A favorite movie of mine is No Country For Old Men.  It has a number of memorable lines but for some reason one that has always stuck in my head is delivered when the sheriff relates a story to the wife of a man he is trying to track down.  It makes reference to a device used in slaughterhouses.  The wife asks why he told her the story and he responds, "I don't know ... my mind wanders".   With being out of commission from the carpal tunnel surgery (went well) I found my mind wandering especially in the morning when I normally play.  With frigid  temperatures their presence known, I thought about what was the coldest I have ever experienced.  Two episodes came to mind.  The first was sometime in the mid or late 80's.  It was a freakishly cold morning in December.  The temperature that morning was -15 degrees.  I bundled up and hustled out to my green Ford Maverick and discovered I had a flat tire.  This was before I joined AAA and I was going home for a couple days to do either an early or a late Christmas.  At the time I didn't have the seniority to get Christmas off unless it was my normal day off.  Fortunately I had a spare and there was no wind and the sun was out.  It was work a little, get in the car to warm up, work a little more, etc.  Fortunately no fingers or toes were lost.  By the way, the next day was 15 degrees and it felt like a heat wave.  The second episode was during a Penn State home game.  At the time I was in charge of traffic on University Drive from Hastings Road to Curtain Road.  Cold, rain and wind were the treats of  the day.  I think it may have been a Notre Dame game.  Traffic positions are the first ones out and often the last ones in for the day.  I am pretty sure I had at least the first phases of hypothermia.  By the end of day my mind was in a bit of a fog, shivering would come and go and it just ached to move.  I got home eventually and headed to the shower and took the longest warm shower in the history of the world perhaps, well I may be exaggerating there a bit.  As I said ... my mind wanders.  With great hopes for warmer temps next week, let's blast off to the Pickleverse.

1.    State College HS FBLA Club Tournament   There are still spaces for registration for this tournament on February 1st.  Here is the link to get more information and to register:  https://sites.google.com/scasd.org/fbla-pickleball-tournament/tournament-details  In addition to the tournament they are running a silent auction you can check out this link to see what they have offered: (keep checking back as they will be adding more prizes):  https://tinyurl.com/FBLA-Auction

2.    Pickleball Etiquette Refresher:  With some newer players now receiving the Pickle Jar I thought I would share what I thought was a very well done video discussing court etiquette.  It is also a good refresher for experienced players.  Take a look and let me know if you think he missed any.  I will add 1 - if a ball from another court rolls onto your court, don't just blindly kick it or throw it back to the originating court.  It may have come from two courts down and the court next to you is not expecting the ball to come across their court.  Identify one person to send the ball to or ground the ball behind the baseline of your court.  Here's the video: https://youtu.be/6qz-Sch2IqE?si=cVAZyZb7QBsJ7jZb

3.    Next Pickle Jar:  I will most likely post the next Pickle Jar on Saturday or Sunday to allow time to get tournament results and by then I should be off the opiates from carpal tunnel #2.

4.    Tip Of The Week:  A favorite phrase in pickleball is "down the middle, solves the riddle".  Unless you play with a specific partner a lot most teams stumble a bit on communicating as to which player will handle balls down the center of the court.  Allow me to propose the following.  Another old adage is the forehand always takes the balls in the middle.  Good advice - AT TIMES.  If the left side player is encroaching too far into the right side court they are  exposing a large piece of prime real estate for the opponents to target.  Having some balance in ball responsibility ups your ability to defend or attack better.  You may have heard players talking about "respect the X".  The concept is that balls that are traveling cross court should be handled by player most in line with the ball's flight path.  Cross court balls tend to pull the right side player away from the half of the court they need to defend and at times is more awkward to hit due to having to adjust for the angle.  To help clean this up a bit I created a sketch that hopefully demonstrates what I am talking about.  Discuss this option with your next partners.  Figure out how much encroachment you want to give to the left side player.  The hardest part may be when you are a step or two closer to the NVZ than your partner, having to trust them to clean up what cross court shots you allow to reach them.  Of course if you throw in a lefty, well that's a story for another day.

Here's looking forward to warmer temps and great pickleball this coming week.  The links for indoor play are below.  Have a great week.

The Centre:  https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A0B4BA5AA28AB9-54636371-nvsc

C3 Sports:  https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A0B4BA5AA28AB9-54636760-c3pickleball

Randy Hoffman

Holbrook PIckleball Ambassador

https://holbrookpickleball.com/

Discount Code = RANDYHOFFMAN

Bonus Pickle Jar Item

Posted 1/23
Ryan Myers, who is organizing the tournament at The Centre on February 1st, asked if I could share the following with you:

We are getting close to the 1st Annual "Lobbing for Leadership" tournament at Nittany Valley Sports Centre on Feb.1st. We already have a good amount of teams registered for a competitive tournament, but there is room for more! Deadline to enter is just over a week away (Jan. 29th). 

Play 

The goal is to have big brackets with lots of diverse players so we went with the open format. Teams can sign up as M/M, M/F or F/F in one of three divisions: novice (3.0), intermediate (3.5) and advanced (4.0+). Medals awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd in each division, plus best in class medals for each division. For example, if you were the top F/F team in intermediate, but finished in 6th place overall, you'd be recognized for your accomplishment with a best in class medal. Approximate times will be 8-10am for intermediate, 10-12pm for advanced, and 12-3pm for novice. $50/team. $30/individual looking for a team.

Special Features

The State High FBLA club is trying to involve our students in as many ways as possible. The winner's medals and logo keychain were designed and printed by David Ulmer, a 10th grade entrepreneur that started his own 3D printing business. Each player will get special sweet treats baked by the students in our culinary department. Also, we will have a school photographer on hand to get great photos of all of our teams in action which we will share out after the event. Not to mention the efforts put in by the rest of the club to plan this great event. All profits from the event will go to helping State High students hone their leadership and business skills. 

How to Participate

Register to play! It's been too cold to even think of playing outside, and a tournament is a good change of pace from your weekly routine. We also have a silent auction available here where you can bid on gift cards to local businesses, paddles, "barn bucks" and more. 

Thanks and we hope to see you there! 

~ Ryan Myers

State College pickleball enthusiast and advisor for State High's Future Business Leaders of America club

Sponsors

Thanks to our generous sponsors from the local community including one of our own from the pickleball community, James Bradley from Keller Williams Advantage Realty.