026 | Kind of a Thankless Task

Morgan:  “Rules are meant to be broken” – I’m paraphrasing from Douglas MacArthur. But let’s be honest, those never made a lot of sense. Many would argue, in fact, that it’s the exact opposite of why they exist. Remember that documentary Lord of the Flies, huh? Those kids needed boundaries. Piggy didn’t deserve to die. They needed a parent.

My guest today is that parent watching over the chaos and the kitchen. Please welcome the chairman of the USA Pickleball rules committee and the director of officiating of USA Pickleball, Mr. Mark Peifer. 

Mark, how are you doing, mate? 

Mark:  Hello, Morgan! Great to hear your voice. We haven’t seen much of you lately.

Morgan:  Yes, I know. It’s, it’s been a little while, but I’m getting back on the horse soon, don’t you worry.

Mark:  Alright, well, good. We really missed you.

Morgan:  Oh, you’re very kind.

So you are the main man, the chairman of the officiating committee and the director of rules. I’m sure there’s a much more elaborate way to say it. But essentially you’re the one that players either fear the most or love the most, depending on which side of the line call they are.

Mark:  I don’t know, there’s a whole lot of love for referees, but I have a lot of friends out there, so I guess that works. Morgan:  Yeah, they say the sign of a great referee is, uh, when you never really hear their name and they never become famous. 

Mark:  Exactly. 

Morgan:  Which means that it’s kind of a thankless task. How did you get into it?

Mark:  Well, it was kind of an easy transition. It was like most referees I played at Melba Bishop in Oceanside, California. We had a couple of small tournaments at the time that you might be familiar with — I’m not sure. One was called May Mayhem and the other was March Madness, and they were very popular early on in the 2009, 2010 timeframe and it has kind of a reputation locally as being really well-run tournaments. It’s sanctioned by USAPA at the time. And I came onto the scene as a Pickleball player first, obviously, before I was a referee. And I’m just like, anybody else, I’m playing in this tournament. I hear the call that nobody likes to hear, any available referees, please come to referee this. So I said, “Well, heck how hard can this be?” Right? So I showed up and somebody gave me a score sheet and a pen and said, “Go do it.” 

So I go out there, I even kept score, what the heck? So I get out there and of course, I’m circling instead of doing the slashes and all that kind of stuff. I had no idea what I was doing. But I got through the game and something happened on the court. This is a Women’s Doubles match. It was kind of fun, I still remember like it was yesterday. We couldn’t figure out what to do when somebody was out of position and another serve had already occurred. So I try to apply the tennis rules from 20 years ago, and between the five of us, the four ladies and myself, we came up with a solution that we applied. And then I find out later on reading the rule book after the match was over that I was completely wrong. And I said, “That’s the last time that’s happening.” 

And so that started a whole study of the rule book. And then I had to become certified if I was going to be a referee, and this will be a certified referee, so they kind of started me down the path there. 

At the time, this was 2017, there was no training program, referee training program in California or no certified referees. So we kind of started the whole certified referee program in California. 

Morgan:  That’s fantastic! So roughly how many certified refs do we have in the game at the moment?

Mark:  Total, we have about 200 certified arrests around the country and in Canada. Right now, it’s just the US and Canadians are in the certified ref program. But there’s interest around the world. We just got the first interest from New Zealand, Australia.

Morgan:  Oh, wow! 

Mark:  We’ve got some referee programs there, but they don’t have a certified program yet. And so the IFP is trying to fill that gap and I may get involved in helping them. 

Morgan:  Okay. 

How many kinds of refs do you think the game needs to basically expand as well as it could in the sense that obviously for a sanctioned tournament, you can have medal match only refs, but you know, we all like to go to a tournament knowing that there’s going to be no real chance for foul play, therefore refs on every match. Is there kind of a ballpark number you think would get the job done?

Mark:  Yeah, that’s tough because it depends on where the tournaments are located. In Arizona, there’s a really good chance that you’re going to get enough for a fully-sanctioned tournament. If you’re doing California and it’s big, international, you’re going to get a fully sanctioned tournament.

By the way, I should say — you asked about certified refs is 200, but total refs, level one, level two certified is north of 400.

Morgan:  Oh great!

Mark:  So that’s level one, level two, that’s our pipeline into becoming certified referees. 

So, I mean, it’s not a big surprise when I tell you Florida. Arizona, California, Utah, Nevada, those States because of their location have a very good chance of having a fully sanctioned tournament and enough referees will show. Of course, referees are just like players, there’s a cost involved in having them. Most referees don’t enjoy the opportunity to lose money while they’re refereeing, but if there are host housing and that kind of stuff, it certainly helps, as you can imagine, just like as a player.

Morgan:  For sure. I think that the common perception of the sport is it’s an incredibly easy game to play, and one might be forgiven to be led to believe that officiating the game is also simple, but I think it’s anything but that. Have you attempted to officiate any other sports and how do they compare if so?

Mark:  I was a basketball referee back in the day. Basketball has got some similarities here in terms of your reaction time, between what you see and how you have to apply the rules very quick in basketball, just like it is here, so I see really strong similarities there. So the people who can respond and kind of capture the rule that applies to what I just saw on the court are some of our best referees. You got to be able to do that recall pretty quickly, and that comes with experience. So that’s why we put this level one, level two program in place. But for me, basketball is probably a very similar sport in that regard.

Morgan:  Right — based on kind of the pace of the game, how quickly things are happening, and how many kinds of moving parts you sort of have to monitor at one time.

Mark:  Absolutely. But, obviously, the big difference is in basketball is you’ve got typically two other people that are on the court with you. And you’re pretty much alone unless you get into the medal matches, then you’ve got a second ref on the other side of that post. 

Morgan:  Yeah, I know…

Mark:  All you quick guys have all these Ernie moves that we have to watch.

Morgan:  I’m not a big Ernie-person. I’m always deathly afraid when I play Tyler Loong. He’s way too good at that. He’s got a 76-inch reach — it’s too big. 

Morgan:  What a leapfrog he is. He’s tough to watch, you know?

Morgan:  It’s crazy. 

So now, obviously referees, depending on the tournament and their level, they get paid a certain amount. Although, when I do see these figures, it seems woefully low. Let’s wind forward the clock 50 years. What do you think a ref will be making if they choose to ref 10 games in a day? Right now, I’m not sure too many players looking at the pay for a certified referee and thinking, “You know what, that’s worth getting into that. I can handle being on my feet for that long and having some very difficult decisions to make; ones that could affect the livelihood of professional players.” Would you agree that the reimbursement needs to increase? 

Mark:  Yes, it’s part of that, it’s part of the evolution of the game. Three years ago, when I started initially, you didn’t get paid anything. You did it to give back to the sport. And over the last three years, we’ve gone from nothing to $5 a match for certified refs, to $7. Now, we’re at $10 and $15 for certain medal matches. It’s just evolving, just like the game is. I think there’ll come a time — I don’t think will be 50 years, I think it will be much shorter than that where you’ll have a top-level, series of referees who have been requested by either tournament directors or tournament operators, and they’ll be paid a daily rate to come in to do how every many matches they can fit in. And part of that daily rate would include some kind of per diem for their cost of coming to the tournament. So I do think that’s a strong possibility, so I think that’ll match up very similar to what we see in the highest levels of tennis. 

Morgan:  Yeah.

Mark:  We’re not there yet, but I can certainly see when we get there. I think one of the nice evolutions that we’re seeing in the certified ref ranks that help in this regard, I think is that we’re seeing a younger individual get interested in becoming a referee, which I think the demographics of the top-level players and the referee is there’s a mismatch there, age-wise and demographics. And I think you’ll see over the next 10 years, some of them are closing that gap as well, which I think could be good for the game. 

Morgan:  Yeah, that’ll be great for the game. And one of the more endearing sites I saw in 2019, I think it was, was Anna Leigh Watters, I think at the Texas Open who had finished her day and she was out there refereeing, putting her hand up.

Mark:  Isn’t that great?
Morgan:  It was amazing! 

Mark:  Yeah, that was great. And when she does that, she’s a role model for other young women and young men to pick up the sport. 

Morgan:  Yeah, for sure. 

I had a thought just while we were talking, perhaps until the average ref can make a living doing that, maybe they should peg the referee wage to the total payout for the tournament. So if it’s a $25,000 tournament, then $10 a match. If it’s a $50,000 tournament, $20, and so on and so forth. If there was a kind of a written rule regarding that, it might help sway the mind of I would-be referee. What do you think? 

Mark:  Yeah, I think what’s really at play a year ago is supply and demand just like anything else. If the supply of referees is large, then there’s no real requirement to pay a lot. So that’s when you see the $10, $7 — $10-matches. When demand for the referees goes up and then sometimes you have to pay more to get them there. And so I think we’re beginning to see elements of that hop up in different tournaments because the pro tournament with the advent of the PPA, the APP tours now, there are a lot of pro matches out there to referee. And I think what you’re going to see over the next two to three years is gradually increased referee pay to make sure that there are good referees for those tours and those two operators. But right now, the USA Pickleball Association., we have recommended guidelines for referee pay for the sanctioned tournament director out there but there’s no requirement that anybody has to follow that. But most sanctioned tournaments do. I anticipate I’ll be the head referee of the National Indoor Tournament and the Nationals in Indian Wells. And those are the two tournaments that USA Pickleball operates. And so, we have some influence over what the referee pay rate will be in those tournaments. And getting in 2018, we started to set the standard for referee pay, and most sanctioned tournament directors kind of follow what happens at Nationals.

Morgan:  Sounds good.

Mark:  I think 2021, it will be interesting to see — we’ve already got some preliminary plans for the National Indoor and for Indian Wells and what we want the referee pay to be — we’ll see how many tour operators kind of pick up on it.

Morgan:  Excellent. Yeah, good — I mean, it’s not going to be long before the cream really rises to the top and everyone has a good feeling of who the kind of top 10 referees, top 20 referees, perhaps are. Hopefully, there’s kind of almost a level of competitiveness, just like in the sport itself, whereby someone wants to be thought of as one of the best refs out there and it kind of inspires everyone else who’s doing it to  lift their game because I’m sure when you walk around the grounds, you see great refereeing and you see some other stuff.

Mark:  Exactly. Let me tell you, not many people know this, obviously the certified refs who went to Nationals in ‘19, know this, but at the time, we had nine evaluators and they’re the ones that actually designate someone who’s a level two to be worthy of wearing a white shirt and become a certified referee. We had the nine evaluators, but I think we had seven of the nine there at Nationals. And they did an observation of every certified referee at Nationals, and that was part of the input into who I picked to go on center court at Nationals. So there is  —  I’m not saying there’s a pecking order, but there’s a very clear, definable line between the very top referees and really good referees. So I anticipate, we’ll see some of that as well in 2021.

You can tell who the better referees. You just pay attention to who’s on center court at Nationals and that’s pretty indicative, right?

Morgan:  Yeah, that’s true. I feel like it was only a couple of years ago where the players thought, Well, if our ref has a last name that is Freso, then there’s a pretty good chance that they know what they’re doing.”

Mark:  (laughs…) Well, I’ll tell you what the Freso’s have been role models for many, many referees. And the overall referee program is much, much better because of Marsha, Byron and what they brought to the referee court.

Morgan:  I’ve always wanted to ask Byron if he knows that Marsha is better than him.

Mark:  (laughs…) I’m sure there’s a little private competition between the two of them. It’s fun. I’m very good friends with both of them, obviously, and it’s fun being around the two of them because they like to kid each other, argue rules with each other. It’s actually very cute.

Morgan:  I’m sure the dinner table conversation is electric.

Mark:  Exactly, yeah.

One and a Half Cents [14:32] 

Morgan:  I’m going to pause it there just briefly with Mark for one of my new segments called “One and a Half Cents.”

Today, I want to talk about rules. Rules are not static, they evolve. And what often causes them to evolve are the rule-breakers. Did the game need Jeff Warnick to throw a paddle the length of a football field before a Code of Conduct was drawn up? Maybe not, but it was a hell of a throw.

I think the important thing is that while they do serve to protect the status quo, they cannot stand in the way of innovation. They can’t stand in the way of a good topspin serve, I know that much. After all a rule is not a law, they are not facts, they are theories, and any theory is based on the available information at the time. It, therefore stands to reason that as the times change, rules change. 

Folks, we all know it, times they are a changing, and some of these new rule changes are breaking the internet with controversy. Cut them a little slack, people, put your emojis down for a second. In my humble, but microphoned opinion, the most important thing is to understand the purpose behind a rule.

The new, let serve rule combats an abuse of a previous rule that was used in a manner unbefitting to the spirit of the game. The new drop serve rule helps to make the game even more inclusive. It’s not there to give people an unfair advantage. If you understand the purpose, as opposed to blindly following rules, then you won’t just be someone who doesn’t violate them, you’ll be someone who is known for their sportsmanship — that’s just good for the game. 

Alright, that’s enough of the third degree. Let’s head back over to Mark.

Making A New Rule [16:18]

Morgan:  So, tell me, what is the process of making a new rule? Just switching tactic a little bit here. I’m sure it’s more than just a suggestion box at a tournament. How does it come to be? There’s a couple of obviously big rule changes in 2021 that we will get to. But just briefly, can you give us a picture of how they come to be?

Mark:  Yeah, there’s a couple of ways that a rule suggestion can get attention. One is on the USA Pickleball website, there’s a if you want to get ahold of the rules committee, you can send them an email. That comes to my inbox, and so I oftentimes will get, “Here’s an idea for you” kind of thing. I get personal emails with ideas.

Morgan:  Oh, fun!

Mark:  By the way, there’s another guy by the name of Don Stanley, a really good friend, who’s helping with that as well.

Morgan:  Yeah, good old Don!

Mark:  He’s got very close connections, so there’s a lot of raw ideas come to either him or to me. But he and I both, and this might surprise you and others listening in, he and I both spend a lot of time on social media. And I don’t mind telling you this, we pay a lot of attention to what are the rules that are causing consternation with the players? What interpretation are they coming up with when a thought was able to be interpreted by this rule. And so we make notes of those and I collect the master file, and I have a file that I put together. And then at the right time, usually it’s in end of May, early June timeframe, we start off the cycle for the next year. So what’s been the process the last two years was going to be modified a little bit this coming year, are those changes – a record number this year, there are well over a hundred emails and ideas that were collected that I had in this file, and I sent those all to Don. Don then puts together what we refer to them as a rule submission committee. We keep that very quiet because we don’t want anybody lobbying who’s on the rules submission committee. Each year has been a different group of people. And the reason for that is I’m firmly committed and believe that the more people that are involved in the process, the wider the acceptance and ownership of the program for rules and rule-making will be. So the five or six that were on the rules submission committee in 2019 were different than who are on the committee this year. But they go through all those rule changes and they have a very important role to play. They take a look and say, “Well, you know, this one — this is either way too hard, way out of the scope right now, and this only applies to one or two people in the country. We’re not going to change a rule just for one or two people,” that stuff. So they do a very good process of vetting each one of those rule ideas. They study them independently and they come back and they vote independently, and they vote on a one through 10 scale, and anything with a five or greater is what then goes forward for consideration by the rules committee. So it’s not that the other 80 or 90  rules don’t go forward. They do. They just don’t get processed through, maybe rewritten by Don and myself. He and I take personal ownership of those that come out of the rule submission committee and we’ll write the rules so that it’s presentable to the rules committee and to the USA board of directors, USA Pickable board of directors. So once we get it in a condition that is readable, this is when we bring back the individual who suggested the rule change and we’ll ask them to help draft the rules so they, again become a part of the process as well. 

Morgan:  That’s great!

Mark:  Then it goes to the rules committee, the five-member rules committee. Wwhether it passes the rules committee or not all of them, including the ones that didn’t pass muster with a rule submission committee go to the board. So the board gets to see every single one of the rules that the rule submission committee looked at and they have the final say on whether something becomes or not, the USA Pickleball board. 

What’s going to change for next year is that rule submission committee is actually going to be the IFP rules committee. 

Morgan:  Okay.

Mark:  I would have been involved this year. Unfortunately, they didn’t get commissioned and put together until too late in the process, but firmly committed at the international community. Right now, we have IFP rules committee members from Singapore, the Philippines, United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States that the IFP rules committee will be the rule submission committee and doing the voting and the vetting upfront for the 2022 rulebook. 

Morgan:  Well, that’s fantastic! I think it’s going even further to validate the sport as indeed a legitimate and fast-growing sport, as opposed to a game that people play in their backyard So it sounds to me like there is a very serious and very official process, and it’s not just a couple of blokes thinking, “You know, let’s try the drop serve, let’s give it a go.”

Mark:  No, no. (laughs…) I’ve written a couple of articles about It goes about this process, and I’ve talked about — this is not a bunch of old white men smoking cigars in some backroom in Chicago, putting together rules. This is a very kind of formal process to it. It takes a long time to do it — to do it right. And as I said, the more people that we can get involved in this, the greater the ownership will be. So that’s been our objective in the last two years, anyway.

Morgan:  Well, it sounds like we’re in safe hands. Good man! Much appreciated. 

Major Changes [21:41]

Morgan:  So let’s talk a little bit about a couple of the major rule changes in 2021, if you don’t mind. 

Mark:  Sure. 

Morgan:  Obviously, the standout ones that are getting a lot of buzz are the changes to the serve. Firstly, will be legal for the ball to contact the net as long as it still passes the kitchen line.

Mark:  Right. 

Morgan:  Tell me a little bit about what was the main sort of rationale behind that particular rule change? 

Mark:  It’s easy to take that one in isolation, but we have to look at what has happened over the last two years. So again, this is just an evolution of what we’ve been trying to do in the last two years. 

So the rules committee has three primary objectives. One is to maintain the integrity of the game. So if it doesn’t maintain the integrity of the game and we don’t have any business touching it. The second thing is what can we do to make sure that the game is either easy to learn, more fun to play. We take a very close look at what could we do in that realm. And then the third one, obviously, is whether or not we have conflicts between players and referees. So it doesn’t enhance the game very much or the player experience if we’ve got conflicts in the rules that causes conflicts on the court. So over the last two years, we’ve done a lot of things to kind of address those kinds of issues, and this is just the latest one. So what are we talking about? Alright, we’re talking about something that may very well and I’ll readily admit, and so as the rules committee readily admit, this may not be the biggest issue out there today, but we don’t want it to become one. 

Morgan:  Right.

Mark:  As the stakes in the game increase, and we can debate this, and I’m sure I’m not going to make both sides of this argument, as you can imagine. But the idea here is as the stakes in the game, get bigger, whether it’s the pros and the money in the game, or whether for the player at the 3.5 level, who’s vying for a golden ticket to Nationals, the stakes in the game are going up if you play in a tournament. And so, I don’t think anybody will disagree that sometimes our decision-making process gets clouded or changes as the stakes in the game go up. 

What am I talking about? I’m talking about, if you were up 10-2, that ball has one look — and you can look at the ball that lands and you can say, “Well, that ball is clearly in.”

Morgan:  Yeah.

Mark:  But if you’re a 10-9, guess what? That ball’s going to look different to you. Normal human behavior, right?

Morgan:  For sure. 

Mark:  Anyway, so this rule change was reflective of a very strong potential that could occur in the future where you get an ace on me as a server, right? There’s no recourse. That’s a replay. It could have been a match point service ace on your part. And I can just say, “Hey, sorry, it was a let.” 

Now, does it happen very often? No, it doesn’t. Thank goodness, because we have good sportsmanship in the game of Pickleball. But it was easy to see where that could become the conflict between players, and already had, quite frankly. Steve Paranto’s very clear on this. He said, “You know, this kind of stuff, it’s in the document, in the writeup, the change document.”

He said, “You know, this is already happening in our sport, unfortunately. This let serve change completely eliminates any such conflict, and just play the ball.” 

So that’s kind of the background behind that, is to eliminate conflicts between players and players, and players and referees, and to maintain the integrity of the game, so you can’t have inadvertent cheating, if you will. 

Morgan:  Yeah, for sure. And I think obviously it’s also going to speed up the game a little bit. I mean, it’s not going to be wild amounts, but it will speed things up slightly. And I think it’ll add an element of luck to the game as well. When it is a crucial moment and a good surf hits the net and pops up a little bit clear as the line, that’s something that could change the outcome of the game. But I think obviously it works for both sides, so it’s going to be a fun one to see. Some people, I think out there, are unaware that tennis has been doing this for quite some time. And I think it first started coming into play around 2013 as a kind of an experimental rule but now is adopted in a bunch of circles, typically not at the Wimbledon Final but I believe college tennis and a few other ITF sanctioned tennis bodies utilize it in professional tennis as well. So it’s not an isolated incident, so to speak. 

Mark:  Yeah, but you’re not going to hear me mention tennis. 

Morgan:  Fair enough. 

Mark:  As a chairman of the rules committee, I don’t talk about tennis and racquetball and badminton. I’m forbidden to talk about those sports because we have to create rules for our sport and I get hammered every time I mentioned another sport. You can do it. I’m going to let you do it.

Morgan:  Fair enough. 

Mark:  I’m not allowed.

Morgan:  I suppose everybody kind of looks to find something that they can relate to more.

Mark:  Exactly, it is normal. 

Morgan:  Tennis is the obvious one for Pickleball, but I understand that you don’t want to be seen as stepping on the shoulders of giants to make up the rules as you go along. It needs to be, you know, forging your own path and we appreciate that. 

So the other big rule change, obviously, is now the drop serve, the option for a player to be able to drop a ball unaided and contact the ball after it has bounced with some of the contact rules now being out of play specifically, I think that the idea that the paddle has to be coming on an upward motion at contact, is that correct?

Mark:  Correct. The three elements that we’ve all learned in Pickleball, in our serve is the upward arc at the point of contact, the paddle head can’t be above the wrist joint and the ball must be served below the waist. Those three elements of a serve don’t apply if one employs the drop serve. The drop serve is a voluntary rule, it’s an optional rule, it’s not a requirement. There’s some misinformation out there that the drop serve is replacing everybody’s normal serve, which is not the case. I think I just had an interesting email this morning where somebody was all open arms and didn’t realize it was optional. Forget everything I said in the last three emails. (laughs…) 

Morgan:  (laughs…) I don’t envy your inbox, I’ll tell you that. 

Mark:  Well, it’s been at least the last two weeks or so. 

Yeah, so the drop serve was really designed to make it easier for beginners. We often get — and there’s a real tension in rule space and rule crafting. Are we writing rules for just tournament players and pros? Or are we writing rules for rec players as well? And it’s a very valid criticism and very valid argument that a lot of rec players that don’t play tournaments have. These rules look like they’re mostly – we’re talkin about technical fouls and warnings and all that kind of stuff that don’t really apply to them. But this is a rule that was really generated to help the rec player because it’s extensively easier to learn if you drop the ball and then make a stroke just like any other groundstroke. Now, your normal forehand or backhand groundstroke can be used in a serve application, so you don’t have to learn a whole brand new way of hitting the ball out of your hands. It was really designed to be easier for beginners to learn how to serve.

Morgan:  Okay.

Mark:  But it’s also got elements of — it’s easier from a referee standpoint as well. We don’t have to look for all three of those elements, which I’ll admit, when you’re trying to look at all three elements at the same time, you’re trying to look at the feet placement of the server, that’s tough for a referee. You’ve got grasp all at one time, on a split second, because everything takes place at contact.

Morgan:  I’m sure you’ve tried to serve and have formed an opinion in terms of its effectiveness. Do you feel that it is something that tournament players will actually utilize? 

Mark:  That’s the real unknown here, right? And that’s why it’s a provisional serve. That means we’re going to take a look at this thing at least a year, if not earlier than that. If we start having some unintended consequences, we can turn this off pretty quickly. But I think it’s important to give it a fair shot, see what happens because, as I said from a beginner standpoint, it makes it easier to learn. And it’s also advantageous to those people who have [the hips]. I’ve seen this person, not me, but a very dear friend of mine had the hips. I said, “Hey, look, you know, in a couple of months, we’re going to have this drop serve. We have to try it.” 

And he’s like, “Woah! Can we do this now? Can I use this now?” 

I mean that’s a very limited sample set. There’s a lot of YouTube videos now being put together, and I’ve seen a couple of them out there, people trying this serve. Yeah, you can put a lot of spin on a server. You can make it move left and right. But, Morgan, you and I both know — you, personally can do that now. 

Morgan:  Yeah.

Mark:  If you’re accomplished enough if you’re a 4.0 level and above, and you probably see this all the time, you can put a sidespin on the ball.

Morgan:  Yeah, easily.

Mark:  It’s a little difficult to put backspin on the ball and hit it with an upward arc. But spinning is not going to be different because of there’ll be certain kinds of spins. If you can chop this thing with a backhand or forehand and make it stop on a dime, yeah that may change some elements of the game.

Morgan:  Yeah.

Mark:  What will be interesting to me as the accuracy, and it looks really cool on YouTube videos right now, but whether or not somebody is actually going to use it in a championship format, in a tournament — I don’t know. I don’t know whether the accuracy will be there. 

Morgan:  I’m going to give it a go and see what kind of changes I see in the effectiveness of it.

I’m curious. I think you’ve probably seen my particular serve at some point. 

Mark:  Sure.

Morgan:  It’s a ball toss that I’m clicking my fingers around the bowl, imparting a lot of topspin as the ball comes up, and then…

Mark:  Yeah, you’re very unique. I don’t know anybody who does it like you. 

Morgan:  Well, I’ve been trying to teach people, but it seems tricky. And this totally self-serving, but has that ever been a topic of conversation for future rule changes? Am I still going to do this for a while? Because I am basically a one-trick pony here, so if you take that away, then I’m in trouble. 

Mark:  No, no, no. You could still hit it out of your hand just like you’ve always done. There’s nothing in this rule that would invalidate what you’ve been doing – what you’ve done ever since.

Morgan:  For sure. Okay, and I didn’t think there was going to be in this one. I was just curious if ever it has come up in the committee conversation, the idea of throwing the bowl quite high and hitting it obviously before it bounces, whether I spin it or not.

Mark:  No. As long as when you make contact with the ball, all three of those elements are in place, you’re fine. If you toss it up and then you let it drop, you can’t use the drop serve. You’re still a 10-second clock. You’d have to pick the ball up.

Morgan:  Oh yes.

Mark:  You can’t use the drop serve if you throw it up.

Morgan:  Okay, so it’s all definitely unaided, but you can raise your hand as high as possible and drop it. 

Mark:  Yes. We can’t have Jeff Warnick drop it for you, but you can try. (chuckles…)

Morgan:  Fair enough. And I assume I can’t jump up in the air and then drop it to get a higher bounce, right? That would seem like a lot of work anyway, but…

Mark:  There’s nothing right now that says you can’t jump up in the air.

Morgan:  Okay.

Mark:  But I’ll tell you there’s a lot of margin because I’ve actually done some study. We did some engineering studies on this. We can say, “Look, when you drop this from an unaided height, there’s absolutely no way it will bounce above your waist as long as you’re standing.” Now, if you want to crouch down, you can stretch the limits there. But if you jump up, that’s an unaided height, you can see what you can get out of it. But for me to get into my waist, I had to drop it from 15 feet.

Morgan:  Oh, okay. Alright, well even Jeff Warnick’s not doing that. 

Mark:  Exactly, yeah. 

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Back Over to Mark [34:00]

Morgan:  So, one of the other rule changes I read that people may not be too worried about, the whole waist being classed as naval height is being removed, and now it’s just waist height to take away their ambiguity in terms of trying to figure out where everybody’s naval is.

Mark:  (laughs…) You’re the only person that’s picked up on this.I’m proud of you. Well done, Morgan! 

So that’s another one of those conflicts that was in the rules and created potential controversy between players or between players and referees. We said, “Why aren’t we doing this? Let’s just pick one and go with it,” so that’s we did. 

Morgan:  Good man! 

Alright, before I forget, you mentioned engineering and, the word around the campfire was that you were an officer in a nuclear submarine. And I think anyone who has ever watched that legendary documentary, The Hunt for Red October, looked at the late great Sean Connery and thought that man would make a hell of a Pickleball referee. Just out of interest… 

Mark:  Just his voice, his presence, right?

Morgan:  Right, no one would disagree with that man.

Just out ofinterest, when and where was this? 

Mark:  Oh, this is right out of college. Went on and had obviously some training I had to do. It took about a year but I arrived on my submarine in San Diego in December of ‘76 and stayed with it until January of 1980. But yeah, it was a USS permit. It was a fast-attack submarine. And to this day, I still have — I’m still in contact with my fellow junior officers on that submarine. It was a great kind of engineering, learning laboratory. We did a lot of fun things on that submarine — some I can talk about, some I can’t. Even when you’re a 22, 23-year-old, you’ve got responsibility for starting up a nuclear reactor. It’s pretty heavy stuff. 

Morgan:  Yeah.

Mark:  So it’s been touring around in the Pacific Ocean, looking for other submarines. It’s been fun.

Morgan:  Well, on that note, that completely skewed note, I want to thank you for your time and your service towards the sport. It’s been a pleasure.

Now, just before we part ways, if someone out there is listening and they are inspired to become a referee, I think we all agreed that the sport needs as many fantastic refs as we can get. How should someone go about becoming a certified ref? 

Mark:  Well, I’ll make it very easy. I’ve said this in several different forums, but we have a well-established series of referee trainers around the country. I’ll make it very easy. I know all of them – well, most of them, many of them personally. And so, if somebody wants to start down the referee path, all they have to do is send an email to me at my email address: mpeifer@usapickleball.org, and I’ll make sure – send me the email, tell me what state you live in, that’s important for me to get you in contact with the right trainer.

Morgan:  Okay.

Mark:  And take it from there. It will be a very straightforward process.

Morgan:  Beautiful! Well, that sounds easy. And fingers crossed that the game is back up in full flight. If for no other reason players get to see you doing your thing as best as possible. 

Mark:  Well, thanks, Morgan. Earlier I said and I mean it, we’re all waiting to see when you come back on the scene, it will be great to see again.

Mark:  Much appreciated, mate. I will do my best. Alright, Mark. Thank you again for your time. 

Mark:  My pleasure. 

Morgan:  Take care of yourself and stay safe. 

Mark:  Thanks! You too, Morgan!

Morgan:  Cheers, mate. Bye!

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Can You Tell Me? [38:10]

Morgan:  Did you ever fire a missile? Can you tell me? Could you tell me if you did?