022 | What Are You Doing With All These Crowns?

Intro [0:23]

Morgan:  They say Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin never really died – they just became music. Simone Jardim is Pickleball. In every sense of the word, she exemplifies all that is great in our game; the skill, the look, the technique, the fight that screams, “I will never quit! And if you want to beat me, you better be prepared to leave blood, sweat, and tears on the court.” She is the undisputed queen, so please welcome the one and only Simone Jardim.

The Undisputed Queen of Pickleball [0:56]

Morgan:  Simone! How are you, sweetie?

Simone:  I am good.

Morgan:  Thank you so much for taking the time. How have you been? How is COVID treating you?

Simone:  Oh it has been actually pretty good. Busy with the kids – they’re back to school. I mean, life is not the same as before but some normalcy here and there.

How are you?

Morgan:  I am well. It’s a different world we live in but it looks like you’ve been doing well.

Simone:  For sure. I used the time to kind of start doing stuff outside of Pickleball, and it felt good. And then I was like, “Okay, might as well continue doing it.” So I kept up with it and actually helped me in many ways, so it’s good.

Morgan:  Yeah, it looks like you’ve won basically everything there is to win in the last month or so. You’ve taken gold in everything you’ve competed in.

Simone:  Nope. Chicago – Chicago was a bad weekend.

Morgan:  That was more than a month ago, so that’s okay.

Simone:  Oh, okay. (laughs…)

Morgan:  (chuckles…) You took the Triple Crown with Ben and Lucy as well as Singles in Texas. You won the Women’s and the Mixed in Vegas, and you did the Triple Crown again in Georgia. I’ve got to ask, what are you doing with all these crowns? Have you opened a throne room?

Simone:  Oh, you’re so full of it!

Morgan:  (chuckles…) And do you need a scepter?

Simone:  A what?

Morgan:  Don’t you need a scepter? Something to…

Simone:  Oh my gosh. Yeah – no, those are good but cheques are even better.

Morgan:  Yes, cheques are nice. I hear those are great.

I am looking at your results, and I’m starting to see a bit of a pattern here. It really looks like you don’t really want anyone else to win.

Simone:  (laughs…)

Morgan:  Is that your main motivation?

Simone:  Working on it. What is better? Is it better to win or not let somebody else win? Which one?

Morgan:  That’s a good question. I feel like so many of the great champions on a lot of sports are actually people that just hate losing more than anything. It’s not so much a deep love of winning – it’s just a hatred of losing.

And what is it for you? Are you actually someone who just loves winning or do you just despise the loss?

Simone:  I despise the loss. I can’t ever tell you about my wins but I can tell you about every single one of my losses.

Morgan:  (chuckles…)

Simone:  I can probably describe the moment where I felt like, “Okay, this is – I’m going to lose this match. Are you kidding me?” And I can go probably play by play on a lot of them, and I think that’s the part where the last memories I have of me playing the better. (laughs…)

Morgan:  Fair enough. That kind of strikes a chord with a lot of listeners, I’m sure, in that if you are able to take the lessons away from your losses and you really remember them, then you got a great chance to make the necessary changes and kind of improve your game. Does that sound about right to you?

Simone:  Yeah, I mean I watch my losses more than I watch my wins. I’ve watched some of the matches I’ve won but a lot of the times, it’s to see some of the things that I did well. And for the most part, are the losses that I go back and probably watch a few times just to see what went wrong, and then go back to work and fix it. Because again, you don’t learn from winning – never. Well, not never but very rarely you learn from winning. The losses are the ones that teach you the most and you can learn so much just about technique and all that. But the psychological part of the game and when momentum shifts happen, why did that go that way and so on and so forth. So yeah, most definitely that’s the part where yeah, it sucks to lose but sometimes also it’s good because it’s a wake-up call that you can’t stay stagnant. You got to keep on getting better and get moving.

Morgan:  Either win or you learn, right?

Simone:  Yup.

Morgan:  So you’ve done basically everything there is to do in Pickleball. What keeps you motivated? Is it just to kind of expand your legacy and keep building the empire?

Simone:  (laughs…) I have some hefty goals for myself.

Morgan:  Oh, do tell…

Simone:  It’ll be a dream-come-true to be able to have the most wins. I don’t think I have, so that would be something. I kind of feel like most gold medals or something like that because there are people that have been playing longer. I’ve been playing for five years, and then this year was COVID a little bit. But again, it’s just more of time, I guess. The more years I play, the better my chances are, of course. So I kind of want to continue to do that. And again, I just feel that people look as like, “How can you get better?” And I was like, “Well, I feel like this year I’ve gotten better.”

Morgan:  Yeah.

Simone:  So I think yes, I can get better. I think that there are parts of my game that I can still develop. And the more players that come into the game; the newer players, the younger players, the more shots to develop, so you can always learn from them and pick up new shots. And then also like with my age, I have the experience and the mental part of it. But just learning new things is exciting always, no matter how old you are. So I just feel that I still can get better.

Morgan:  So would you say that’s kind of what you attribute your success to the most, just kind of an ongoing desire to keep learning as opposed to just accepting the status quo as the queen of the court.

Simone:  Yes, and also the fact that I honestly believe that I perform better this way where I know there’s a target on my back. So it’s like I’m swimming and the sharks are coming, and I love that. I love that part because I just want to keep on swimming. Just because again, it’s easy to become to complacent, and that’s something that I don’t take for granted. So I just feel that I cannot get better, I can get fitter, I can work on different parts of my game, then I’ll continue to do that.

And I just love competing – I really do. But I hate losing, so I got to make sure that I stay on top of it.

Morgan:  I suppose if you learn to swim when you’ve got sharks behind you, you got to learn how to swim quickly, right?

Simone:  Exactly! But that’s the part that keeps it fun because again, if the sharks went away, I think it wouldn’t be as fun. Then, you’re just swimming in open water with no worries, and I like that. I like the fact that the girls are getting better, the level of competition in Texas was amazing. Catherine was playing so well. I played her in the winner’s final bracket, and she played amazing. I had to really play some great, great Singles Pickleball. And then in finals with Irina, she was playing – I’ve never seen her run down so many balls and she never gave up. I mean, she played amazing – it was the best I’ve seen as far as consistency from everybody in the women’s side. And then in Women’s Doubles, there are so many players that are coming up and I think it’s making it interesting because when some new pairings, I mean I feel like it made it more interesting for the women’s side. There are so many new pairings and a couple of new girls that have made the women’s side stronger and the matches have been outstanding. So yeah, I mean honestly, I just think it’s exciting what the future holds for next year.

Morgan:  I’m sure so many of your opponents – they wake up on January 1 thinking, “Ah, this is going to be the year that Simone – there’s no way she can keep going at the level she is. I’ll be able to have a look at the podium this year.” And I’m sure they’re all a little upset that even with the pandemic, it seemed like you’re only getting better. And so much of it I think is to do with your conditioning. I think you’re someone who takes a lot of confidence away from being in great condition. Has that always been a passion of yours? Or is it kind of more of a necessity to keep swimming away from these sharks?

Simone:  I think yeah, and I can’t unfortunately. There is no time machine, right? So Leigh Waters is a little bit older than I am but again, she doesn’t play Singles. So like I said, I’m not getting any younger and I understand that, and I’m totally okay with it. It’s just the fact that I want to take care of my body and make sure that nothing happens in the sense of I’m always one injury away. But yeah, I mean I pulled back in – I don’t even know when it was – it was August, I think. I pulled a hamstring and I’ve been getting treatment non-stop, and I’m still recovering from it. That’s the crazy part that I think a lot of people don’t get that it’s not just something that I want to do. I need to do it, I need to stay in shape because one little snap and I’m…

Morgan:  Sidelined – yeah.

Simone:  There are certain things that you cannot help. I’m not saying, “Oh poor me!” That’s the last thing that I’m saying. What I’m saying is I know, I’m aware, and I just got to deal with it and put my big-girl-pants and go to work.

Morgan:  (chuckles…) Father Time is undefeated but I think you’re giving him a good run for his money, for sure.

Simone:  Oh yeah, we’re definitely fighting. We’re in the ring boxing away.

Sponsor: CoachME Pickleball

The Next Generation [11:24]

Morgan:  So obviously, anyone who knows you well knows that you’re not just the Queen of the Court out there but you teach the game; you and Chad have the Peak Performance Pickleball Academy out in Bonita Springs, Florida. How did that all start?

Simone:  We moved here about four years ago, and honestly, it was a chance that we took in Naples at the time when we decided to come down. It was the first US Open. I was able to play Singles that year because I was still working at Michigan State, so Chad came down with Landon. I came a bit early with Alexas and Chad came down with Landon. We got here – the first year, if you remember, the Singles was on Sunday. So I came in on Saturday when they were playing Doubles and then I ended up playing Singles on Sunday. Then that night, he arrived. We went looking around town because I had been talking about being here and moving here since I had come to a conference for tennis in December. And so, we looked around, looked at places and kind of just started searching for jobs. And then we moved down here and we actually went into business with Terry and Chris from the US Open, and Jim Ludwig at East Naples, and we actually started the US Open Pickleball Academy. The idea was to create something like voluntary, something that you come to us instead of us coming to you, and Naples being such a destination place, it was really easy because again, who doesn’t want to, during the winter, come down here when it’s so nice all day long. So that’s kind of how we got started.

And then, we decided to go on our own just because again, we wanted to start our own business. That was two years ago, and Bonita Springs, the YMCA there has eight, very nice courts and nobody was doing anything out there – it was pretty empty. So went ahead and closed the deal with them. And from then on, we had Phil Metz already working with us, and ended up getting more people to come and work, and now we have seven people.

Morgan:  Wow!

Simone:  Yeah, all year round now which is crazy.

Morgan:  That’s incredible. Yeah, the game obviously is growing like wildfire everywhere. And there is a young lady that lives close to you that kind of shows the world what’s happening with Pickleball. I think she’s 13 – Anna Leigh Waters.

Simone:  Yes, on the other side of the state – yeah.

Morgan:  So now, she’s obviously, the game’s latest child prodigy but there are very few other kids that can kind of compete at the highest level. Do you think that is – and this is a tough question, just so you know – be ready. I was always going through one tough question.

Simone:  Oh, I like it.

Morgan:  Do you think that says more about her as an athlete and player? Or about the sport of Pickleball itself?

Simone:  Think of yourself, like when you were 13. If you had started playing Pickleball, you probably would have been very good and playing at a pretty high level. I think it’s the background that definitely makes her – and not only that, she has the genetics on her side as well. So I think it’s a combination of her being a great athlete and the fact that she picked up Pickleball pretty early with the tennis background which I truly believe that it has given her the edge. Because again, I think that if we got some kids that were playing tennis and got them over to Pickleball – I mean, we saw this happen in Newport. So Ben was playing around with three kids there from the academy, and they had barely played and they were great tennis players. I’m telling you, those kids would have no problem coming in and playing Pickleball. They would be really good in a few months because of their ability from tennis.

Morgan:  So it wasn’t her soccer stardom that helped her so much.

Simone:  Well, I’m sure soccer helps with her footwork. She has worked on her foot-eye coordination and her hand-eye coordination with tennis. Her mom played Division One tennis at South Carolina. Her dad, I believe is a golfer, so I mean again, I think all of those things are very helpful. It’ll be amazing the more and more kids like that got into the sport. It would just make it even more interesting and open a lot of other doors as well. It is growing, I think that it’s hard when you’re talking about as a parent, am I going to put my kid – if my kid is a really good tennis player, it’s just difficult to think about putting them in Pickleball versus putting them in tennis when there isn’t anything really other than you’ve got to turn pro and play where you go to school and play college tennis potentially.

Morgan:  Yeah.

Simone:  So that’s the difference, I think. It’s kind of hard to make that decision right now.

Morgan:  For sure. So the game would need to start a real, kind of collegiate-base to then have parents thinking about putting their kids in high school into Pickleball versus tennis – that makes sense.

Simone:  Yeah, I mean you have to think of the opportunities that a lot of us have had through tennis with scholarships and bein able to compete in Division One and still go to school and get a degree. If you’re playing Pickleball at this point, you would have to turn pro because of the fact that you have to go to school. I mean that’s doable, Ben has done that. But then, you’re not playing collegiate sports.

Morgan:  Yeah, right. I see what you’re saying. It’s kind of the catch-22 there, isn’t it?

Simone:  Well, because you can’t – because once you become a pro-Pickleball player and you accept money, I don’t know about what are they doing about the rules, how the NCAA is going to see that. As Pickleball grows, the amount of money that comes into the sport, then you have to make a choice potentially. Eventually, I feel like that will happen where you cannot accept money because otherwise, you become ineligible for athletics.

Morgan:  Yeah, it’s interesting. I wonder if Anna Leigh would have to stop playing when she goes to college to have a chance to play collegiate tennis? Or maybe that boat has already sailed?

Simone:  I think at this point, she has not accepted any contracts or any money. She can keep – like in tennis, I think it’s $10,000 a year that you can keep for expenses. So as long as she keeps doing that, she’ll be fine. But at one point, if Pickleball does grow to an extent where it makes sense for her to take the money, and then she would have to give up college. And again, I don’t think there is anything in the bi-laws yet for NCAA but I feel that the bigger the sport, the kind of money that goes into the sport, then it will catch attention, for sure. And the younger – like 15, 16-year-olds come play Pickleball it will more likely happen.

Morgan:  Right. It’s going to be the sign of the times, and I think we’re all hoping that Pickleball will gain the legitimacy that a younger crown kind of gives the sport. But we’ll just hold on until then. I’m hoping you can still crack in maybe another 100, 200 Triple Crowns before you hang up the paddle?

Simone:  Sure, Morgan. Whatever you say!

Morgan:  Well, yeah. We need Melissa McCurly to crunch the numbers and see how far you are behind whoever’s next in line. I can’t imagine who’s leading the show in terms of matches won or medals won.

Simone:  I have no clue. I know Jennifer has a ton. I have no idea.

Mixed Doubles With Ben [18:40]

Morgan:  So obviously, we’ve talked a lot about the growth of the game, and Mixed Doubles is often the most viewed online in terms of matches that get played at a professional level. You’ve been playing with Ben for a while now. In terms of playing with him, often people that might be tuning in, watching Mixed Doubles for the first time will see him taking a lot of the court. Is your perspective it’s whatever it is that gets the job done…

Simone:   Correct.

Morgan:  Is the most – correct!

Simone:  Yeah.

Morgan:  You don’t even have to go with options.

Simone:  No, because I’ve had so many people be like, “I’m sure you want to hit the ball.”

And I was like, “Listen, the reason why I partner up with him; it’s many reasons but of course, I want him to take as many balls as possible because then I don’t have to work that hard. I’m fine with him taking – if he wants to take them all. I left Catherine, I was on the sideline, and I looked at her and I said, “I served that point,” and I was laughing. And I was like, “You have never seen me laughing on the court because of the fact that I’m so tense, and I see so many balls. And playing with him has taken a lot of pressure off of me because I feel like – honestly, there was one tournament, Newport Finals, and you can watch it – I played horribly!

Morgan:  (gasps…)
Simone:  I made so many unforced errors, I counted them all, and I made 11 unforced errors like you’ve never seen before. They were like awful errors, and I don’t know what it was or whatever. It is what it is – it’s past. But he literally carried me through that win. So like I said, if he’s going to take them all, he takes them all. As long as it’s working, it’s all that matters to me. And again, it’s almost like I get an extra life. There are times, of course, that I’m going to have to play harder but if I’m not doing that all the time and all day, it’s so much easier for me. So of course, evidently I’m don’t feel like I’m missing out on playing with 20 tournaments on the calendar. Don’t worry, I’m getting plenty of play.

Morgan:  You’re seeing a few Pickleballs, that’s for sure.

Simone:  Oh yes.

Morgan:  And it sounds like it kind of helps you with your other events – Women’s and Singles.

Simone:  Exactly! Well, that’s what I mean by I gain another life. I feel like Singles takes a couple of lives out of me, so that’s where recovery is huge. But again, I get it why people would think that I would feel so offended by it or whatever. But we’re not playing as a hobby, we’re playing for money and we both want to win so we’re going to do whatever we can to win. And it’s working – if we were losing, then I would get it. I would say, “Okay, maybe question our strategy.”

Morgan:  There’s a lot of Tarzans out there that often look at the way he plays the game, and he’s not alone in terms of taking over a lot of court at the professional level and mixed. But there’s a lot of people out there who would think, “Well, if he does it, I should do it,” and they’re not really looking at the bigger picture of “Is it actually working, and therefore should I continue doing this?” Or “Should I let the Jane to my Tarzan really get involved and try to be the difference-maker?”

It’s great to hear your perspective from a point of view that yes, it’s a game, it’s also entertainment but it’s also a business and you’re out there making a living, and it’s not his fault that the dimensions of the court lend themselves to one very athletic person being about to cover such a huge amount of territory. It was a badminton court and I think if I was to put you to perhaps Kyle, Steve Deakin whereas a few people just together and you had never played Pickleball before and someone explained, “Alright, you need to use a paddle. You’re going to use something like a wiffle ball. Design a court and design a game what do you think would be fun.” It probably would look a little different, wouldn’t it, in terms of the court dimensions and the rules? But this is the game we’ve got and it’s no one’s fault that Mixed Doubles saw the death of chivalry a little while ago.

Simone:  Yeah. I mean a have a ton of fun being out there playing Mixed Doubles. I feel like my defensive skills, they shine because that’s what I feel like what I bring to the table, is I can really show my defense, and then setting him up for the finish and it has worked out really well.

Two-Handed Backhand Enthusiast [23:00]

Morgan:  So in that regard, you are a two-handed backhand enthusiast. I’ve been trying to throw it into my game a little bit recently and it’s tricky to know when to kind of use it. Do you think of it more of an offensive weapon or defensive weapon? What am I doing wrong here?

Simone:  (chuckles…) I’ve used it for both. I think that for countering, you can see more and more guys using it because the left arm is helping with power but also control. Defensive-wise, I use it a lot of the times when the balls are really hard at me and I feel like I need that left arm just as a support so that my right wrist doesn’t break – that’s really all it’s doing. I’ve also always played tennis that way, and when I came to Pickleball, I stayed with it throughout. And I think some people because they were told, “Okay, you can’t play with two hands,” I mean I heard that when I first started, and I said, “Why not?” And then I just stuck to my two-hander, so I know some people start with a two-hander and then went to one-hander, and now are back with a two-hander. So I mean, ultimately, I feel like you got to kind of break down a little bit and just kind of see what works best for you.

Morgan:  Yeah, it always looks like one of the things that helps you with that two-hander is that lateral movement to sort of give yourself the room to take a decent swipe at it. And I get a lot of people coming for lessons that look at the way you play but quite possibly don’t have the same mobility and therefore find it a bit tricky and they cramped up with two-handed backhands trying to do a lot of the work. And the best I can tell them is a fantastic tool but it probably can’t be used for everything.

Simone:  Well, yeah, you got to know when to use it and also the footwork has to be there before you lose a little bit of space on the court when you do the two-hander, so there are times that people try to do two-hander but the shot is not quite there because the ball is too far away. Also, like a ball into the body sometimes is harder to hit with a two-hander. The strike zone is a bit more limited and knowing what that strike zone is also pretty important.

Morgan:  I’m just writing all this stuff down. It’s a good thing we’re recording it.

Simone:  (laughs…)

Morgan:  One of the most common questions I get asked, and I often use you as an example is if and when someone should back up off the kitchen line – I remember any time that I played against you in the past and you’ve been in front of me, if your partner gives me something kind of relatively lofty and it’s going to be on my forehand side, I always notice that you don’t stay there. You back up and you give yourself plenty of time to react and kind of make me pay the price if I do attack you. Is that something you do mostly in Mixed or in Women’s as well?

Simone:  Yeah, I do in both. Ultimately, what it is, is that again, it’s what you said – I don’t like playing lottery. I feel like it’s a very slim chance that I’ll be able to do anything productive if I stay up here. Even though it’s wiffle ball, it’s still coming pretty hard, and I have very little reaction time. And then on top of that, if you have time, you can figure out where to hit it. I can’t even sit on one spot or the other. So then by backing up, not only is the ball taking longer to travel to me but also it will take longer for the ball to travel back to you which is most of the time I’m trying to do a reset. And it’s merely impossible to do a reset when somebody is smacking the ball as hard as they can with a surface that we’ve got with a wiffle ball.

Morgan:  Yeah.

Simone:  So then it becomes just another pop-up even if I put a paddle on it. So again, I would much rather back up and then reset and ready to at least have a chance of getting back into the point.

Morgan:  That sounds like great advice. They didn’t take it from me but they should take it from you, for sure.

Simone:  (chuckles…)

Morgan:  Do you think the average player should be trying to just get their serve in or actually make a weapon?

Simone:  I mean to me, an average player is pretty broad, Mr. Morgan.

Morgan:  Oh… (chuckles…)

Simone:  Yes – I mean, honestly, you have to think of levels. The better you start to get or you want to get better – I think that that’s where there is a time when you start. Of course, I don’t want you to think about spins and power and all of that because I want you to get the technique down and be able to serve otherwise it’s boring to play the game if you can’t put a serve in. But as you get better, the higher level you go and you might have started at 3.5, go 4.0, 4.5, then you got to develop a more powerful serve. And a lot of the times, it’s not that we – unlike tennis, looking for an error as much as you are looking for an easier third shot whatever that is, if it’s a drive or drop. And I think that that start to then make more sense as you get better because at the beginning when you start, you kind of just try to start the point and trying to make sure that you actually get the game going. I think that as you progress, as you get better, that becomes more and more important.

What Makes Them Great [27:42]

Morgan:  Okay, we’re going to just pause it there for a moment for one of our new segments: “What Makes Them Great”

To reach the level that Simone has reached, there is no one thing that makes her the best. It’s the fact that there is no chink in the armor, there is weakness. However, today I’m going to talk about what I believe are at the heart of her rise to glory. She has spent many, many years as a high-level coach in both tennis and now Pickleball. She has seen what it takes as an athlete and understands the undeniable truth that champions are made, not born. She’s obviously blessed with athletic abilities but that alone doesn’t make her who she is. She loves to win and hates to lose even more, but a lot of people feel that way. She has an obsession with fitness and conditioning but that isn’t enough either. All those things could very well make her a contender but not the undisputed champ she is – no.

What makes her the best of the best is her attitude towards development. She has an acute understanding of failure, knowing what very few people do – how to extract the precise lessons in the loss. The losses don’t just fuel her fire to train harder, they haunt her. They open a bloody gas station next to her house so the fuel never runs out.

People are so often restricted in who they train with, who they can feed of, who they can compare and contrast themselves with. Well, what if it didn’t matter where you went, you could never find your equal. For better or worst, that’s her life. Hemmingway said, “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility is being superior to your former self.”

To a large extent, she doesn’t have a peer – she has partners, but not really peers. She’s a step above and therefore mostly just competing with her former self which is a tough act to follow. Her yesterday is better than you’ll ever be. Sorry, but it’s probably true.

So if you were the best in the world yesterday and you’re determined to beat that person, that now becomes the greatest source of motivation a player can have. Mix that in with her unwavering disgust with failure and unbreakable commitment to never stop improving, that’s a very powerful combination. She knows full well she’s already the standard in which everyone else has found wanting. But day after day, she trains harder and smarter because if she can’t beat Father Time, well, she’s definitely going to meet him in the final.

Well, there you have it – it’s deep, isn’t it? Jeez!

Wrap It Up And Tie A Bow In It [30:32]

Morgan:  Let’s head back over to Simone and wrap it up, and tie a bow in it.

I’m sure we’ve got some very new players listening to the podcast. You coach I imagine almost daily. Do you do a lot of lessons each day?

Simone:  I have reduced the numbers big time just because focusing on my training a little bit more, and for injury prevention. The more I’m on court, the harder it is on the body. So just being a little smarter, making sure that I don’t get to the tournaments exhausted, I want to make sure that I’m there, and I’m fresh, ready to go. Usually, that’s my thought going into it, so I’ve reduced quite a bit. And again, I just feel that I finally figured out the formula, the numbers that I want to be, like how long I want to be on the court and still be ready to train and compete.

Morgan:  Yeah, I’m glad to hear there’s a formula. If you can send that formula my way – I’ve been trying to figure that out for about five years as well. I’ve never quite cracked it but that’s okay. I’ll get to eventually.

Simone:  (chuckles…) Oh, when I started, we were talking about it. Chad and I were talking about it. Like, when we started, we were grinding. We were teaching so many hours every week. Like 40 hours a week, you didn’t want to go to a tournament because you wanted the weekend off because you had been working so much. So I remembered those days and I know I don’t want to go back to those days. And then I went to 30, and then I was like, “Ugh, I don’t have time to train. I’m not as tired but I don’t have time to train.” And then I went to 20 and then I was like, “Okay, now I can do a little bit of that,” and I’ve realized that 10 – that’s it. Ten hours a week, and then I spend another 10 hours working on myself, so then 20 hours is what I’m doing and that’s it.

Morgan:  Perfect! You found the magic number. There you go, folks! Twenty hours.

Simone:  Yup.

Morgan:  (chuckles…) Very nice!

Simone:  But also you have to think that, at one point, it was a necessity because the money wasn’t quite there. We were building the business and we needed to work that many hours because of the fact that you can’t do anything. You can’t pay the bills, we have two kids and house and all of that. So we figured that we needed to that, and with more tournaments, with more prize money – I mean, honestly, Morgan, I don’t want to sound cocky, but I don’t have to teach. I teach because I like it, it’s because I know this is what I really like to do. I love my clients. They’ve been with me for four years, and so I teach because I like it. Because at this point where Pickleball is, I really wouldn’t have to teach, so that’s where I’m at.

Morgan:  That’s lovely to hear, and I can attest to that. I remember teaching with you in Naples and I realized very quickly that the clients that you’ve been working with for some time, it’s almost a cult following, and I can imagine it’s very difficult, if not impossible to give up on all those people that have come to see you as basically an institution.

Simone:  Well, they’ve become family because when you see somebody once, twice a week, and I don’t have family here – like, Chad and I, our families are far away so they have become our American family. And it’s not just the client, it’s more than that.

Morgan:  Oh, it just warms the cockles of my heart. (laughs…)

Simone:  Ugh, you’re so sweet.

Morgan:  I know! I know! But I got to do it. It’s for the masses.

So, just to wrap it up, what’s next for you? And how can people find you out in the wild if they want to come to the academy? What’s the best bet?

Simone:  So, we got the website for the academy. It’s PeakPickleballAcademy.com. And because of COVID, we haven’t set up the dates yet for our camps. But we will have camps and I teach all of those, of course, with other pros. But unfortunately, I don’t know anything available as far as private lessons but we have plenty of people that work with us that are very good. I mean Catherine works with us, Athena, and then you have Chad and Phil, Becky and Courtney as well, so we have lots to pick from. But with the camps, the future is still a little unknown so we’re trying to kind of not set anything and then have people sign up and have to reimburse them – that can be a little bit of a pain.

Morgan:  Yes.

Simone:  And then I’ve got one more tournament, Vegas, next week, and that is it as far as tournaments for a little while, and then start again in January.

Morgan:  Beautiful! Well, you just let me know when you need me to fill in for Ben and step it up, and I’ll cover…

Simone:  Stop it. Oh my gosh, Morgan! You’re so full of it…

Morgan:  Come on! I’ve got a serve – I can serve the ball pretty well. And when the drive goes in, that’s alright.

Simone:  I know – with your flick.

Morgan:  Yeah, with the flick!

Simone:  With your flick toss.

Morgan:  Yeah, yeah, it’s a game-changer. I’m probably going to be a one-trick-pony until I’m old and grey.

On that note, Simone, thank you so much for your time. It has been an honor and a pleasure. Please take care of yourself. Say hi to the kids, and Chad – the only other Aussie bloke in the game.

Simone:  Thank you! Take care. I’ll see you soon.

Morgan:  Alright, take care.

Simone:  Bye.

Morgan:  Take care! Cheers! Bye.

[background music plays]

Sponsor: Selkirk Sport

Morgan:  Well, that was quite the adventure. So happy to hear from her. That’s all we have time for, unfortunately. I’m Morgan Evans, and this has been More or Less Pickleball.

He Always Seems To Climb Trees [36:22]

Morgan:  He’s going to go climb a tree now, isn’t he? He always seems to climb trees!