Episode 016 Transcript 

Today’s Guest: Loveable Leftie, Jay Rippel [0:23]

Morgan:     Today’s guest has been playing the game for almost 30 years. Washington native with a wealth of knowledge about the game, and a good idea of where it’s heading. He’s been successful as a pro and a senior pro, often partnering with another of Selkirk’s famed Seattle-ite Glen Peterson, let’s welcome our lovable leftie, Jay Rippel. How are you, mate?

Jay:             I’m doing great! How are you doing, buddy?

Morgan:     Well, can’t complain. I think, as far as you can be good in this world, I’m doing well. How about you, what’s new up there?

Jay:             Oh, it’s just been crazy with this whole coronavirus thing and getting through every day of life, especially with Pickleball. It’s been a challenge but no, we’re doing good. We’ve been playing a couple times a week, we’ve found some courts we’re able to use that’s off the beaten path, so we don’t have anyone that gets on us for playing, and we’ve kept a nice group together. And now as we’ve opened up, we’ve really started to play. So we’ve been playing three, four times a week…

Morgan:     Wow!

Jay:             …hoping that some tournaments are actually going to happen.

Morgan:     Yeah, what are the odds of that up in the Pacific Northwest?

Jay:             Well, so far, everything’s been cancelled up here and we don’t know when…I don’t think 2020 anything’s going to happen, even early 2021 with that international indoor that they just rescheduled. I don’t even know if we’ll have that yet unless there’s vaccine or something like that. But…

Morgan:     I’m working on it down there.

Jay:             Yeah, sounds like some of the open outdoor tournaments are gonna happen. Glen Peterson and I are scheduled right now to come down for the Newport Beach one in less than two weeks. So, fingers crossed.

Morgan:     Well, I will see you there! That will be good.

Jay:             Yeah, I’m excited. Seems like forever since we played competitive Pickleball. So, I’m excited. I’m a little nervous, I’m not gonna lie. Just haven’t really done anything since March and this will be the first excursion, really, out of the area.

Morgan:     Yeah. I think we’re gonna quickly see which people have been putting in the work or which people have had are living in states that are more open or had been able to play with good competitive players.

Jay:             I agree completely. Because if you haven’t been playing, it’s hard just to turn it on and become on tournament mode, right away. It takes work and we’ve been playing a lot of Pickleball for the last couple of months and getting ready for this thing. So I’m excited, really am. Glen Peterson and I are gonna play together, so we’ve been taking on any and all challengers up here. So, Nick Williams, who is also in Selkirk, good friend of ours; we’ve been playing Nick, and a guy named Degan, who’s a good friend of ours;  we’ve been playing the four of us a weekly match every Saturday. And It’s just been battle after battle.

Morgan:     Good!

Jay:             And, specifically to get us ready for this battle. So, I’m excited! Glen’s playing phenomenal. He’s ready to go. I was a little nervous that he might not be able to make it with his wife, Paula, going through her treatments but he said he’s committed to playing, so I’m really excited.

A Little Bit of Pickleball History [03:23]

Morgan:     Wow, that’s awesome. So, you’ve been playing this crazy game since ’92, apparently.

Jay:             Yeah, isn’t that funny?

Morgan:     Wow.

Jay:             So, I was working out at, it wasn’t even 24 Hour Fitness yet, I don’t even remember what the name was…

Morgan:     Let’s say, 23 Hour Fitness, maybe…

Jay:             Yeah, 23 Hour Fitness, and there were people playing this funny game on carpet and I kept watching it. Finally, I went up and approached this, at the time, he was probably in his 70s. He’s this German old guy named Iwo and some of your listeners probably know him ‘cause I know he moved, I wanna say either to the desert area, or to Arizona. But, he was amazing! And he was playing people 20, 30 years younger than him and no one could beat him. And I just happened to talk with him one day about it, and he handed to me one of his paddles, and way back then, I think the only way you could get a paddle was Mark Friedenberg.

Morgan:     Oh wow.

Jay:             And we started playing and it was with a Cosom Ball, which is this really light white indoor ball on carpet. First time I played it, I was hooked. That was back when there were no tournaments, there was nothing. But the only thing we ever had was Mark Friedenberg who ran an indoor tournament on the carpet and you either had A or Open, that was it. But I played a lot of singles back then, and me and a buddy of mine, because we were both in the financial services, so we’re done pretty much at 1o’clock when the market’s closed, so we would play singles on that carpet for probably 2-3 hours a day, 4 or 5 days a week literally unless we had something, we couldn’t make it.

Morgan:     That’s insane! No one plays that kind of… I don’t think Tyson plays that much.

Jay:             No, and that was back, when I was, I’m in my early 50’s, I would say that was probably well, ’92, I was in my middle-late twenties so…

Morgan:     Oh, okay, young whipper-snapper. I was 10, just so I was 10 years old just…

Jay:             Hahaha, it was a lot fun back then, there wasn’t just anything to go to, as far as tournaments or anything like that but it was great exercise and great workout. And then eventually you start getting injured as you get older, so we had little naggy things, and eventually we had to kind of stop doing it on a regular basis. And then we lost the courts as 24 Hour expanded, we lost from three courts, to two courts, to one court, then the doubles as the games started getting more and more people, we lost courts and we lost single time.

Morgan:     So was, back then, singles more of a predominant part of the game? Or was it just you to blokes going at it 5 days a week?

Jay:             Us two blokes going at it because at that time of the day, not a lot of double players. But on the weekends, there was the doubles Saturday and Sunday mornings, there were a lot of doubles going on in there. It was pretty good doubles; I wouldn’t say it was even close to what it is today. Again, you had one or two paddle choices back then. It’s either, the expensive one was 50 bucks and I wanna say it was graphite and then there was even people playing with the wooden paddles back then, so it was pretty comical. All the courts were lined with these hard white paint so if the ball hit the line, it went everywhere. It was crazy.

Morgan:     Was the soft game, was dinking a huge part of it back then or was it kind of a rocket ball?

Jay:             It was not a lot of dinking back then but that ball was so soft, it was hard to put the balls away. So you did a lot of rallies but it was a lot of scrambling-type stuff. It was fun, I had a good time. And there were some good players back then.

Morgan:     How did Mark get his nickname, “Yoda”? Where you there when it happened?

Jay:             I don’t remember how he got it. I just remember always seeing him working out on the elliptical while we are playing, and then we tried our hardest to get him to come join with us. At first it was a little bit hard to get him because he was a little bit better than everybody but eventually we got him to play with us a little bit.

Morgan:     Ah, good. Yeah, he was one of the first guys I ever played with.

Jay:             Yup.

Morgan:     Pickleball Central put me in touch with him and Don Pascal to play. Does Don still play?

Jay:             I still see Don every once in a while. I don’t know if he’s playing as much. He’s in the south end of our area. I’m up in the east northside. So I run into him every once in a while, yeah. He’s a super nice guy. He’s still game, he’s recovered from his Achille-thing that he had.

Morgan:     Oh yeah.

Jay:             He blew his Achilles out at I think the first year of the US Open.

Morgan:     Yeah, the noise echoed around the grounds, it was ugh, it was horrible. I felt bad for the guy. Still, very unique style, old Don, very unique. Possibly the most unique, who knows.

Gonna take a quick break there from Jay for a quick tip from our sponsor.

Sponsor: CoachME Pickleball

Let’s Talk about Service [09:08]

Morgan:     Ah, it’s borderline genius, that really, isn’t it? Okay, back over to Jay!

                   So, I’m curious. Obviously you’ve played for almost 30 years now. How long have you been serving like you serve. You’ve got one of, if not the fastest serve, in certainly Senior Men’s, if not Men’s in general. Has this something you’ve always pursued, or did you change it? 

Jay:             Well, no, I’ve changed it. And the reason I changed it is because in my 40s I was still playing some singles and I still remember playing you at Freedom Park in singles if you remember that…

Morgan:     Really?

Jay:             And you had that serve, yeah, I wanna say you beat me like 11-2 or 11-1 or it might have been 11-0; let’s not talk about that…

Morgan:     Fair enough.

Jay:             …but I remember your snap serve and I said I need to get my serve a little bit better because in singles, I had no shot against these 20-year-olds, 25-year-olds. And so, I just worked on kind of doing that snap a little bit more to get a little bit more pace on it. And as I went away from singles, I realized in doubles, especially in mixed, if I could get my serve in with that pace and I can place it, I got a lot of free points. And so that’s kind of where I’ve gone with it. So, it’s hard sometimes when I’m playing with partners I’m not used to playing with ‘cause I always tell them I’m gonna miss some serves, but I also tell them I’ll get them some easy points. So, playing with Glen is super easy. He doesn’t care if I miss a serve or not, he knows I’m gonna make more than I don’t but, every once in a while, I kind of have to back it off a little bit to make sure I put it in. But when it’s on, it’s pretty good.

Morgan:     Oh yeah.

Jay:             But I have watched your serve quite a bit and you have one of the best serves out there too, and if not, one of the best.

Morgan:     So, I mean, I think you and I, we both go about it a little different. I mean, the amount of energy we try to put into it is similar. I’m kind of try to put x amount of top spin to it, you’re kind of looking to bring it in hard and flat.

Jay:             Yup, mine’s a flat drive. I’m just trying to get it over the top of the net. Into the wind, I’m a lot better with my serve than with the wind…

Morgan:     Right for sure.

Jay:             So… you know I’m not a tennis guy, had no tennis background, and so I have a really hard time with top spin. So…

Morgan:     I see…

Jay:             So that’s kind of where that came about, and I still keep working on it periodically to try to keep the pace on because when it is working, it is pretty good. I can get a little wild with it too at times.

Morgan:     I always fluctuate my feelings about serving hard because depending on who I’m playing against, it doesn’t lead to a whole lot of points starting. So I think I’m kind of shooting myself in the foot to a large extent unless I’ve got other pros to play with. It ends up being either a short return and a quick drive, or a return arrow. At the end of the day, I’ve played maybe 30, 40, 50 less points than I would have if I kind of just got it in.

Jay:             Yup. Exactly.

Morgan:     Yeah, it’s tricky.

Jay:             I go more hard really with the hard serve when we’re getting ready for the tournaments, right. So we’re getting ready for PPAs. So, Glen and I, especially when I’m playing with Glen, and I’m hoping we play more tournaments together. But we know exactly what we’re gonna do when we do it. And so, we know if the serve’s in, when the next one’s gonna go and how it’s gonna go. We just kind of have that understanding, so…

Morgan:     Oh, good.

Jay:             …we’ve been working that quite a bit.

Morgan:     Like a well-oiled machine.

Jay:             Wow, so easy to play with that guy. He’s incredible. Plus, he’s the nicest guy I’ve met in Pickleball.

Morgan:     It’s ridiculous. He’s one of those people. It’s tough being around him ‘cause I just end up feeling like a bad person and I don’t think I’m a bad person, maybe I am, I don’t know. But…

Jay:             No, you’re not a bad person.

Morgan:     …around him, ah, he’s an angel!

Jay:             He is an angel.

Morgan:     What can you say, he’s a good man, good for Selkirk. Good for the game.

Jay:             He is good for the game. He is truly good for the game.

Morgan:     Are you surprised, and I know we probably shouldn’t talk too much more about serves, but are you surprised that how many top players there are out there that literally just put the ball in? And just that’s just their way of starting a point?

Jay:             Uh, no because you can’t score a point if you don’t get your serve in. So a lot of those guys, you know I watched Ben Johns and Tyson, they very really ever miss a point but that’s because they’re so good at the other aspects of the game and I’ll be the first one to tell anybody out there I’m not a phenomenal dinker and everyone knows that. So, I try to create stuff with the serve to make the points a little bit shorter or to set up my offensive game. But there’s so many guys now, who are so good with the dinking and keeping the point rally going that they know that if they don’t get the serve in, they don’t get the shot to get the points.

Morgan:     Yeah, now I suppose there’s always two schools of thought. For me, I’m someone who wants to be able to use third-shot drives and my best chance at getting a short-enough return to warrant that kind of shot is gonna be a deep effective serve. So and my third shot drop is not notoriously brilliant by any stretch of the imagination so I’ve kind of made my money on serves and drives.

Jay:             That’s exactly what I’ve done too, exactly.

Morgan:     Good, well, there you go.

Jay:             But you’ve got the other guys out there who all will do the serve get in and do the third shot drop exactly where they wanna do it and they set their point up from that. I’m more serve hard, get a short return, and then full on attack.

Left-handed and It Feels So Right [14:36]

Morgan:     Yeah. So, you are a notoriously left-handed person. How long have you been doing that?

Jay:             It took me a long time to figure out the stacking thing and once I did figure it out, I realized I’m much better on that side like with my forehand in the middle. So, I’ve always tried to find partners who like to play their strong side, get the right-hander. And it’s especially in mixed, it’s hard to find women who want to play that side of the court. And Kim Kim Jagd, is one who likes to play that side and I love playing with Kim. But there’s a lot of other women who don’t like that side because they get so many balls.

Morgan:     Yeah, a lot of pressure.

Jay:             it is a lot of pressure. And there’s guys; Glen loves playing his side, and lots of guys that play with lob, Tony loves playing that side. So those kinds of relationships really work. But mix has been really kind of a tough thing to do. So I always tell the ladies I can try to help as much as I can, but I know it’s not the side they want to play on.

Morgan:     Have you considered the Tyler Loong strategy of kind of hanging out so far near his line, making the dink life easier when it comes to him and then kind of baiting people into thinking the middle is available and then leaping like a madman into the void?

Jay:             Not really… *laughter*

Morgan:     Okay.

Jay:             I don’t know if that would work for me. I don’t know if I’m quick enough to do all that. It’s definitely something I could consider.

Morgan:     Good man. So, I’m not sure if we’ve talked about it but apparently left-handers have faster reaction-times than right-handed people. Did you know that?

Jay:             I did not know that.

Morgan:     Yeah. I’m almost jealous. It comes down to right hemisphere of the brain being responsible for the motor-skill reaction job and it’s a faster process going from the right side of the brain going to the left side your arm, your left hand, versus mine has to go from right side of my brain to the left side of my brain to then control my right hand.

Jay:             I see what you’re saying.

Morgan:     So the signal just takes a little bit longer. So you guys have a real advantage and I always look at it when I play against a leftie after three or four matches, I often realize that someone might be left-handed. And then it occurs to me, well I gotta stop trying to beating them in hand-speed battles so often because it doesn’t work as often as I like especially when I’m trying to find that right sort of dead space up there and it’s not where it should be when you got a leftie in front of you.

Jay:             Yeah, that’s the one spot I always seem to get attacked at, is my right shoulder area to my backhand side. I really worked hard on that and I think I have a pretty fast paddle right now and so lots of people attacking there has made me keen to when it’s coming so I think I’m pretty good at that, at the defensive part of it.

Morgan:     Yeah, but then it might just be your brain, it might just be how quickly the brain is working. You’re still at an age, where, and I think, you’re early 50’s is it? Is that about right?

Jay:             I’m fifty-…I just turned fifty-four.

Morgan:     Alright. So you’re based on, I like these studies. Based on the studies, your reaction time won’t seriously start degrading until, they said, early 70s. So you get another 20 years or so of reasonably fast hands. Don’t get me wrong, they are degrading but at a linear rate, they’re not dropping off too quick.

Jay:             Well I’m hoping to play competitive for another 5 to 10 years, well see. It’s such an every-changing sport with all these new people coming, who are so good. It’s amazing. It really is. It’s great for the game, but you come to these tournaments now, you always know who the tough guys are gonna be and then you come against a team you’ve never heard of and you’re like my goodness, they are so good! And it’s eye-opening.

Morgan:     Yeah. It makes me nervous now. I used to think, I used to look at a draw and look at two players I’ve never heard of these guys, not a problem, who do I’ve got next? I’ve realized pretty quickly that I should not do that.

Jay:             Yup. One, you always look at the draw and you always said okay, here’s the first rounds, usually the “gimme” round; and now there’s no gimmes. Incredible some of the first round matches you see on somebody’s big draw tournaments. It’s amazing.

Morgan:     Yeah, I think I might just focus on commentary and coaching.

Jay:             And you’re really good at both of them, too.

Morgan:     Well, it seems like the playing of the game isn’t likely to pay the bills quite as well as it used to, my main job in life then is just to reduce the amount of bills I guess.

Jay:             Im doing that too.

Morgan:     Alright, I’d say it’s time to spice things up a notch. With another episode of Morgan Evans, Lightly Filtered.

Morgan Evans Lightly Filtered [19:23]

Morgan: Pickleball has an increasing identity crisis. What does this sport really want to be? The good old game for one and all? Or professional sport that can attract and hold the attention span of a population without much of an attention span? We’re trying to compete in an arena that we can’t win. Tennis will always be more athletic Badminton will always be faster. And table tennis will always have more spin. So if we can’t compete in those arenas, then why try. Why not try to attract the looky-loos with the part of the game that isn’t owned by one of the comparable sports. Dinking is something unique but is it exciting enough to keep an audience captive? Probably not. Dinking can only be appreciated by people that play the game. And marketing a sport to its existing competitor is like McDonald’s exclusively serving people who own cows. The kind of things that are exciting that may indeed attract a wider audience are things like the erne, hitting around the post, fast hand volley exchanges. What if these things were rewarded in a point system that makes the game move faster? What if shot clocks started as soon as your team reached the kitchen? Either attack or be attacked? Either way, it’s a recipe for exciting stuff. Imagine this, if the game didn’t exist. And we put people like Ben, Simone, Tyson, Lucy in a room and explained the necessary dimensions of the court, the ball, and the paddle. What would they come up with? I think it’s safe to assume the game would look a little different. We live in a world where Cornhole has a real chance of beating us to the Olympics. Why? Because it’s relatable to the average person with a beer and a backyard. We can’t all have a Pickleball court in a backyard. So, we better figure out how to make it exciting, enough to pick up real interest and therefore, sponsors. I know, many of you right now will be thinking, the game is growing like wildfire; why change it? Well, it’s growing like wildfire not just because of the game itself but because of the hard work of many, many people to introduce and evolve the game around the world. Let’s not rest on our laurels. Let’s keep looking for ways to improve the sport. Every tournament, I hear professional players say something along the lines of “It’s just Pickleball!” I’m telling you, we will only know the game has truly arrived when we don’t ever hear the word ”just”.

 Well, that’s arguably compelling stuff there. We better head back to Jay.

Financial Services and Pickleball [21:54]

Morgan:     I’m curious. You’re in the financial world.

Jay:             Yeah I started back in financial services back in 1993. And I’ve kind of taken a little step back here the last year or two, kind of wound some stuff down; but I do still a little consulting with some of my higher-end clients and so forth, but not nearly to the level that I was doing.

Morgan:     Nice! So is it shares, security? What sort of game are you in?

Jay:             Most of my business was individual stocks and financial planning, policy planning, and all that kind of stuff. I was never a package product which is the way kind of financial services have gone with the big firms. So I went on my own back in ’98 and did my own thing. And I was actually an independent contractor, so I had literally kind of no one telling me what I need to do, and then it’s kind of, even that has kind of gone away because all the liability with all the financial products available, so it just kind of didn’t get as fun as it used to be. So, it was kind of a downer there for a while.

Morgan:     Well, you found Pickleball…

Jay:             Yeah I love Pickleball. And I do a few other things on the side, so. I’m doing some of that stuff. New business ventures on my own; I haven’t gotten in teaching Pickleball or anything, but I’m doing other stuff.

Morgan:     You’d be good! You’d be good. We could do a clinic together. You could teach people how to be left-handed. I could do the other side.

Jay:             Yeah, everyone kind of gives me crap about my swing, and my whole stuff but I don’t know if it’s something I wanna teach to people, but I love talking to people about Pickleball.

Morgan:     Perfect! And that’s why you’re here!

Jay:             You know I talk to people all the time and I’m always out promoting it. I just think it’s such a cool game. I like to think of myself as one of the first people to literally play on a serious level way back then because no one knew what Pickleball was. I’ve been playing it for a long, long time. And Mark Friedenberg, way back then, used to have these tournaments      down at the Seattle. It got too big and then he moved it down to Sea-Tac Community Center. We had three courts. I think you came there one year, didn’t you?

Morgan:     Yeah! I think I did!

Jay:             And that was so much fun down there. We’d start at 8 in the morning and the finale would be going on at like 2 in the morning. And it was just hilarious back then. The amount of teams he had playing on three courts indoors, it just night and day compared to today.

Morgan:     I wonder if he’s listening. I think I’ll get him on and let’s see if he can recount some times.

Jay:             He’s in town. I know that ‘cause I see stuff on Facebook, but I haven’t seen him. Usually he comes and joins us once in a while. I haven’t seen him all summer. And it maybe just the COVID is keeping everyone close to home. We used to always get some games every summer with him. He’s always fun to play with and to play against. He’s another one who’s always smiling and having a good time.

Morgan:     Yeah. He’s still got that kind of step back and slap. Yeah, it’s a good shot. I remember him sort of pulling me to the side once in a while up in Bellevue. Telling me, “Morgan, you can just build your game around never hitting a backhand. Just focus on every shot being a forehand”. And, alright, I’m gonna get a couple of other opinions on that, but it seems to work for him.

Jay:             He keeps asking me, I haven’t talked to him in a while, but he always asks me, “When are we going to play tournament? When are we going to play tournament?” And I said, “Mark, we’ll find one, we’ll find one.” And I would still like to play one with him but I just haven’t been able to do it yet.

Morgan:     He would do well if he can pull you out.

Jay:             I miss the desert play. I’ve been down there. I had all my desert trips cancelled this spring’s last summer. Are you guys playing down there at all? Or is it just too hot?

Morgan:     You know what, it’s still a lot of people at my place, Palm Desert Resort. There we’ve got 20 courts…

Jay:             Ooh, I love that place.

Morgan:     Yes, it’s fun, isn’t it? And you know this morning I drove past there and there were probably at least 6 to 8 courts going. So…

Jay:             Wow!

Morgan:     Yeah, and on the weekends sometimes it’s still full.  It’s incredible and it’s I think 116 today, um, so it’s not shy. But these people, they’re addicts! It’s a tribute to the game that people rain or shine…

Jay:             I’m waiting for someone in the desert to build a big venue with a bubble on it so we can play outdoor.

Morgan:     Yeah, would you do that for us please?

Jay:             If I had the money, I would! If I win the lottery, I’ll come to you and I will partner up.

Morgan:     Oh, that’d be good; that’s totally well.

Jay:             Yeah, great thing!

Morgan:     You will start a Jay Rippel indoor Pickleball fund at GoFundMe.

Jay:             I love the Pickleball down at the desert. Always so much fun.

Morgan:     You know what, in the PGA Superstore, they have room. They could totally set up a Pickleball court in that place. I’m gonna bug them and see if they can do it. Yeah, a little air-conditioned comfort would be nice.

Jay:             Yeah, or even just a little cover to stop the sun from cooking you, that would be good too.

Morgan:     I’ll get working on it. If you could sort out this fact scene I’ll get the indoor Pickleball going, everyone wins!

Jay:             They have had nothing indoor up here anywhere to play. Everything’s been outdoors, I think, I don’t know if Pickleball Central is letting anyone come in there right now.

Morgan:     Yeah, we’re all very sad when we found out that Pickleball Station, those four courts were gonna become warehouse space.

Jay:             No, that was a real bummer.

Morgan:     The dream is over.

Jay:             Glen still has a key there so we can go down there but we haven’t got to go because of COVID, so we’ll see.

Morgan:     Well, we won’t tell anyone when you sneak in, so don’t worry.

Jay:             No, no. And Edward’s so nice to us, so it’s great; they’re great people.

Wrapping It Up [27:26]

Morgan:     Yeah, the best. Well, this has been an honor and a privilege, Jay. We gotta do it again, sometime.

Jay:             Morgan, I really appreciate it. it’s such an amazing game to be in your 50’s and be able to play this sport for exercise, and camaraderie in the competition, and being able to make money here and there, so I pinch myself every time; and the other thing, all the people are so amazing. Everyone is so cool. It’s such a great sport; you’re a great ambassador. Selkirk’s great, they’ve been wonderful.

Morgan:     We’re living the dream out here, aren’t we?

Jay:             We literally are living the dream. It is a great sport and I really appreciate talking with you, buddy.

Morgan:     Wow, thank you, kindly mate. We’ll do it again soon and see you down in the desert and see you in Newport.

Jay:             Fingers crossed, we’ll see you in a couple of weeks!

Morgan:     Perfect! Alright mate, take care of yourself, stay safe.

Jay:             Alright buddy, take great care, be safe, bye-bye!

Morgan:     Cheers! Bye.

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