of playing pickle ball yeah I 19:58 would agree like playing last year like on the competitive or last semester and 20:04 this semester on the competitive team has been some of the best times of my college experience yeah it's like a great Community like we were talking 20:10 about earlier we're all really good friends with each other and then we have a pretty good M uh mix you know like our social club too so usually the 20:17 competitive guys are hanging out with the social uh guys and vice versa and yeah this is a great experience everyone 20:24 loves each other everyone's just happy to be out there definitely think like just because like our competitive teams 20:29 closer I don't know exactly why might just be because like those are the 20:34 people who are always looking to play so I think we just see each other more often I don't necessarily see all the 20:40 social people in our group me kind of text and be like hey who's can play this time yada Y where competitive people are 20:47 like constantly texting like hey who's available today trying to find games and kind of like what time we're playing 20:53 working everybody's homework schedules out I think it's kind of just kind of 20:58 more looking for it I would say what makes pickle ball different than other Collegiate 21:04 Sports defin like we mentioned before the community is super supportive um and 21:10 really great you know you walk on the court and it's not a death stare it's not um you know people want to take your 21:17 head off you walk out there and you know you're gonna have a great time you're gonna get people cheering you from the opposite side of the Court um you're 21:23 going to walk off what win or lose and you know you're going to be like hey that was a great point that was awesome 21:29 um and even outside of the team too um the community in an arbor is always so 21:36 supportive of pickle ball and our team and they always want updates they always 21:41 want the live stream of whatever tournaments we're at they're always telling us good luck um and that they 21:46 want to hear everything that's going on all the time so you know that's just a really great thing to have too and I've 21:53 gotten to meet amazing connections just playing at this Wolverine pick aall facility from those who are interested 21:59 in Michigan Michigan pickle ball so whether it's um you know getting to 22:05 schedule um new open play with different people or even just like career advice 22:10 and everything in between to the community is fantastic I think the one thing that really separates pickle ball 22:17 is really anyone can play it with like other physical activities for example like tennis or basketball you know you 22:23 have to practice a bit before you can really step out there and have fun with it uh both pickle ball it doesn't matter 22:29 how new you are or how experienced you are there's a good chance if you go out together you can have some fun playing it you know it's like anyone can play 22:36 like we have some guys on the basketball team come and play with us or we have you know like a bunch of football guys playing or wrestlers playing so you know 22:43 it's like an after practice thing and they're all excited because you know it's pickle ball day after practice and so I don't really think other sports 22:50 have that ability just you know be a fun uh you can it has such a good mix of being fun and social and then you can 22:56 add that Competitive Edge to it and so that's what I think separates pickle ball especially from you know the more 23:02 High barrier of Entry Sports I feel like other sports is kind of a lot of strict deadlines whereas pick ball it's a 23:08 little more flexible kind of with the tournaments that are currently getting planned I don't know if it'll get more 23:13 rigid but at the moment it seems like tournaments kind of get pushed forward and backward on weekends and kind of the 23:20 dates that they're set everybody's trying to like work to make sure everybody can get their get as many 23:26 people as possible as opposed to maybe other sports that are like okay here's when we're having it and that's it if 23:31 you can make it you can if you can't then it's not on us we just became a 23:36 club sport yesterday actually and so we stepped up from like the this like a social club to now we're a club Sport 23:44 and so we're still trying to figure out what all that means there's a bunch of new things to juggle with all that we're pretty well known bunch of kids that are 23:51 both like athletes or just want fun things to do know about us and come out um and they're trying to Branch out to 23:57 different part parts of our school like for example we were talking earlier about how everyone can play pickle ball like one the thing we're doing is we're 24:03 uh doing like networking nights with like the business school and some of the like Med students where instead of you 24:09 know you have a recruiter and you like typical career fair you you know like you go up to the recruiter and you talk 24:15 to them there's like 20 other kids we're doing the recruiters come and you play pickle ball with them you know it'll give you a more like interactive 24:21 experience kind of almost how people play golf you know like business golf every were trying to turn that into 24:26 pickle ball and so the school's been really uh Open Arms about it and they really like our ideas so I think we're 24:34 trying to get ingrained throughout it and it's going really well that that's a really great idea I might have to borrow that one for me we are not an official 24:40 Club sport yet um we're waiting on an application to open um to apply to be a 24:46 club sport we have we meet all the requirements so we're just waiting for that button to open so I can submit it but in terms of funding from the school 24:52 we get um quite a bit of funding um but not as much as you know we would hope for especially like I mentioned playing 24:58 at a private facility the costs are are high and we have a coach too um so having both of those we do we have to do 25:04 dues um so we're you know running fundraisers and stuff like that which is really helpful and kind of going off 25:11 what Sam said like getting other sports involved too on our team we have some Michigan field hockey players um we 25:18 partner with the other schools and we do fundraisers to like the Kinesiology School the business school um grad 25:24 students everyone in between so we have a lot of support every time we do those 25:29 um like organization fairs everyone's like oh my God it's Club pickleball I have to join this is awesome um and yeah 25:36 I would say we're pretty supported by our community are you guys paying your coach yes that's that's 25:43 awesome fortunate enough to be able be able to do that and he's very flexible 25:48 with us too because because um we practice like 9 to 11 pm at night so 25:53 it's it's when we can get the cheapest rates um and for the most Court space so 25:59 he's yeah he's great his name is Jake Frederickson great guy it's awes he like 26:05 a touring Pro or just kind of like a local like good player local 5.0 player 26:12 so I currently like as far as like we're set up like I'm the one like before practice like I'll send out like a group 26:17 me poll message be like okay who's coming to practice and then once I get the numbers in I'll kind of devise a 26:24 practice plan and like the first 45 minutes I'll be like okay let's do these drills kind of work on this and then 26:31 I'll attach um like links to different pickle ball drills like Dan grwi I follow on Instagram so like I'll follow 26:38 his links kind of go from there and be like okay let's work on this this and 26:43 play different drills and then kind of set it up with games at the end um but as far as like funding for us we did 26:49 does this um last semester and then this semester if you were new joining um we 26:56 got official club sports St status at the beginning of last semester I'm not on the financial side 27:03 of our board so I don't know what the funding looks like they usually just tell me they're like okay here's our 27:08 budget um and I kind of try and stay within that as much as I can and then 27:14 outside of that we just kind of take as players take care of it um the rest of our expenses on our own um but we don't 27:21 have like a coach expense or a court expense at the moment um I think we're trying to work through the University to 27:27 see if we can get more funding are you guys nonprofits I have no idea I I 27:33 couldn't tell you I we're a nonprofit which helps a little bit with funding 27:38 because um like the school um can use it as a tax write off so it gives us a little bit of Advantage gotcha I think 27:45 like any like tournament winnings and stuff it's set up to where it goes back into the club to help pay for future 27:52 tournaments so trying to do as many fundraisers I think as we can yeah too 27:57 keep sending us to more tournaments hopefully yeah but I think that's 28:03 probably the biggest thing at the moment is funraising within schools just because it's so new I don't know like 28:09 especially with like the MLP right now isn't bringing in as much money as they would like so like the PPA merger and 28:15 everything so I think everybody's still trying to figure out like where the money lies and kind of how to get in and 28:21 tap into that market and get the fundraising to play definitely I was very sad about duper cutting the travel 28:29 stiens this semester we were finally going to get ours back because we had used ours for last year and I was you 28:34 know had that worked into the budget and then they were like No And I was like dang it come on we needed that um so I'm 28:41 hoping they bring that back for future years but yeah you're definitely right there some things that need to change in 28:48 terms of you know getting those profits and pickle ball but I don't think we're far off from reaching that goal MLP was 28:55 trying to commercialize it and be able to watch it on TV and that's kind of that format but I think the PPA kind of 29:01 has a little bit of a stronghold on viewership at the moment I don't know if 29:06 you guys watch but I try to watch as many all the time as I can um like I 29:11 said like that same like Niche group that I hang out with is like the same people who are watching the pro tournaments and then I think everybody 29:18 else on our competitive team thinks we're a little nuts on how much we watch and play but that's all right yeah I 29:26 definitely know that feeling for sure have you guys traveled to like see any of them like played in person I know I 29:32 went to the PPA in Cincinnati in the fall it was just awesome like just seeing them like in person instead of like on Instagram or on YouTube I was 29:39 like in awe I'm standing there with my mouth like to the floor I was like oh my God this is amazing I I still can't 29:44 really watch like Pro pickle ball I just get bored no that's get so bored I'd rather 29:50 just be playing you know because we can play anytime I'd rather just go yeah I 29:56 guess if you can play at Timber facility anytime that's kind of nice yeah I try and sit and like watch on 30:03 like specific things that I need to work on and see like how the different Pros are hitting it and kind of take like 30:08 bits and pieces of their game and then drill it and see if I can kind of work out if I can get it to work in my own 30:14 way I do the same thing for sure I'm definitely a kind of a watch learner if I'm like trying to like depict their 30:20 shots and be like okay I can you know watch them do it and then I can attempt and then tweak it as I go so I'm the 30:25 same way Jay on Sam got to get it caught up here we'll get you addicted to watching don't worry all right all right 30:33 we'll have to get you there in person we'll do like a big 10 inperson like watch party and then oh yeah for sure 30:39 for sure I think that's what I need if if we got Big 10 I think we can Rope Maryland into it maybe we can rope the 30:45 uh the John's into it oh yeah I I just found out Matt Wright went to Michigan I 30:50 can you know get him coming in maybe you guys got any pro players Sam no I don't 30:55 think so not yet not yet good point that's a great part about 31:02 trying these tournaments is they're always in a new like last year they were all in lifetime facilities and this time 31:08 we're going to pickle house so getting to explore new venues to play in all always very exciting um getting to go to 31:14 Chicago is exciting getting to see you know Jason Sam again in person and getting all the clubs together always 31:21 really fun and the potential to win money that doesn't hurt um just getting to play honestly getting to play against 31:26 really comp of schools um the atmosphere is one you cannot compare it to so um 31:31 everything's exciting about getting to go play in those tournaments for us I think this is the we're walking in this 31:37 tournament the most prepared we've ever been just because last semester was all last minute you know we found out like 31:44 that duper even existed like a couple weeks before we were going to play in it like we really didn't know what was 31:49 going on and we were just you know taking it by taking it day by day but you know we've been prepping for this 31:55 one um we actually know what's going on we have uh like friendly faces all around us so we've got a couple new 32:02 Partnerships so looking to see like how that goes um especially kind of like underneath like a competitive 32:07 environment instead of just wreck play against other good players kind of see how everybody holds up in like an actual 32:14 competitive tournament environment um seeing everybody again will be nice um 32:19 like Suzanne mentioned hopefully we can win some money for the club that'd be nice kind of it's always the goal to 32:26 make it as far as you can that's a good topend goal to meet but definitely just 32:31 excited to play tournaments again um I'm super competitive ever since graduating high school kind of just always look for 32:38 that competitive nature again and something and now that I found it in pickle ball kind of hopefully we can 32:43 keep going from there and then the tournaments for me are really fun kind of induce that environment of the 32:50 pressure but perform so hopefully everything goes well I got a super 32:55 random question for you guys guys so for me I nervous when I'm in pickle ball 33:01 like tournaments than like any other athletic thing I've ever done in my life are you guys the same thing same way I 33:06 used to be I used to have insane like anxiety when like going into like a track meet I'd be there on the line just 33:13 shaking in my boots all up in my head same thing with playing soccer and I feel like coming to pickle ball because 33:18 the environment is so different um and like even my teammates you know there's not that you miss a shot they're giving 33:23 you a death look or you know they're rolling your eyes or making you know some comment about how you have to make 33:28 the shot they're like all right just get the next one so yeah the changeing environment like changed my like take on 33:35 being in that competitive environment so I definitely know exactly what you're talking about but now I just kind of go 33:41 in confident knowing to just focus on each shot at a time and then focus on the next one if it doesn't go right yeah 33:48 because that's that's so interesting because I'm the exact opposite way like in high school I wouldn't be nervous like walking into a tennis match of 33:54 pickle ball now because it's such a weird like new environment I get kind of nervous definitely there I'm usually 33:59 nervous for about like the first game um kind of so like usually like when I played men's doubles it's a little more 34:07 nerve-wracking and then once I'm warm like I'm ready to go for mixed um like when we play the MLP stuff with duper 34:13 like that style so it definitely gets me takes me like a game to warm up same thing when I was in high school kind of 34:18 just always took me like one match to get ready but I definitely think like having kind of like the mental game 34:23 mental strength from all that stuff to kind of just like block stuff out and just focus on like there's a bunch of 34:29 points to be played so losing one or Messing one up isn't going to affect the entire outcome I definitely think like 34:35 if you play like sets like I enjoy playing sets like two out of three because I think anything can happen in 34:41 one game but a set of three then that kind of shows like okay like if you 34:46 dominate two of them or like if you lose one and then come back and win the next couple kind of lets you get the nerves 34:53 out and then keep playing yeah for sure I'm glad you mentioned that that first game rockiness because that happens to 35:00 me too the first game's always like oh no and then after that it kind of gets 35:05 steady and takes off from there so I agree with you with having best two out of three so you're you know you finally 35:10 get your footing your grounding and then you play your game it always comes down to like I'm trying to be like make too 35:15 many shots or make the shots too perfect instead of just kind of okay it's okay to make errors but just kind of minimize 35:22 them but give yourself breathing room on the court because having the kitchen you can neutralize stuff so it's a lot 35:29 different than other sports where it's like okay have to be on all the time versus I can be a little off and still be okay yeah for sure so going forward 35:37 for me I graduated in May so postgraduation um my plans are actually 35:43 I'm going to grad school at the Ohio State University getting my Master's in Supply Chain management um so go box 35:50 after the semester um and uh last last month I actually got my uh coaching 35:56 certificate so I've been doing a lot of extra coaching so guess moving forward specifically with pickle ball I'm going 36:02 to keep playing in tournaments um I love playing them with my mom she's my women's Devil's partner um and I know my 36:08 mix partner even though he's got a year left of you know playing competitively he's always down to play in local 36:13 tournaments and everything so I'm GNA continue to play uh continue to coach and even maybe go and Coach the Michigan 36:21 team next fall so what's what's what are you looking for after this semester as 36:26 far as pickle ball goes Sam uh well interesting you talked about 36:31 your parents so both my parents just started playing a couple weeks ago and so right now my biggest concern is 36:37 trying to get him to stop fighting about pickle ball the big argument right now is uh my dad will like jump in my mom's 36:43 way to get a ball but then he doesn't go back until they hit it to like where he was at a point and so I'm on like my 36:51 fourth phone call today from my mom complaining about it and so 36:57 uh yeah so if I can get them if I can get their chemistry up that that's my biggest priority right now because uh we 37:03 got to keep the winning streak going but uh like I said we just we just got introduced as a club sport so we have 37:09 some new things to juggle out how many kids do you guys have on your competitive team I know you guys talked about it before we have 12 I think we're 37:16 close to 40 maybe okay or like in the 37:21 competitive group me but I think we only have like eight or 10 consistently 37:27 wanting to go to tournaments so one thing we're trying to figure out now is you know we have like that group of 24 37:33 and that's a pretty large group so we're trying to figure out how to get everyone involved just you know because these duper tournaments can get kind of 37:39 expensive and we obviously can't send six teams out so I think that's our 37:44 biggest step on is trying to figure out how to get people that want to play competitive the opportunity to play you 37:50 have one more year left Sam yeah I do lucky I know know yeah I know J Cas you 37:56 got one more year left too any still G to be playing competitive with the team 38:01 any future plans yeah I'll still be playing with the team so at the moment kind of trying to figure out practices 38:06 and everything ideally hopefully by this summer I can kind of I might try and start playing in some of like the AP Pro 38:13 qualifiers or something like that love that like that'd be fun um so hopefully like after college it'd be continue 38:20 playing um whether it's like 5 Rec play or leagues or just after work it'd be 38:29 nice if I could make this work because real life doesn't sound like fun at the moment I would love to just keep playing 38:36 pickle ball maybe pick up paddle sponsorship something like that kind of trying to figure out that how that works 38:42 on the individual side as well as like on a club side like how does it look for 38:47 individual players like I know we have people who are ambassadors for different programs but we don't have anybody like 38:53 sponsored but keep playing college Pock ball I think I've got got hopefully I'll graduate in four and a half years so 38:58 I've got another including this semester another four semesters I think maybe something like 39:06 that there so hopefully keep playing luckily there's no like NCAA regulations on how long you can play so can just 39:13 keep playing college pickleball for now yo so if you can play for Ohio State next year you gonna join forces with 39:19 them are you just GNA coach um I don't I'm think I'm really heavily thinking about it um I kind of told who's she's 39:27 on I'm really good friends with her she's on the high State team kind of talk to her about um my master's program 39:32 The Master's program's like 50% online 50% in person um so I kind of still have to decide whether I'm staying in an 39:38 arbor if I'm moving to Columbus kind of what my plans are unfortunately they're still a little up in the air but I mean 39:44 you never know I would love to play again if Ohio state will have me we're always looking for more competitive people I think it's especially hard to 39:50 find competitive girls that's probably where a lot of guys a good for me then I 39:56 feel like there's always like we have like a group of like six girls right now that are pretty strong and then 40:02 everybody else on the competitive team's pretty good um but I definitely think it's harder to find girls that are more interested in the competitive side other 40:10 than just like socially playing problem we've had we only have three girls including myself um so we're we like 40:17 always try to heavily recruit girls like Club Tennis girls um y you know honestly 40:23 anybody so yeah we're in that same boat of trying to to build our girl players 40:28 to create more of those MLP teams because we have so many guys and we wish we could send more MLP teams but just 40:34 with the lack of females unfortunately we can only send one but you know duper 40:39 does offer those open divisions which is really really nice so our players still get to go compete at that level but yeah 40:45 I don't know what are you guys doing to try to recruit girls and get them in get are really when when we were really 40:52 desperate at the start of the last semester we just went through the club tennis like team Rost and his DM like 40:57 every girl we could like hey have you ever played pickle ball before now we have like a group of like 12 solid girls 41:04 um but our biggest thing our one of our biggest problems that is like Mev is like amazing like you know like once in 41:09 a lifetime generational and so we just have you know some girls that are just trying it out for the first time and 41:15 then there's a huge gap up the Mev yeah that's the thing we're trying to balance too is our competitive team you know 41:22 we're all you know really high level players um and then like you mentioned like some people are just trying coming 41:28 out and especially like trying to get those females out there there's that huge gap so it's really hard to like I 41:34 don't know we're just trying to figure out how to bring them in without them coming in and you know maybe not having 41:41 experience because they're not at the same level so I'm not sure what you guys are doing with that or have any advice with that but that's definitely 41:47 something we're I know if if you figure out how to deal with that let let us know know okay sounds like so we're all 41:53 on the same page of we got to figure out how to get more girls involved I think I've got a friend on the actual women's 42:00 tennis team here that I went to high school with so I'm hoping like maybe I can just like um like she knows a couple 42:06 people that like after they graduate they're done with their NCAA eligibility but they're still going like Masters 42:12 like working in the area so I'm trying to see like if maybe I can like geted just and then just like because I know 42:19 Mev played tennis at Minnesota so like maybe if I did the same thing like just steal girls that did play D1 and then 42:27 hopefully it's not like a super tough transition all right I will see you guys 42:33 next weekend hopefully everybody has a good week of school up until then yeah you guys too looking forward to hanging 42:40 out and you know seeing who comes out on top next weekend yeah best of luck 42:51 guys 42:52