012 | So Many Moving Parts
Morgan talks with Tony Tollenaar about COVID, golf, IronMan, and Pickleball. Andrew is back on the show to ask Morgan some more questions and maybe land a sponsorship.
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Sponsors:
- CoachME Pickleball
- Selkirk Sport and the new Vanguard Paddle
012 | So Many Moving Parts Transcript
Intro [0:24]
Morgan: My guest today is a role model for a number of reasons. He’s an outstanding player, a fantastic coach, and an even better human. Tony Tollenaar has been a triathlete, a tennis player, a racketball player, he played college baseball. Those alone are inspiring but what he’s done in recent years has also been remarkable. In an effort to improve his health and his game, he’s lost over 40 lbs. And even during COVID, he’s managed to keep it off – well, most of it anyway. That’s amazing! He’s got a great story and I can’t wait to hear it. So please welcome, Mr. Tony Tollenaar.
Who is Tony? [0:59]
Morgan: Tony?
Tony: Hey, my friend. How are you doing?
Morgan: Good, mate. How are you?
Tony: I’m doing fantastic!
Morgan: Excellent, excellent!
Tony: Yeah! How are you feeling?
Morgan: Ah, you know, I’m over the worst of it, so…
Tony: Good!
Morgan: It wasn’t a whole lot of fun there but yeah, what can you do?
Tony: I know right? I know, I know, man. Sometimes just pushing through the grind a little bit.
Morgan: Yeah, yeah that’s it. How about you? Have been staying healthy?
Tony: Have been, yeah. So I’m very fortunate and thankful for that. But yeah, things have been well everything to be considered. Haven’t run into any bugs and that’s a positive thing.
Morgan: Beautiful, beautiful. How have you been keeping busy in work? And this is something that’s almost embarrassing. What’s keeps you occupied? What’s your main source?
Tony: Yeah, so I’m a 26-year veteran with a company called Grainger. So we’re a commercial industrial wholesale company that’s actually the largest safety supplier in North America. So we’ve been right in the middle of all of the masks and calls with FIMA and everything like that. So I’m actually a district sales manager so I lead a team of outside sellers. And that’s been a challenge in itself right with everything being closed and we’ve had to move to kind of that more virtual setting. So it’s been a challenge and a stretch for everybody to say the least because we at Grainger, it’s a multi-billion dollar company and has multiple levels of sales throughout the organization. We have an entire sales team and inside sales team, outside sales team, different level of sizes that we call on. I lead a team that calls on large customers with large potential. But the thing is, our team is best when their feet are on the ground, in front of our customers, right? That’s where they’re at their best and that’s how they sell and close business. There’s definitely a little different skillset when you consider somebody inside sales as making more cold calls and…
Morgan: Yeah, that’s a very different animal.
Tony: Yeah, there’s so many different things, Morgan. We’ve all had to kind of check and adjust a little bit for sure.
Morgan: With any luck, the fact that this pandemic has caused a massive need for more safety equipment, masks and whatnot as you’ve mentioned, hopefully that’s been able to offset some of the drawbacks of not being able to have boots on the ground.
Tony: Yeah, you know it’s interesting because a lot of that material early on got pulled right away to the government, right? So for First Responders, healthcare, that type of thing. So for a lot of our team, depending on what segment they were selling in, whether let’s say in manufacturing facility or commercial places like Disney, Vegas where they have a lot of hospitality, those areas were hit really really hard. But we have an entire sales coverage team that covers healthcare and government, right? So it’s every different facet of the team impacted different ways. And in some cases, we just didn’t have product available to sell to anybody and to support with, so we had to be or what we did have we had to pull either out to First Responders. The team in DC said, “Hey, we’re actually going to take product direct from the manufacturers.” And supply and demand kind of leveled out a little bit.
Morgan: Wow! Either way, it’s fair to say that country owes you a debt of gratitude for the role your company is taking here. That’s good stuff.
Tony: Yeah, and we appreciate that. We give it our best shot for sure.
Pandemic Pickleball [4:20]
Morgan: Good man, good man. Have you been able to play any Pickleball?
Tony: Yeah, so that’s been a pretty consistent piece. I would say not in the groups that we typically play with. I’ve been forced to get out and I’m always getting a chance to connect with Wes Gableson and obviously Eric Lang and we’ll get a chance to play a drill periodically. But early on during this, we have a private indoor facility that we have access to. It’s a single court and we kept a pretty small group. I played a lot with my wife and my brother and a friend of ours. That was when everything was kind of in the middle and we’re still pretty careful on the groups of people we were around until we had a chance to kind of figure this whole thing out ourselves. But yeah, things have started to open up and we’ve been playing a lot more. I still hit it a couple of times a week even during all the craziness.
Morgan: Perfect! Good. So you are going to be one of the few that are going to hit the ground running when tournaments are really back up and running.
Tony: Man, we’re ready to go. I think Coeur d’Alene’s coming up here pretty quick. Just disappointed to hear about Nationals, that announcement yesterday.
Morgan: Yeah.
Tony: Disappointing but understand, right? I don’t know, I’m sure there’s a lot of work and it was a lot of tougher decisions than me as a player and a participant, and a fan of the game just wanted to go on.
Morgan: Yeah, I mean the kind of budget they have for Pickleball, it’s upwards of $1 million or so. And if they’re not thinking that they’re going to get the kind of return that they’re needing, it’s a tough ask for something as big as the Indian Wells Tennis Garden to know that it’s honestly not going to be too many volunteers that are going to put their hands up. It’s a really tough ask and it’s understandable that the biggest tournaments are going to be the ones that have to bite the bullet and say, “Sorry guys!”. Unfortunately, I’d still be a little bit shocked if TOC goes through. Do you think it’s going to happen?
Tony: You know, we were just talking about that yesterday. I think a lot of it depends on Utah, what they continue to see in numbers. If Kyle can work his magic with those locals. Obviously some things will be out of his control but I know there’s a lot of people that I talked to that are ready to go and embrace it if given the opportunity. So that kind of falls into that side of, “Hey, man, we only can control the controllable and I start overthinking that stuff and get every possible reason why it should it happen and sometimes forget why something an event like that usually wouldn’t go on.”
Morgan: Yeah, there are so many moving parts that the average person isn’t really aware of. I ran a bunch of tournaments from 2015 through 2017 and the headaches just with the level that I was running it, and they were just amateur tournaments. But my god, it’s so much work. And for you to know that X amount of participants just aren’t going to come because of either flight problems or the fear of spreading this thing. It’s a difficult situation for every tournament director and everybody worldwide.
Tony: Yeah, absolutely.
Morgan: I’m not going to be upset if I just have to focus on 2021. There is a bigger picture here and I think everybody kind of needs to keep an eye on that.
Tony: I think it’s a lot about doing the right things now to ensure that we don’t have further setbacks.
Morgan: California certainly opened up a little early and we’re paying the price now. The numbers, they’re spiking at a level where I feel like I may not be able to go for a bar for a while.
Tony: Oh wow! You guys did get kicking a little bit earlier than some. Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t want to put too hard of a stance out there, but we’re going to start seeing a lot more positive results as we increase the amount of testing and stuff. My brother is in sport medicine and chiropractor and it’s interesting to learn from other doctors in the field and we need to keep a close look at the hospitalization rates and not just the positive results. I get it though, they all have impact and it’s probably safe to play it there but I think there’s a lot of things we need to take a look at. I probably worry most about our economy overall. Just the need for us to find ways to keep this going and get it going again, so yeah.
Morgan: Yeah. I mean I think at some point, the country may learn that you can’t really have your cake and eat it too. Yes, everybody wants the economy back to work but no one wants the blood on their hands. So finding that middle ground – and there are so many factors involved. So yeah, hopefully the smarter people than me have the task.
Tony: I was going to say the same thing, man. There are a lot of people that are making a lot bigger decisions that I’ll ever make.
Morgan: Yeah people with long, white coats and their bottle glasses are really doing good stuff out there.
Tony: There we go. Exactly!
Morgan: Come one, people! Get us a vaccine, that would be great.
Tony: Man, at least a solid treatment, right?
Morgan: That’d be nice.
Tony: That would be massive too. Have you snuck back out on the golf course?
Morgan: Allegedly, it’s possible.
Tony: Nice, nice. I’ve been listening to all the podcast. I know you’re playing a little bit more often now. And it’s interesting, I was a two handicap back in the day before I picked up a Pickleball paddle. I haven’t really picked up my club in about seven years.
Morgan: Oh okay. Wow!
Tony: And it was kind of funny that the last, I’d say about two months ago, when everything was kind of locked out then all of a sudden golf courses started opening up and you had a lot of time on your hand. It was like, man I kind of had this urge that was ignited to jump back on the golf course and potentially hit the sticks again.
Morgan: Yeah, there’s something about it, right?
Tony: Yeah.
Morgan: There’s something about that crazy game. I remember when I was very young, my father was reading book called “A Good Walk Spoiled”. And he would kind of read various bits and he would give it to me to read some. And at the time, I’d only played a handful of times but I knew it was going to be a lifelong game to play and I kind of gave it up for about 20 years or so, and picked up it again last June, July with the goal of breaking par within a year. And just before I got a little ill – we’ll just say that, a couple of weeks ago, I managed to pull that off, so I feel like I’m going to hang up the sticks for a little while and…
Tony: There we go!
Morgan: rest in my laurels, that usually works out
Tony: That is for sure!
Sponsor: CoachMe Pickleball
The Ironman [11:17]
Morgan: Oh, that’s good stuff there. Okay, let’s get back into the interview…
So you’ve played a lot of sports. I’ve been reading about you obviously. You’ve been a triathlete as well. That’s something I want to talk about.
Tony: Yeah, so my brother and my wife and I did Ironmans for about five years. We did one a year. I remember my brother and I did the first one. My wife, Kim, had trained the entire time with us but when it came time to sign up and actually do it, she’s like, “Yeah, I’m not sure if I’m quite ready for that.” And we get into the event, and from that point on once we showed up, she was like, “Oh man, I wished I signed up and did it.” But that was a great run, about five years for us and sort of jumping back on a stationary bike or pedal around the trails in Bend, Oregon, man, there was a greater time that I really don’t care to sit back on a bike and see it again. But they were full Ironman distant Triathalon so yeah it was the…
Morgan: Wow! It’s a special kind of person that wants to put yourself through that kind of pain. People I think look at something like a marathon as one of the pinnacles of endurance athletics. But Ironman, the taxation on the body to go through that kind of thing. What sort of got you into it? What forced you to decide, “You know what, I’m due for blood, sweat and tears, let’s do this!”
Tony: My brother has a vacation home over in Bend, Oregon, in Sunriver. And they do a race every year called the Pacific Crest Half Ironman, and we just happen to be there one summer and that event was going on, and we just kind of wrapped up into all of the participants, the races. We went out to watch the swim and the run has finished back on the trails throughout Sunriver. And I just remember we saw that and it took us right back into I remember when I was in high school watching Keith Jackson do the Gatorade Ironman. And at the time, I thought, “Man, that’s just – who in the world can ever possibly do that and accomplish that?” And then we found ourselves literally signing up for an Ironman race before we’d even participated in a Triathlon. So we definitely didn’t think through it but knew that this was something we were all in and we went for it. So that was kind of where it started.
Morgan: That’s incredible! I was listening not too long ago to an interview with Courtney Dauwalter. I’m not sure if you know who that is. She won the Moab 240, 238-mile ultra marathon. And it’s men versus women and she beat the next place, it was a guy, by 10 hours. Unbelievable, just thinking – and I remember one of the instant things was she said she slept twice during the race and one of them was about for 19 minutes and the second one was for no more than about a minute during this race. She said she felt like when she woke up from the one minute nap, she felt the most refreshed she’d ever felt in her life, and gave her the wings to finish strong.
But any thoughts on getting into the Moab?
Tony: No. In fact, the funny thing is, is that I’m much more connected to those ultra-marathon races than this body would ever want to push through. But my brother has raced a lot of the top ones. Western States 100, he’s done a lot of the toughest 100-mile races that you can do, and I’ve actually crewed for him at one of those in Texas one time. And here I thought I was going to get some rest and possibly some sleep in between some of these transition areas where he would actually come through and be an aid station. He’d open this massive pack up and had everything laid out on a blanket. But I was always just mass panic of actually going to miss him and he would be out without the fuel that he needed potentially. And I did the last 20 miles with him and I can just – that last 20 miles was just confirmation that I do want any part of doing 100 miles let alone something that’s even greater than that. So it’s pretty intense to see people to what they can push their bodies through. I’d never slept, I didn’t sleep a wink that entire time, I think. I actually remember what my brother’s time was, I want to say 124 hours or 126 hours something like that.
Morgan: Wow! That’s amazing.
Tony: It definitely takes a unique individual that can get out there and run for [26] hours to get some of this stuff done.
Morgan: For sure, for sure.
The Transformation [15:24]
Morgan: So that brings me to the next topic that I’m curious about. You went through a fairly serious body transformation in the last few years. If you don’t mind me asking, how many pounds did you lose?
Tony: Well, I think I’m down – I’m always been up and down, so that’s every Ironman race I’ve ever done, I think my race weight came in at probably – I don’t know, 15 lbs. to 20 lbs. heavier than I really would love to have been at. But I am down now from Nationals just last year about 26 lbs.
Morgan: Wow! But before that, it seems like your transformation started earlier than that. Everybody, when they first saw you after not seeing you for a little while, there was a real wow factor.
Tony: I think as much as probably 42 lbs. It was 42 lbs. to 45 lbs. when I initially took. And then I kind of held steady so to speak at that weight for about a year and a half, and then really started to kind of focus in on it.
My diet is still not perfect but I can tell you during this whole thing and just not always feeling healthy at Nationals just from how my body felt or I was dealing with some back issues. I just feel like I’ve never been healthy for a Nationals yet. And I was ready for 2020 and so let’s push it out to 2021 and I’ll be even more ready to go.
Morgan: Good man, good man! Did you find when you started losing some of this weight that it affected – was there a point that where you actually felt like it negatively affected your endurance? There are a lot of people in the fight game especially they cut a lot of weight and depending on how much they’re depleting their body, they find their ability to carry power and strength through to the later rounds is much more difficult. And Pickleball, we all know how taxing it can be when you get to the later stages of the tournament which you often do. Was it always a great feeling to feel lighter on your feet and having better cardio with any luck? Or was there a downside?
Tony: No, I think for me, anytime I’ve been lighter I’ve always felt better on the court. And that’s not only from a physical standpoint because everything you mentioned, Morgan, is spot on. It’s the endurance piece, it’s your overall cardio. I think a lot of times in doubles in Pickleball, depending on how deep you go into the bracket and how warm it is and there’s a lot of factors that come on, I think a lot of people feel like we can kind of squeeze by and lean on our partner maybe a little bit more. I’ve always been fortunate enough to be able to move well enough with the extra weight that I did carry, to get me through at times. But I can tell you, the lighter I’ve gotten, it has improved from not only a physical standpoint but from a mental standpoint, how I feel on the court before I even step on; the confidence, right? So there’s a certain confidence level when you feel fit and you know you put in the time. I used to say the same thing about Ironman. It’s race morning, there are massive butterflies. You would be as nervous as you could imagine. But as soon as that gun goes off and you got 1,500 or 2,500 people doing a mass swim start, the rest of the day you just go out and enjoy the day because you know you’re standing on the beach and you in all your time, and all those butterflies and the nerves go away immediately. It’s pretty amazing and it’s no different than even going out to have a drill session and you feel better, right? Your recovery is quicker. I know you’re a big fan of recovery and also the hydration piece prior to putting in a lot of work and that’s just stuff I’m learning. And it’s interesting, everyone kind of finds that grove for themselves and what works. But in the end, man, it’s us making our own decisions on what we ultimately want and are we seeing the results not only physically but out on the court. It doesn’t matter what you do, I can tell you that the fitter I am and the better I feel about myself, I perform better in my job, I’m more prepared to have sometimes difficult conversations with sellers and customers, and at the same time I’m much more apt to jump into some play and try to take an opportunity to give back if I have the opportunity to do that also. So it kind of plays itself out, just on how I live my life from an activity standpoint and kind of general rule of what I need to do to get through a day.
Conversation with Andrew [19:58]
Andrew: Hey, Morgan! Andrew from Ithica here, and I’m happy to report that Pickleball tournaments have started back up on the East Coast as my dad and I just took the Gold Medal in the Men’s Doubles at the Virginia Pickleball Classic. Had my first tournament earning winner as well. Three questions for today:
I run a podcast about theme parks and roller coasters, and I was just wondering about your thoughts on them, and if you had any favorites. I was wondering about your views on back spending versus top spending. Have you gotten a chance yet to get your hands on the new Selkirk Vanguard Paddle? What are your thoughts?
Thanks, Morgan, for the great episode and taking my questions. One more thing, I’m working with Darrel from Selkirk on a sponsorship, so if you could put in a good word for me, I’d really appreciate it. I’ll even send you a box of Witchetty grubs. They look awesome, mate!
Morgan: G’day mate! Good to hear from you. Well done on the tournament victory. Way to carry the old man, good job. Mate, I’m impressed that you run your own podcast already. It took me 36 years or something like that to figure out casting of pod, and I have like a bunch of people helping me, so nice work!
Regarding roller coasters, well I like them. Don’t get me wrong but I think they could be better. I’ve noticed that at the end of the roller coaster, you kind of just end up back where you were. So I’d like a roller coaster to take you somewhere like maybe the front of the line at the bar, that would be nice.
Regarding your next question; back spinning and top spinning, well it’s a good question. I’m a huge fan of top spin on the serve. A big fan of back spin on the return of serve. On third shot drops, a little bit of top spin never hurt anybody, that’s always a good time. For cross-court dinks, back spin for sure. I think that’s a good weapon to be able to implement. Top spin for lean in, rolling dink volleys whereby the ball falling onto the paddle really lends itself well to be able to create a little bit of top spin and angle the ball away from an opponent and using some of that top spin to make sure that it’s going to drop down delicately into the kitcher. Top spin on lobs for sure, yeah for the same reason. You’re going to want to use some of that top spin to help get the ball down into the courts and quickly up and over someone’s head.
Okay, moving on. Yes, I have got my hands on the new Vanguard and in my shape, the Maxima, and I love it. I’d tell you it could be the best thing since sliced bread, and sliced bread by all accounts was really very popular and still is. I’m a big fan of the hybrid version. It seems like the sweet spot kind of extends up to my elbow which is crazy and try not to use your elbow for making contact with the ball. Oh and the dwell time, God, don’t even get me started on the dwell time. It’s still there. I hit a serve three weeks ago, ball is still on the paddle. It’s crazy, crazy.
Okay, now moving on. Regarding sponsorship, geez I’d tell you if I had a dollar for every time someone came to me expecting me to be able to get them a Selkirk sponsorship, well then I’d be making money in a very strange way. But I’d still have probably 15 to 20 bucks, so that’d be good.
Well, Darrel, if you’re listening and I’m almost certain you are listening, this is an official good word for Andrew. Kid seems to be going places. He’s got his own podcast. And despite the somewhat mispronunciation of the word “spending” he seems like a stand-up dude. So we’ll consider him for the 2032 Selkirk Olympic Team. What do we think? Excellent!
Okay, that just about covers most of Andrew’s questions. If you’re out there and you have a coaching-related question, feel free to submit them. The online Facebook thing would be good, possibly Instagram. I don’t really ‘gram much. I don’t quite know how it all works. So yeah, Facebook would be a good one and who knows, we’ll get you on the show, do a little online coaching, distance coaching, whatever you want to call it. It should be fun.
Okay, time to check back in with Mr. Tollenaar and see what’s good.
Journey over Destination [24:32]
Morgan: You know, they say you can have anything you want in life if you’re prepared to sacrifice everything to get it. And you strike me as someone who whether it be physical work, physical activities like Triathlons or you were a tennis player, you’re a racketball player and you played baseball for college, so you would appear to be someone who understands the virtue of sacrifice and how much work it takes for an individual to excel at anything almost irregardless of what you’re trying to reach the top of. There’s always a relationship between hard work and the payoff. They say hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard, and that’s true in everything. Do you find that there was one particular sport you played that kind of mentally prepared you for essentially reaching the top of a sport such as Pickleball?
Tony: You know, I think back, I think I played almost every sport you can play aside from wrestling and soccer, and I think during those times, I was so involved with baseball and tennis and other things like that, that I just didn’t find other things. But I would say probably what had shaped me the most is just playing team sports, right? And learning early on that I felt like I always took a leadership type of roles within those teams whether it was as a so to speak, direct leader or an indirect type of leadership role, as I kind of grew in and understood sports and figured out, “Hey, how can I help somebody else be better? How are we going to make the whole of this team as strong as we can be?” And I would say what probably pushed me through was baseball but I would probably say the most impactful sport on Pickleball itself would be probably the combination of tennis and racketball, and I think just because of the correlation between the racket sports, the hand-eye coordination that’s needed and just seeing different strategies in those two sports and how to really try to apply those on a Pickleball court. And I can tell you that I’m still learning, right? It’s a never-ending work when you’re trying to get there.
Morgan: Yeah, you’re exactly right. It’s a never-ending journey and I’m going to be so curious what technique and strategies are going to look like 100 years from now.
Tony: Yeah. You mentioned something about just – I love your quotes and some of your theories that you share around hard work and stuff. There is a quote that’s been a favorite quote of mine for quite some time and that is, “You can’t cheat the grind because it knows exactly how much you’ve invested in. It won’t give you any more than you put in.” That’s not someone specifically that I have heard that from. That was shared with me a while back with a non-author and it’s just stuck with me. I’ve actually had a couple of shirts made up with that quote on the back. But I think speaks mile to exactly what it takes if you want to see results.
Morgan: I love it! I remember one of the first and most inspirational ones I’m hearing was from a guy named Rory Vaden. I think he was a high school basketball coach, and he said simply, “Success is never owned. It is only leased and the rent is due every day.”
Tony: That’s awesome!
Morgan: Right? I mean it’s so true.
Tony: Yeah.
Morgan: You take a day off… But I think of it sometimes like Coca Cola for example, they’re at the top of the game. They spend more money on marketing than anybody because they know what it takes every single day to be number one, to stay on top. And I think every top athlete who has reached number one in whatever discipline, understands that the work it took to get them isn’t as much as the work it’s going to take to stay there.
Tony: Yeah, that is spot on right there. That’s the goal that Morgan delivers and shares periodically with everybody.
Morgan: I mean half the time I think I say these things and I preach this as much as possible to students because I want to be living that sort of mantra more often. I like competing more than winning. I love the journey more than ever getting to the top. The most depressing time in my Pickleball career was soon after TOC in 2017 where the Polish monster and myself came away with a win. And I remember feeling like it was almost the end because I felt like I had lost some respect for the game because it allowed me to win because I didn’t think I put in enough work to make it happen. And probably what was more closely the truth is I just had a misunderstanding of how much work everyone else was putting in perhaps or how much work that my tennis background had lend me towards getting good at Pickleball. It’s a combination of things but I remember feeling like, “What are we doing here? What’s next if this is possible? Then maybe I have to get more into coaching and try to get my fulfillment from that which is something I soon did with Mr. McGuffin and various other Selkirk players, and I get huge amounts of fulfillment from that. I’m always amazed at what things do and don’t fulfill me at an emotional level, so much further beyond winning that I feel like I’d be able to play the game for another 50 years because I get to choose what success is. I get to choose at the end of a tournament if I won or lost based on whatever measurements I decide.
Tony: That’s interesting you say that because I think sometimes we forget what it actually takes to step out on the court that day for that tournament and why everyone’s else preparation, to your point, might look like. I think in the end, it’s having the confidence and trust in yourself to know that, “Hey, I put in the time and today I’m going to take whatever it gives me. And the result, I’ll get a chance to kind of self-reflect on that afterward, right?” It’s interesting though that you say that that fulfillment piece isn’t necessary the win or the loss. And man, I’ve seen this probably more so in the last – especially with this pandemic hitting and getting kind of little disconnected with the Pickleball family, the community that we’re seeing on a regular basis. In the past, people will also ask me what is it about Pickleball that I love the most, and it was a very quick response, it was always the people. And I don’t think that has changed but what I do realize is that during all of this and I have greatly missed the competition; not the winning or losing, but that sheer competition and the fight and the grind and knowing that you got somebody else out there that wants it just as bad, if not more. And that’s one thing I’ve really missed but I think to your point, the ability to self-reflect and figure out, “Hey, what do I take away from this? And what continues to drive me forward?”
Morgan: Yeah, I think that’s it. It’s the people that love the grind, that love the journey. I remember two days before I left Australia, this was end of 2005. I was planning a trip around the world and I’ve been living with a guy who’s named I never learned and I’ve been living with him for about six months. He was very sort of standoffish, very solemn, and I didn’t know why. But I knew his nickname, his nickname was Chopper. And two nights before I left, he never drank anything but he always see me drink a bottle of win or a couple of beers. And he knew I was leaving, so he said, “Morgan, let’s have a glass of wine. We might as well talk now.”
So I asked him after a little while, “Why do they call you Chopper?” and I knew almost nothing about this guy. I knew he liked climbing though. He had a lot of climbing equipment.
And he said, “Well, they call me Chopper because I’ve tried to summit Everest eight times now. And every single time I’ve lost a friend and I’ve always been airlifted off the top of the mountain.”
That’s why they called him Chopper, and I was blown away. I still remember it to this day. He said, “Look, I can’t stop doing it. And I think even when I reach the top, I’ll still go back again and again and again, because I just love the climb.”
There are two types of climbers out there. There are the climbers who just want to reach the top whether it’s Everest or K2, pick your poison. There are those ones that are all about reaching the top and reaching the destination.
And then, there are those guys that just love the journey. And as I’ve gotten to know myself over the last 30 – I wouldn’t worry about the last number there – 30 something years, I realized I’m the latter. I just love the journey, and I think you’re the same.
Tony: Yeah, and that’s interesting, and I can guarantee you your friend, Chopper, would tell you that that journey isn’t always comfortable, right? I think about Ironman specifically, so a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile and then a full 26.2 marathon at the end. You got to do it in less than 17 hours. And I can tell you that there were multiple times, not so much during the swim, the swim I just knew I was going to grind it out. But multiple times during the bike, I found myself going, “What in the world am I doing out here, man? This is just crazy!”
There are certain races it was crazy hot. And then all the time, you come off the bike and the transition and you get your transition bag, and the next thing you know you’re setting down in the changing tent and pull your stuff out and you’re looking at your running shoes and you realize, “Man, I got to do a full marathon.”
Multiple times during that 26.2 miles, it was miserable, you get sick. But I’ll tell you, crossing the finish line, that journey is worth it every time. It just makes me think about that part of appreciating the journey versus just getting to the end is key and that has to be. A lot of people as they move through Pickleball, as much as they want to improve in the sport and anything they want to do, there is going to be a journey, right? They don’t just come in and have it all figured out.
Morgan: Yeah, that’s right. And you teach the game, I teach the game and I’m always concerned and upset when I find a student that comes away from either a bunch of recreational games and they’re genuinely upset with how far they believe they have to go. I talk to them about it and I always have the same look on my face, it’s a look of jealousy. I’m envious of anyone who gets to start the journey at an earlier place. It’s something whereby I can’t go back, I can’t go home again, as they say, you never go home. And if I was able to relive being – I don’t know, what would probably be considered a 4-0 now when I sort of pick up the paddle and the level obviously was so different five or six years ago. But my god I love to do it all again just to experience the little stepping stones, getting better at this, that and the other. Right now, you’re one of the elite players in the game and for you to get substantially better, it’s incredibly difficult. You’re clawing for inches right now. And the work to get those inches is so much more than when you first picked up the paddle and you get that wonderful little learning curve stage where you’re just excelling so quickly, you’re learning so much so fast and you’re suddenly feeling like you’re on top of the world. And then you reach the top and you’re hoping you’re just in a plateau and not go down.
Tony: Right, that is so true. A little bit like picking the new Vanguard, right? A lot of excitement around that and boy, I’ve been hitting it for quite a while now, but to get to now be swinging the prototype and actually get the new one in hand, it was quite nice.
Morgan: It’s a special day when the ones with the full graphics arrive and you start whacking them for the first time. It’s one of those rare times I have left in the game where I legitimately get very, very excited when I know they’ve sent something and I get to go and see how it plays, if this is going to be one, so to speak, if there was a one. It is fantastic. So I’m sure the Vanguard is going to be a huge success. I’m a big fan and it sounds like you are too.
Tony: Yeah, absolutely! From the time that I’ve been – I hit with a prototype for five minutes and I could already feel the difference. And once you got a chance to really truly hit it and get it into play, it was pretty spectacular for sure.
Morgan: Good stuff, good stuff.
Well, Tony, I’m going to have to love you and leave you, mate. This has been epic! I’ve enjoyed this. We got to do it again.
Tony: Absolutely! Anytime, man, anytime. Thanks for everything you’re doing out there, Morgan. Love your podcast and keep going strong, my friend.
Morgan: I appreciate it. And you and your company keep everyone safe.
Tony: Absolutely, we’ll do that.
Morgan: Alright, brother, take care, and will see you on the court.
Tony: Yeah, peace out to you!
Morgan: Cheers!
That’s A Wrap [36:46]
Morgan: Well, that’s it for another episode. I’m Morgan Evans and this has been More or Less Pickleball.
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