The Pickle Jar
September 8 - 12
The rare early edition of The Pickle Jar. With 3 days of riding and 100 miles logged I am taking a recovery day before heading out for a weekend of some rides on new (to me) trails. After doing a bike inspection and before doing laundry I thought this would be a good time to "git 'er done". Let's roll on out to the Pickleverse and see what is happening.
Dink For Pink (State College YMCA) - There is still time and spaces open in the beginner and advance brackets for the Dink For Pink round robin charity event. DFP is scheduled for September 20, 2025. This a great opportunity to raise money for cancer programs and have some fun pickleball. You can find more information here.
Beginner Lessons (State College YMCA) - if you just got started playing or have a friend that wants to learn, State College YMCA is holding a beginner's clinic on September 26, 2025 from 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM. To register or obtain more information go to the link: SCAY Beginner Clinic.
Dink For Pink (Johnstown) - The Johnstown version of DFP will be on October 18 and 19 at the Westmont High School. This format for the top 3 teams is a bit different, they get cash prizes. If you subscribe to Pickleball Den you can tack registrations through the app now. It is still early but keep this one on your radar. More information is here.
Peaked? - In a recent report a sports industry group reported the growth of pickleball dropped from 45% to 17%. So people are asking, "Why?". One proposed reason was that the number of players have greatly outpaced the number courts available to play on. I was riding on Labor Day but I was advised that at its peak, Bernel Road Courts had over 50 people playing or waiting to play. To me, the lack of space seems to a reasonable speculation.
Wow - In a New York Times article a reporter (probably with some AI help) analyzed over 100,000 aerial photos of tennis courts from 7 years ago and compared them to current ones. It is estimated that 26,000 tennis courts were converted or now share double duty with pickleball. If you get a chance, give it a read. I tried to set you up with a link that gets you around the paywall but that exceeds my technical ability.
Holbrook Paddles - Thank you to everyone that took advantage of the Labor Day sale. For September, Saralee F. is my paddle proxy. She will have my demo paddle bag so check in with her if you want to test drive anything.
Tip Of The Week - Before I go on a ride I go to a great website that helps me plan my ride. The website is Ride With GPS . Besides helping me determine the length of my ride it also give me an elevation profile. Trust me when I say it is much more pleasant to ride uphill on the first half of the journey and downhill on the second half. In pickleball, like biking, it helps to have a plan. The simplest thing to do is before you even arrive at the court, pick one thing you want to work on. It might be getting deep returns and keeping the opponent back or being sharp with the cross court dinks. Try to incorporate some of that into your warm up, something more than 5 dinks and "let's play". When you start play look for opportunities to execute that plan. At the end of the session, evaluate yourself, just don't be too hard on yourself.
Thanks also to everyone that has donated to my fundraising efforts, the support many of you have shown is humbling. If anyone else wants to donate, just click on the banner beneath my signature. Have a great weekend and week and I eventually will be back on the courts. May not be able to sit down but I will be back. Peace.
C3 Sports: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A0B4BA5AA28AB9-58414498-copy
The Centre: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A0B4BA5AA28AB9-58414551-nvsc
Randy Hoffman