004 | The First One’s Free Transcript

Morgan:  My guest today is a pro-player, a commentator, one of the best coaches I know, the founder of Third Shot Sports, a leader in Pickleball coaching. He’s also a fellow podcaster, the man likes to cast some pod. It seems like either he’s copying me or I’m copying him – who knows? He’s my brother from most likely a Canadian mother. Please welcome to the show, Mr. Mark Renneson.

 

Brother From a Canadian Mother [0:50]

Morgan:  Mark, how are you doing, my man?

Mark:  Hey, Morgan, I’m doing great! Thanks for inviting me on your show.

Morgan:  Really? You’re doing great? There’s not too many people that are doing great. But if you’re surviving then I guess that is great.

Mark:  Yeah, I know. It is a tough time right now. And one of the things about what we’re going through now, at least what I’m finding is seeing silver linings in places that you otherwise might not have noticed. As an example, my 5-year-old daughter now is really into cooking, and she just wants to be in the kitchen, doesn’t matter what the task is; washing pots and pans, chopping onions, stirring the rice, she is so into it. And I think it’s fair to say this is a pretty unmitigated disaster especially for those of us in the coaching world. But one thing I’ve noticed, I’ve got to spend a lot of time with my family which has been pretty nice.

Morgan:  Yeah, you just need a pandemic to force everyone to hang out together.

Mark:  Yeah, yeah. It’s funny, I was listening to a show, he’s the food editor at the New York Times, and he just came out with a cookbook last month that was all about serving big meals to friends and family…

Morgan:  Oh no…

Mark:  This was like the worst possible time. He says, “I mean I got the family thing locked down,” right? Because you’ve got no choice but to eat them with your family. But yeah, it’s a pretty wild time right now.

Morgan:  I’ve been making a lot of pies and sausage rolls but individual pies, so I have one defrosting at the moment.

Mark:  (laughs…) You know what? I heard someone say, because at least here in Canada, there’s been a run on things like flour and yeast because everyone’s baking their own bread. And I saw someone on Twitter, he said, “You’re all about to find out what happens if you eat a loaf of bread every day. We’re all going to come away with our COVID-19 —  it’s like instead of freshmen forty, it’s your COVID-19.

Morgan:  That’s true. It’s happening to me. I find myself my back is hurting more than normal because I’m spending much more time in front of a computer doing wonderful things like podcasting. But writing and…

Mark:  Yeah. You know it’s crazy. I see some people out there – I won’t namedrop any of them – Corrine, but there are people out there who I feel like they’re using this time to get more fit, right? You just see them doing push-ups and they’re doing burpees, and they’re out there doing courses, and I’m thinking, “Jeez! I’m just sitting here eating beagles and humus, thinking about the end of the world.” But there are people out there who are just like getting jacked.

Morgan:  Yeah. I think she’s in one of the Carolinas which – I forget if it’s north or south, but I think that has been hit the least bad out of almost any state which is who knows when it’s going to really hit home there. But I think we’re all just thankful we’re not living in New York at the moment.

Mark:  Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Morgan:  So I imagine you had to cancel a fair amount of clinics and camps, and whatnot.

Mark:  Yeah, I was actually in Texas back in mid-March. And from there, actually I was going Corrine’s hometown, Cary, North Carolina, and I had something set up there for a few days. And from there, I was going to be in Dallas for the PPA event doing the broadcast there. And today, I’m supposed to be in Florida on our annual family vacation leading up to the US Open. So all of that just got wiped out. We ended up escaping from Texas, essentially, on my birthday no less. And so, we got home and it was just like on a panic to get out. Everything is basically on hold right now.

Morgan:  Wow!

Mark:  We’re fortunate here, the Canadian government was pretty quick to act when it came to realizing the situation not just like the health crisis but also the ensuing economic crisis. We still don’t know the extent of it but they are pretty quick at saying, “Look, we know that this is happening. We’re going to put supports in place.” And so, that has lessen the blow a little bit but it’s tough.

Morgan:  Yeah, I know. I think Australia was pretty quick to act as well, and their numbers, comparatively, are pretty good compared to ours here. But still, no one’s getting out of this unscathed and it could be 10, 20 years before economically the world is right as rain.

Mark:  Yeah. This is a depressing start of the podcast.

Morgan:  Yeah, well what do we do? It’s not like it’s something – it’s not just an elephant in the room, it is the room. Or at least there’s no room for any other animals with the sized elephant.

Morgan:  Yeah. What have you been – I mean, I know this is your show and you ask me questions, but what have you been doing? You’ve been talking about sitting in your computer writing more. What are the kinds of things you’re writing about?

Morgan:  Well, a lot of them are scripts for future episodes when I can go out and shoot with Steve. Scripts for CoachME Pickleball, also articles to submit to Pickleball Magazine, trying to organize guests for this podcast, that kind of stuff – sometimes a little poetry, you know? I don’t deny that I like to get into that stuff once in a while.

Mark:  The occasional haiku maybe?

Morgan:  Well, I don’t know much about haiku. Is that the one with – in fact, I know nothing about haiku but it sounds good.

Mark:  Yeah, it’s like a – I’m going to get this wrong but it’s something like there is a certain number of syllables in each line. I think it’s like 7, 5, 7 or something.

Morgan:  Oh right.

Mark:  We went to the haiku, a Pickleball haiku contest through our newsletter. It was pretty fun, actually. And it’s the kind of the thing haikus because it is structured the way it is, even someone who was little to no experience doing it can still have fun writing something. I’m sure there’s an art to writing really great haikus. You might want to give it a try.

Morgan:  Alright, I’d love to check that out. I might have to start a newsletter, jeez!

Sponsor: CoachME Pickleball

 

The Pickleball Lab [7:36]

Morgan:  So how are things going with the Pickleball Lab? I do like what you’re there. It looks like something entertaining and educational stuff.

Mark:  Yeah, thanks! For people who don’t know what’s hard, and I think it’s okay to be frank about this is some of us in the Pickleball world like you and me and others, aren’t just in the Pickleball world in kind of like a casual, fun way. I mean it has its moments of being casual and has lots of fun for sure. But also we’re doing this as a business. One of the things I’ve tried to do over the last few years, as we’ve grown Third Shot Sports, and putting out videos, I did my best to make it easy to watch and pretty accurate and kind of tight and on point. And what we’ve done is we’ve transitioned that into – that still exist, our newsletter and our YouTube videos, but transitioned that into a subscription service. So every two weeks, people who are members of The Pickleball Lab, they get this email that we don’t send out the material anywhere else, it’s all exclusive, special videos we make just in the Pickleball Lab, special audio content, we get guest contributors who submit video or audio or different things. And the way that we pitch it is if you like the Third Shot Sports newsletter, you’re really going to like the Pickleball Lab because it’s this sort of premium product for not a very premium price. It’s $100 for the year.

But we had a lot of people who subscribed and say that’s a reasonable price, $8 or whatever it is, and I get this extra stuff because I’m really into Pickleball and I really want to see more.

And then we also have people who say, “Hey, look, I’ve enjoyed all of this free stuff that I’ve been getting from Third Shot Sports over the last number of years. I want to support what you guys are doing.

And so, it’s been a cool project for me. It comes out every two weeks and each time is a little bit different and it’s a good challenge for me because if people are going to pay for it, you know a lot about this yourself – if people are going to pay for it, it’s going to be really good.

Morgan:  Yeah.

Mark:  And that means investing the time and resources and hiring the right people. You were talking about Steve Taylor and putting in that effort because it is a premium product, right? There are tons of free stuff out there in the Pickleball world. I’m sure you’re the same, I wish we could just give everything away for free. But at some point, you got to pay the bills, right?

Morgan:  Yeah.

Mark:  We don’t do it as a charity thing, we do it as like, “Hey, here’s the value proposition. It’s really great, exclusive content that you won’t find anywhere else, and you pay a small fee for it.” It’s been cool to have the support of people that have signed up for it.

Morgan:  So you’ve essentially gone with the kind of like a Coca-Cola model. And when I say that, I remember reading not long ago that when Coca-Cola first came out, it was given away for free in pharmacies. I think the founder was a pharmacist. So they essentially gave away Coca-Cola knowing that it was highly addictive and actually had cocaine in it for years and years and years.

Mark:  Right. The first one’s free.

Morgan:  Yeah, exactly. And then when they finally started charging, I think it was ¢5 for a bottle or a can, people were like, “Oh, it’s ¢5. I’ve been drinking this for free all this time. I love it, I can’t live without it now, so yeah fair enough.”

Mark:  Yeah, it’s funny because I just finished writing an article, and the article is “Called Don’t Coach for Free”. And the example I gave here, I was in – I shouldn’t say which city or else I might give away the person.

Morgan:  It’s Randy Coleman, isn’t it? It’s totally Randy. (laughs…)

Mark:  (laughs…) You should try to bring up Randy on every single episode of this show. It would be amazing.

Morgan:  I think I have. So far so good.

Mark:  I was in a major Canadian city not too long ago, and I got invited – I went to like this drop-in Pickleball one day. I just poke my head in and I saw the guy who was coaching there, and he was getting ready for a little lesson while there was open play. He invites me the next day to open play, and I said, “Oh, sure. It’s fine.” And it wasn’t like very good play but I hadn’t played for a while and I was just happy to get out. When I showed up and he was already out there and there are courts going, and not a single person was hitting a ball. I said, “Oh, this is weird. I thought this was line drop-in, open play Pickleball?”

And the guy – super nice guy, really charismatic, good at explaining and demonstrating was great, and he was teaching something to the group. Seems kind of weird but okay. And throughout this open play session, not always on a big scale but also like to a team or to an individual, he was coaching them. I was like, “Huh?”

And so, I had this one partner, her name is Bernice. I think in the article I called him Marvin.

Morgan:  (laughs…)

Mark:   I was like, “Marvin seems to provide a lot of tips.” She said, “Oh, yeah he’s great. I love coming out to drop in. It’s like getting a free lesson every time I come. It’s terrific!”

I was like, “Oh, have you ever taken a lesson from Marvin?”

“Oh, no. Why would I need to? I just come to drop in. I can save my money for something else.”

Morgan:  Yeah.

Mark:  And so when I talked to Marvin about it and I asked him, it was actually his strategy. He’s like, “So, what I do is I come out to open play five or six days a week, and I do some coaching when I’m here. And the plan is that they see that I know what I’m talking about, I’m a good coach, I’m a nice guy, and then they’ll sign up to the lessons.”

I was like, “Oh, how is it going?”

He’s like, “Not so good.” (laughs…)

Morgan:  (laughs…)

Mark:  And it was the kind of the case where he was giving away this really great product.

Morgan:  Yeah, the milk.

Mark:  Yeah, he was giving away the milk. He’s giving away the Coke. And he was doing it to such a great extent that people weren’t coming in and buying. So I think the moral of this story is I do think that especially when you’re new to an industry – Pickleball’s not been around that long, professional Pickleball coaching, you do have to find a way to stand out and to convince people that you have some idea of what you’re talking about and there’s something good here. But if you give it away non-stop, then when it is time to say, “Hey, I got to put food on the table too. Do you want to come and pay for this thing?” If you’re giving it away non-stop, that’s not going to happen.

Morgan:  Yeah.

Mark:  So trying to thread that needle of doing enough free stuff and the free content to build an audience and to gain some credibility. You’re trying to thread the needle between doing that but then also not doing so much that you can’t afford to run the business because you’re not making any money from it.

Morgan:  Walking that line has got to be tough. Not too long ago, I had a gentleman – luckily I actually don’t remember the name so I can’t throw him under the bus here. Really nice guy.

Mark:  It’s Randy Coleman wasn’t it? (laughs…)

Morgan:  (laughs…) It actually wasn’t Randy Coleman. This is the first time it wasn’t Randy Coleman.

No, he came to our club and it’s a private club, membership, and he wanted to just give free clinics. And the manager – I mean I work there and I teach lessons, but the manager politely tried to explain to him it wouldn’t really work so well if you’re giving free lessons while Morgan’s out there charging X amount per hour. And he was trying to do a nice thing, he wanted to just share the wealth. He was a decent 5.0 player, and I liked the guy. But unfortunately, that kind of thing if you’re going to do it at public parks, you can be that traveling wanderer with the cane, Cain and Abel of Pickleball.

Mark:  I think a couple of things. One is there are people out there because they’re at a certain age or they’re independently wealthy and they don’t need the money or whatever, and they just want to go and share the wealth – and that’s great. Those people are really important for the growth of the sport, right?

Morgan:  Certainly.

Mark:  Those are like the ambassadors that you see, right? But then there’s another sort of group of people that are professionals or trying to be professionals. Not in every case but often, it is a matter of you get what you pay for.

So you have been coaching and in this case, I’m not just talking about Pickleball but like you and I both come from tennis coaching backgrounds. How long have you been coaching racket or paddle sports for?

Morgan:  I started when I was 19, so about 18 years now,

Mark:  Yeah, because I started when I was 15. I did my first instructor course and now I’m 39, so that’s 24 years, right?

Morgan:  Wow!
Mark:  So you hope and this is kind of what I’m saying about Pickleball Lab. Like, look if you’re going to charge money for it, you better make sure it’s a good product. And the more you charge, the better it should be, and I do think there’s still room. Yes, if people go out and they’re paying nothing for a lesson, there can be some really great free instruction that’s out there, undoubtedly. But there’s also some pretty rough instruction that goes out there where people aren’t professionals. They haven’t invested the time and effort and money in order to do that. And so, I think both can exist in the world or both need to exist.

Morgan:  Yeah, I think it comes down to the consumer being educated more about what to look for in a coach, what advice is unadvisable?

Mark:  Yes.

Morgan:  Where are the red flags that might pop up whereby potentially free advice could do more harm than good, and you don’t know it might be a couple of years before a player finds out that a certain piece of advice that a wandering gentleman who’s so lovingly bestowed upon them didn’t actually turn out to be 100% accurate, and they’ve been doing the wrong thing for a couple of years because of it.

Mark:  That’s a good example, and it’s kind of like – let’s take this back to food. If you’ve only ever had one kind of food, then it’s hard to know what you’re missing, right? Or it’s hard to be able to compare it to other things. So I think it’s one of the reasons why I encourage people to go out and do lessons with different people. Or even when we talk about watching the online stuff, you and I both have colleagues out there who put out videos and articles and all that stuff. I think it’s important for people to go and to experience those. I also think a sign of someone who really believes in what it is that they’re offering is willing – not even just willing but encourages other people to go out and sample those other meals, right? And to have that faith that either that person will find a meal that’s better for them, then they’ll go and that’s good for them. Or you have the faith that they’re going to go and try those other things and I believe that my product is good enough, so they’re going to come back to it.

Morgan:  Yeah, yeah.

Mark:  The whole business of Pickleball, to me, is a really fascinating vein of the sport and has grown in the last few years. And the economic pain that we might be feeling right now or withstanding, is a really interesting time to be involved with the sport from that perspective.

Morgan:  Certainly. I think both of us would agree that making a living with an online coaching product, service – sorry – thinking of that five years ago, there’s no chance really. It just wouldn’t even cross my mind. But we’re living in a time where the growth of the sport and the hunger for knowledge, and I think the void, I think there’s a lot of people out there that realized that this recent explosion in Pickleball, the last 10, 12 years especially, means that there’s no way that the current technique, current strategy, current teaching methodologies for example, are going to stand the test of time. I’m 100% sure that 200 years from now, people might look back at even say Ben Johns who is unanimously…

Mark:  It’s like, “Oh, man! That guy sucks!” (laughs…)

Morgan:  Yeah, that’s the thing. You got to wonder there was a time where Rod Laver was by far the greatest tennis player of all time, and now you look at his movement, you look at his strokes, and a wonderful athlete. But you put him up against Roger Federer – not against each other, obviously but looking at his play and his ability versus the current top guys in tennis, and it’s apples and oranges. You just can’t even compare.

Mark:  Yeah.

Morgan:  That’s going to happen in Pickleball as well. It just requires real forward-thinking and I think open-minded coaches being comfortable taking risks. And for me, I love to find those students that are prepared to me to kind of almost experiment on them. “Hey, listen, I have this theory and I’ve got this idea that this might work. Let’s give it a go.”

Mark:  Back to that comparison between the wandering gentleman coach versus a professional. I mean part of being a professional, I think is paying attention to those things. Paying attention to that evolution. Because again, if you’re charging people money for what you’re doing, it better be good. And that means that you’re sort of keeping tabs on what’s going on. Whereas someone who’s a volunteer doing that, they may keep tabs on that and they may not, I wouldn’t expect them too, in the same way, I would expect a professional to be so current and up-to-date. So I think there is an ownness. I often feel the people who are like have an idea for something, they’ve got an app they want to test out or whatever because they see some of the things that are happening. What people often don’t see is how much grinding went in to make that possible, right? The reason that you can be successful with CoachME Pickleball, that you can have this podcast, and you can do the Selkirk coaching and all that stuff isn’t just because there’s a market for it. It’s also because of the work that you put in and the credibility that you have developed positioned you for that.

 

The Industry of Pickleball [20:00]

Mark:  Speaking of Selkirk, I know this is powered by Selkirk podcast, I remember with Rob and Mike Barnes and we’re like, “Man, this industry – there’s so much competition coming in and whatever.”

And they’re like, “No, man. It’s just like there’s going to be so many flash in the pan that comes because they see

t there’s an opportunity. They want a piece of the pie. They’re going to come and they’re going to do it but they don’t have that foundation that they have built up over all these years to really last. And so when I talked to those guys, sure you notice when things are coming and you pay attention to the changing landscape, you have your eye on your vision and what you’re trying to do, and you do it as well as you can and don’t get distracted by those other things? And I don’t blame any of the people for coming in and trying to make something happen.

Morgan:  Yeah.

Mark:  But it’s so tough to do that if you haven’t done the grinding.

Morgan:  Certainly.

Mark:  To build up that foundation…

Morgan:  Yeah, I would imagine that there are a lot of companies out there that look at Pickleball as the red-headed stepchild of tennis and think, “Well, I’ve got enough money. I could probably just go in and take over,” and completely misunderstanding and underestimating the kind of work that specialize paddle companies have been doing for five, 10 years at least.

Mark:  I mean yeah, if you have deep pockets and you can afford to flood the market with money in advertising and sponsorship or whatever, that’s definitely a strategy, and it can be a strategy that can work. But most of the ones I see coming in – that’s more the exception than the rule I would say, most of the ones are kind of like these mid-range things. They say, “Oh, hey there’s an opportunity.” They go in but then — we won’t name any but you’ve seen examples of like whether it’s ball manufacturers have come in and made an inferior product or this paddle company. I get emails all the time from paddle companies coming out of China who are like, “Oh, you should do our thing.” Then you look at it and think this would never work, right?
In some ways, I think that’s a good sign to test the health of Pickleball in North America and globally, right? The fact that you have these other interests coming and trying to get in. So to me, that kind of competition, yeah sure it has moments where it’s like, “Oh jeez! This is going to make my life tougher.” But that’s also partly what pushes you to innovate and try new things and experiment, as you say. Even with us, that’s why we call it the Pickleball Lab because it is an experiment, right? This whole subscription model when it comes to Pickleball stuff. I don’t know if it’s going to work? So far, it’s well-received but it literally is an experiment.

Morgan:  I guess you’re going to know in a few months time when no one’s allowed you to teach a real lesson on a court. If you’re not starving, then it worked.

Mark:  (laughs…) Yeah, that’s right.

Morgan:  If the family has food on the table, then the experiment worked.

[background music plays]

 

Pickleball Trivia [22:54]

Morgan:  Welcome to Pickleball Trivia. We’ve got a couple of contestants on the line, ready to do battle. I’ve got Tom DeCaprio from Tampa.
How are you, mate?

Tom:  Good, Morgan. How are you doing, buddy?

Morgan:  Yeah, good, good. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Tom:  Like you said, I’m from Tampa. Been playing Pickleball for about five years. Been with Selkirk the whole time. I love Selkirk. Still plugging away here in Tampa, playing a little bit, so we’re kind of still lucky.

Morgan:  Oh, that’s great. I’m jealous.

Tom:  Yeah, worked for the NFL in the football season, so hopefully get to play this year.

Morgan:  Oh, wow! What do you do for the NFL?

Tom:  I do the – it’s called the Green Hat. I’m the TV timeout guy on the sidelines. So I tell the networks when they go to commercial.

Morgan:  Oh, nice, nice!

Tom:  I get to do the Superbowl this year, so it’ll be fun.

Morgan:  So what you’re saying is you can definitely get us tickets.

Tom:  Yeah, probably yeah. I definitely get two tickets. (laughs…)

Morgan:  (laughs…) Perfect, perfect. How’s your Pickleball trivia? Do you think you’re up to scratch?

Tom:  I think I could hold my own. We’ll see how it goes.

Morgan:  Alright, good man. Well, your opponent today is Mr. Charles Neufeldt from British, Columbia.

How are you, Charles?

Charles:  I’m great. Thanks! How are you doing?

Morgan:  Good, good. Well, there’s not to many great people in the world right now, so I’m happy to hear it. What’s it like up there?
Charles:  Yeah, it’s alright, same as everywhere else, I guess. I just got out of the hospital a couple of days ago, I had some kidney stones. So anything that’s not kidney stones is pretty great for me.

Morgan:  Brilliant! Yeah, I hear they’re not as much fun as other types of stones.

Charles:  No, they are not.

Morgan:  Alright. Well, best of luck to you both today. Tom, you’re going to be contestant #1. You will have the serve and I will ask you a Pickleball-related question. If you answer correctly, you keep the serve and you get the point. It is going to be first person to 5 points. If you get the question wrong or you pass, it goes over to your opponent, that’s a side out. First person to get to 5 gets bragging rights and a near-priceless Selkirk gift voucher.

Tom:  Sweet!

Morgan:  Alright, you guys ready?

Tom:  Yes sir!

Charles:  You bet.

Morgan:  Okay. Tom, this one is for you. Question #1: What is the maximum length of a USAPA-approved Pickleball paddle?

Tom:  I want to go with 17 inches.

Morgan:  17 inches is correct. Congratulations! Off to a flying start.

Tom:  Totally pulled it out of the air but… (chuckles…)

Morgan:  (chuckles…) Hey, it sounded like you knew what you were doing – that’s the important thing.

Okay, your next question: Who won the Women’s Doubles Pro event at the 2019 National Championships.

Tom:  Women’s Doubles Pro was Leigh and Anna Leigh.

Morgan:  Hey, look at you! 

Tom:  Florida people – you got to represent.

Morgan:  Oh, that’s true, yes. Alright, you’re on a bit of a roll, two is a roll, I think.

Tom:  Yes.

Morgan:  Stadium Court at the Tournament of Champions is named after which generous benefactor?

Tom:  I have to pass on that one.

Morgan:  Okay, that’s fair. That means, Charles, you get a chance to steal the point and take the serve. Any ideas?

Charles:  I know Selkirk’s the title sponsor, so I hope it’s Selkirk.

Morgan:  Right, well, that is true. They did come on board just last year. However, the gentleman who named center court is unfortunately not him. It’s Mr. John Gullo. He put the money forward for about four or five years, I think. So he has found a way to name court after himself. I’m sure it’s going to be there for a while.

Tom:  Good tournament too.

Morgan:  Yeah, it’s good tournament.

Tom:  One tournament.

Morgan:  Alright, well that means, Tom, you get a chance to keep going here.

Tom:  Okay.

Morgan:  The Erne is named after which player?

Tom:  Enrique Ruiz?

Morgan:  That is incorrect, sir. I am sorry. I mean in fairness, the clue is in the name.

Tom:  Yes, I know.

Morgan:  That means, Charles, you get a chance to steal the point and take the serve. The Erne is named after which player?

Charles:  I can’t remember his last name offhand.

Morgan:  It’s a tough on. It is Mr. Ernie Perry.

Charles:  Yeah, I wouldn’t have got that.

Tom:  I wouldn’t have got that either. I was going with Gonzales but, you know?

Charles:  I’m pretty sure I know the guy who did it first but I don’t remember Ernie’s last name.

Morgan:  Okay, no worries. That means, Tom, you get a chance to continue here.

Tom:  Okay. Got off to a good start.

Morgan:  Off to a great start.

One of the three men who invented the game of Pickleball was a congressman. Who was it?

Tom:  I’m going to have to pass.

Morgan:  Okay, Charles, you got a chance here, bud.

Charles:  Yeah, I’m trying to think of all three of their names right now and I can’t even think of one. I feel like one of them is Jim – Jim something. I can’t even think of his last name. I got nothing. Jim something.

Morgan:  Unfortunately, that is incorrect. The answer was Joel Prichard.

Charles:  Oh, yeah there we go.

Morgan:  Yeah, Jim something wasn’t quite enough.

Tom, back to you. According to the 2019 Pickleball Participant Report, there are how many players in America? A. 2.7 million? B. 3.1million, or C. 3.3 million?

Tom:  I’m going to go with A.

Morgan:  That is incorrect, my man. Hasn’t been a good run of late yet you really started well. I’m proud of you for your start.

Tom:  Yes, I did.

Morgan:  Charles has a chance here. So we now know it’s not A. It’s either B. 3.1 million or C. 3.3?

Charles:  Yeah, I knew it was 3 million. I was really hoping you’re going to pick the other 3 million so I wouldn’t have to guess.

Tom:  Strategy, Charles, strategy.

Charles:  I mean I have to go with 3.3 then.

Morgan:  3.3, Charles you on the board. Congratulations!

Tom:  Nice, Charles!

Morgan:  Crowning achievement, so far, in the game. Well played.

Charles, your next question: Who took the gold medal in the Men’s Senior Pro Doubles in the 2019 US Open? So it’s Senior Pro, Doubles. Who took the gold medal?

Charles:  Yeah, that’s really tough. I do remember looking at the results. I didn’t watch any of the games but I do remember looking at the results and I’m having a really tough time because I’m pretty sure Dave Weinbach played Open Men’s but he played Senior Mixed, I think, so he was not there. So that leaves…

Morgan:  We’re going to get an egg timer here.

Charles:  Yeah, I have to pass.

Morgan:  (chuckles…) No worries. I like the thought process. You had a chance there. Alright, that means, Tom, you get a chance to steal the point.

Tom:  That would be The Badger, Dave Weinbach and Barry Waddell, my good buddy.

Morgan:  Congratulations! I keep forgetting you’re a Florida guy.

Tom:  I’m a Florida guy, another Florida guy.

Morgan:  Okay, well, good man! So that means, Tom, you have three points. Charles, you have one. Tom, you have the serve. Are you ready for your next question?

Tom:  Yes, sir! Shoot.

Morgan:  There are currently two main Pickleball instruction certification bodies. What are they?

Tom:  IPTPA and USAPA.

Morgan:  That is incorrect, unfortunately. That was really close. Don’t worry, there will be some amusing incorrect sounds in editing.

So, Charles, you have a chance to steal this point and take this serve. Certification bodies, what are they?

Charles:  He had it right. It was the PPR.

Morgan:  He did. I didn’t want to tell him. Jeez! Tom, you’re turning this into a nail-bitter, mate.

Tom:  Yeah, yeah, I’m trying.

Morgan:  Good man! Alright, so that means Charles, you’ve picked up the point. It’s now 3 – 2 to Tom but you have the serve and we’re off to the races.

In feet, what are the dimensions of a service box?

Charles:  Service box – so that would be 10 by 15.

Morgan:  That is correct! Alright, you are on a roll, no doubt about it.

Charles:  It’s hard to convert feet from meters, you know?

Tom:  Nice!

Morgan:  You did well. (chuckles…) Okay, Charles, that means you get to continue here.

Who took the silver medal in the Men’s Doubles Pro in the 2019 Nationals?

Charles:  That would be Steve Deacon and Eric Lange.

Morgan:  That is correct. Boom goes the dynamite! Charles, you’re really coming into your own here. It wasn’t a great start but you’re really…

Tom:  If he didn’t get the Canadian I’d have issues with that. (laughs…)

Morgan:  Exactly. That’s fair.

Okay, Charles, this is for you again: In 2015, the Nationals were held at Palm Creek RV Resort. But due to an increase in participants, it expanded to which nearby venue?

Charles:  This is a really tough one for me. I have no idea about anything from that ear. So I’m going to have to say Casa Grande?

Morgan:  That is incorrect. I mean, you’re on the right track but unfortunately, no. So that heads over to Tom who has a chance to level the scores.

In 2015, the Nationals were held at Palm Creek RV Resort. But due to an increase in participants, it had to expand to a nearby venue. What was the name of that venue?

Tom:  I played there, I thought I was Palm Creek.

Morgan:  That was the main venue but it had to take on a secondary venue because the game was just exploding and they had too many players.

Tom:  Don’t know that one then.

Morgan:  Alright, no worries, no worries. The correct answer was Robson Ranch.

Tom:  Robson Ranch, yes.

Morgan:  Robson Ranch, yeah. Oh well, not to worry.

Alright, Charles, that means you continue. You have the serve and the chance to finish the game right here.

An indoor Pickleball typically has how many holes?

Charles:  26.

Morgan:  26, jeez, that was way too easy for you!

Tom:  I mean I was like he was sitting on a porch right there.

Morgan:  Oh my… he really was sitting ready and waiting. That means, Charles, you are today’s champion. Congratulations!

Tom:  Good work, Charles.

Charles:  Thank you very much.

Morgan:  God, that game had everything – a little bit of everything, a lot of back and forth. Tom, you started well, couldn’t quite finish the end there but it was a good performance.

Tom:  Yeah.

Morgan:  Did you have fun, mate?

Tom:  I had a blast, man. You ran out of Florida for me to pimp out.

Morgan:  That’s true. I’ll make sure if we do a rematch then I’ll bring in some questions for you, how about that?

Tom:  That’s true.

Morgan:  But I’ll have to have equal amount of Steve Deacon question over for Charles. Alright, gentlemen, it’s been fun. Hopefully, one day we’ll get you back on the show.

Tom:  Yeah, appreciate it.

Charles:  That would be great!

Morgan:  Charles, Selkirk will reach out with your giant cheque-shaped gift voucher, I’m sure.

Charles:  I would expect nothing less. (laughs…)

Morgan:  (laughs…) Good man. Alright, guys, stay safe wherever you are, and look forward to seeing you on the courts as soon as possible.

Charles:  Yeah, you as well.

Tom:  Yeah, buddy, for sure. Thanks!

Morgan:  Cheers, mate!

 

Pablo Pickleball [35:01]

Morgan:  I hope you did have a long, white coat and possibly some glasses to make you really look very lab-oriented.

Mark:  Oh yeah, absolutely. You know what? People can look – talking about the videos, and I don’t know how much credibility this bought me. But way back in the day when we made our first video at Third Shot Sports, I did a little series that I called Pablo Pickleball or something like that. The content is decent but I took on the role of two characters. One was Pablo Pickleball who wore really tight shirt and pants, up to his armpits, and his coach was Professor Pickleball. And Pablo always had problems dealing whether he was dealing with spin or speed or how to put away balls, and he would go see the professor. Yes, I’ve got the outfit for that.

Morgan:  Pablo is your alter-ego, isn’t he? Let’s be honest.

Mark:  Yeah. Well, it’s funny, people would either write to me and one or the other will say, “I love that. It’s so funny and light-hearted, and you don’t take yourself too seriously.” You’d get half of that and you feel great about yourself. And then the other half would be like, “This is terrible. Just teach me how to hit the ball with a sidespin. You don’t need to do this whole thing.”

That’s the other thing that people, I think sometimes forget is when you do something publically, whether it’s videos or a podcast or something else, you get feedback from people even without asking for it sometimes.

Morgan:  Yeah, I desperately don’t want feedback. My ego just couldn’t handle negative feedback. I try my best not to read anything.

Mark:  Yeah, don’t read the comments, right?

Morgan:  Don’t read the comments, no. Don’t even click the box on “Allow Comments” – no.

Mark:  Hey, can I ask you a question?

Morgan:  Sure.

Mark:  Do you have any online trolls?
Morgan:  No.

Mark:  Like people like that consistently? I have one.

Morgan:  Oh really? Is this Scott Lipitts?

Mark:  No, no, not fully there.

Morgan:  Okay.

Mark:  I won’t say this person’s name but it’s one person – it’s crazy, man!

Morgan:  Really?
Mark:  Yeah! It’s super aggressive.

Morgan:  So when you post things on Pickleball forums or something, this person is kind of a dick?

Mark:  This person the other day responded, it was one of our live things, so every day right now I’m doing something called the Daily Drop. It’s like a 30-minute show that I do at 10 o’clock. It’s like 1 o’clock Eastern, sometimes on Facebook, sometimes on Instagram. So we just talk Pickleball and we breakdown some video, and sometimes we have phone calls. We had Frank, Anthony Davis, on the other day.

Morgan:  Oh, cool!
Mark:  Yeah, it’s a way for people to get a little bit Pickleball fix. It’s pretty casual. I do it in my living room and often I’m using whatever I can find around to point things out.

Morgan:  Cool.

Mark:  This one guy, my friend, the troll, posts and he said, “Mark, if I wanted to torture my worst enemy, I would put your videos in front of him.”

Morgan:  That’s a little aggressive. Jeez!

Mark:  (laughs…) It’s so aggressive, it’s crazy. I don’t know where it’s coming from. I’ve never met the guy. We haven’t really interacted.

Anyway, I’m happy to say that that is by far the exception rather than the rule.

Morgan:  Oh, why don’t we do this – mate, if you’re out there and you’re listening to this, just be nice, alright? I mean definitely, please don’t start trolling me, I just couldn’t handle it. But you be nice to Mark. He’s decent, he’s like my Canadian counterpart.

Mark:  That’s right. I just don’t get it. It’s a free thing, we’re not calling anyone out, and we’re just sharing. If you don’t like it, just keep scrolling by, you know?

Morgan:  Right, yeah. That seems pretty simple.

Mark:  Yeah, I think generally speaking, those kinds of things say more about that person than they do about the one who’s receiving the feedback, so I don’t worry to much about it.

 

Time Suck [38:33]

Morgan:  Yeah. It’s always shocking to me that once in a while, I’ll have someone on the court – it’s usually in a clinic scenario, whereby they’re not happy unless they’re miserable. That sounds strange but they’re so comfortable with unhappiness and being disgruntled that for them to radically become suddenly happy with anything it’s just not comfortable for them. Do you know what I mean? Those people that generally have the same look on their face the entire time. And for some reason, we as coaches tend to focus on that person, I know I do and it’s to my detriment usually because it’s not 10 minutes until the end of the lesson that I realize there was nothing I could say to make this person happy and I’ve just wasted all this time trying my best to put a smile on this person’s face and teach them something.

Mark:  Yeah.

Morgan:  They’re just miserable the entire time. It’s killing me.

Mark:  Actually, so I did the Daily Drop just before talking with you today, and we used an article I wrote a long time ago called “Three Common Coaching Errors” something like that. And the first one I identified was to be a Fault-finder versus a Success-seeker. And sometimes, I’m sure you come across this, when people think the main job of the coach is to find mistakes, find faults, tell me all the things I’m doing wrong, and that’s actually relatively easy to do. You don’t have to be a genius to be able to be like, “No, you’re poorly set up, you made a bad decision here,” that’s easy. The harder part is kind of like what you do with that, how you transition from those mistakes into some sort of success.

Morgan:  Yeah.

Mark:  Or how you identify that even though this didn’t go well but there was a success here. I know you do a lot of that when you do your coaching with the pros, right? It’s like, “Hey, you guys might have lost a match and you’re now in the back draw but you did some really good things here.”

Morgan:  Yeah.

Mark:  And so that success-seeking is so important, and I find the kind of person you’re describing, the one who’s always upset, that’s the person who thinks that a clinic or a lesson or something is really about fault-finding. And you know that they’re always finding faults in themselves, “I did this bad”. They just hit a beautiful winner, it’s like, “Yeah, but I could have hit it closer to the line”, or something.

Morgan:  Yeah.

Mark:  It’s tough and it’s funny because they’re not like children whose parents put them in your tennis camp. They’re adults spending their own time and effort and money, and you would think that if it was a miserable experience, they would spend that time, effort and money somewhere else.

Morgan:  I tend to believe that a lot of those people just firstly have a lot of money and the $20, $30, $40 whatever I’m charging for them to be in the clinic is basically meaningless. It’s just something to fill their time. But they’re always the same mindset that they know exactly what they’re doing wrong. I never actually say it – then what are you doing here. If you already know what’s wrong and you don’t believe you have the tools to fix it, then, unfortunately, no matter what I’m going to say to you, I don’t think anything is going to ring true.

Mark:  Yeah.

Morgan:  I mean I can try to say the same thing in 12 different ways but I’ve got all these other people here at the same time, so why don’t I just give you your money back?

Mark:  Have you ever been in situations where a player like that even though skill-wise they might be in the right place, because of their attitude not towards other players necessarily but towards themselves, becomes such a distraction that you’ve had to ask them to leave?

Morgan:  Yeah, and I think it’s only happened once or twice. Someone so hellbent on being not just miserable, looking miserable, and portraying a person that doesn’t really want to be outside the house, but they were making other people very uncomfortable and whatnot. This was down in Bobby Riggs three or four years ago. I forgot the gentleman’s name.

Mark:  Steve Dawson! (laughs…)

Morgan:  (laughs…) Yeah, that’s it, that’s him. You can’t get that guy to smile – no, we love Steve. But yeah, this gentleman, he was so miserable and he was quite rude to the female players as well. But his sons has got him this gift. They had bought this camp for him for his birthday, and they paid for him to fly here. So when he told me that, I was look, “Ugh!”

Mark:  Yeah, extra tough to kick him out.

Morgan:  Exactly. And we ended up doing a deal whereby every hour during the clinic, I had to hear him say at least three nice things. I didn’t even care if it was about himself…

Mark:  It is like a child that a mother put in a tennis camp. (laughs…)

Morgan:  Yeah, just – this was the mid-50s, early 60-year-old-gentleman, a fair amount of potential, probably 3.5, 4.0 something like that. There’s no pleasing some people and I think if you’re a coach, you get baited into just trying to please the one person that seems the most unhappy. And all the other people that paid the same amount of money are kind of left at the waist side.

Mark:  I mean they become the time-suck and it’s not fair.

We’ve talked about  Pickleball Lab and we talked about the Daily Drop. The other thing we have is Pickleball Coaching International, the coaching wing of Third Shot Sports. And one of the things we talked about there, of many, was this idea of the time-suck. It’s that person who, not necessarily because of skill level, but just because of their attitude, the way they are trying to suck more and more of your time. Sometimes they do it unintentionally, right? Sometimes they just have one more question they want to ask or sometimes they wanted to get on one more tangent because they’re genuinely interested. But that’s another trap that coaches can fall into because they want you to be the best, they want to help, right? But to get sucked into working, spending more time with that one person or even sometimes like a team, let’s say there’s a team at your clinic. Meanwhile, you have all these other people who are like, “I paid just as money to be there. I deserve just as much of your time and attention.” There are so many things that coaches have to navigate and so much like when you watch great athletes whether it’s in Pickleball or other sport, it looks so easy. What you don’t realize is all the many things that are happening at once, it’s like a duck, right? You see a duck going along the pond, like so serene and relaxed but then you get the underwater view and the legs are going non-stop. I feel like good coaches are really good at being like that duck where they look so smooth and it looks so easy, and then what you don’t see is how fast they’re paddling, how much they’re paying attention to without anyone else knowing.

Morgan:  For sure. Often, you’ve only got one chance to say the right thing at the right time, so that someone understands what you’re trying to say. It’s tricky because communication is such a two-way street. What I say to someone and how they understand, how they comprehend that, something could be wildly different. And in a group scenario, you don’t always have time to make sure that what they’ve understood is what you meant.

 

À Deux [45:02]

Morgan:  It’s probably as good a place as any to bid à deux. I think this is definitely worth doing again, though. What do you reckon?

Mark:  Great! I’d love to do it again sometime. Do you want to come along to my show, Pickleball Problems? We can talk about Pickleball Problems, you can help answer some?

Morgan:  Yeah, I mean for a lot of my Pickleball Problems, there’s a cream to take care of that rash, that’s most of it.

Mark:  (laughs…) That sounds great. I’d love to have you on.

Morgan:  Good deal. Perfect! For those of you out there that want to get in touch with Mark – how do they reach you, mate?

Mark:  You can email me, Mark@ThirdShotSports.com, and you can find out some of the things we talked about ThePickleballLab.com, you can get a two-week free trial. And Pickleball Coaching International, we’re all over the internets.

Morgan:  On the internets – plural. God, there’s more than one now!

Mark:  Oh, yeah there’s more. There’s the dark web too.

Morgan:  Yeah, well I’m trying to get off that dark web thing. It looks ominous.

Mark:  Yeah. Alright, it was really good talking to you, Morgan.

Morgan:  Alright, mate. Thank you so much. It’s been an honor and a privilege. We will talk again soon.

Mark:  Alright, stay safe!
Morgan:  Cheers, mate!

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