But beyond the competitive void that it fills for me and beyond the exercise benefits, I have discovered one very unexpected aspect of this sport that makes it truly the greatest sport on the planet.

That is the friendship and support system that this sport just seems to breed. Since day one, I have witnessed time after time, players supporting and rooting for each other. They go on the courts adversaries and come off the court friends. It is the most amazing thing I have ever seen.

Well, here are a couple of pictures that again show the true heart of why this sport is growing like wild.

A great friend of ours, Dave “Skip” Egbers, recently found out he had some prostate cancer to battle. So, just like he does on the court, he has attacked it with gusto and we believe he has beaten it into the ground.

To show support of Skip’s battle, a number of people are now wearing the VERY BRIGHT “Atta Boy Skip” tshirts.

Here is Dick Lewis, Rob Gartlan and Mike Bunke showing off their shirts for Skip. These guys and hundreds more like them, is why I love this sport.

Looking forward to seeing Skip back on the Northern Kentucky courts real soon.

I just posted the following reply to an article from the Racquet Network News and Info website.
Their article was saying that the new APike paddle should be allowed by the USAPA because better technology makes the sport better. Below was my posted reply. What is your opinion?

Dear RNNI,
Maybe technology change was good for squash and tennis. But keep in mind that Pickleball is currently the fastest growing participation sport in the US. And what is driving that participation growth is the simple fact that a lot more people are able to compete and feel like they can win because of the pickleball rules of play, plus the paddle and ball restrictions. Unlike other sports, pickleball was designed, and is a game of strategy and accuracy, rather than a game of power and speed. Since power and speed are played down, this creates a lot more interest because a lot more people are capable of competing. So I endorse whatever the governing body (USAPA) chooses to do as long as it is in the best interest of keeping the sport growing. Pickleball Rocks!

Brandon Hunter Grubbs was born December 29th to our oldest son Joshua and super wife Abby.  They reside in Fort Wayne, Indiana and love pickleball.  Brandon was a whopping 5lbs 4oz and 17 inches long.  He is doing great!

So now everyone will want to show off their little picklers too.  But that is absolutely ok.

Feel free to comment on this post with your newest pickleball player.  Or if you want to post a bunch of pictures of your mini pickleballer, you can do so at our sister blog PickleballNation.com .

Thanks for putting up with my proud public moment.  -Rocket

Well, I’m playing pickleball in Northern Kentucky one day and from two courts down I hear someone yell, “nice shot Emeril.”

Being new to this particular bunch of pickleball players, I thought I’d go meet this guy with the unusual name. So I ask my friend Jim to introduce me to Emeril.

“Oh” said Jim, “his name’s not really Emeril. We just call him that because he spends so much time in the kitchen.”

Since that day I’ve had the pleasure of playing against Emeril numerous times.
Turns out Fred, aka Emeril, is one of the nicest guys, but he does spend a good bit of time wandering across the non-volley line to put away many nice clean pickleball shots.

He doesn’t really need to, since he is a good player, but I guess old habits are just hard to break.

By the way, did you know you can wander into, and camp in the kitchen as long as you like, as long as you don’t volley the ball from there?

Many differing opinions on when you can and can’t be in the kitchen. Always a fun debate.

To join the kitchen discussion, head on over to PickleballNation.com .

Tom wanted to know if there was a less expensive place to buy the 2″ inch tape.

I imagine there are many others going through the same tempy pickleball court problem, so I decided to post my anwser to Tom below. Read on…

Tom, we get the same challenge here in Indiana. We’ll be moving indoors soon and buying the blue painters tape in bulk since we put down 3 courts in our elementary school gym. We had 20-25 people playing each night last winter and we anticipate that number will be bigger this year.

Home Depot carries a 6 pack of 2″ for $36.97 which gets your per roll price down to $6.16.

Now this may go against some of the pickleball purists out there, but we don’t use 2″ tape when we have to take it up after each session. Too expensive.

What we have found in our very extensive Brookville, Indiana pickleball player tracking research, is that the size of the lines don’t seem to matter to the recreational pickleball player.

They all seem to come back each week no matter what width line we go with.

So we generally go with the least expensive and quickest ways to get our tempy pickleball courts up and running.

Sometimes we use some of the existing basketball or volleyball lines which may make our non-volley area a couple inches smaller and sometimes our baselines might be up to 6 inches shorter than regulation. We just put a pickleball paddle in their hand and give them something that remotely resembles a court, and amazingly the people just keep coming back and bringing friends with them, so life is good.

Generally we use 1 1/2 ” painters tape which Home Depot carries in a 6 pack for $32.97 which gets you down to $5.50 and sometimes we even go down to 1″ which Home Depot has in a 9 pack for $31.97 ($3.55 per roll).

Keep up the good work in Eastern Wisconsin.

May your day be filled with Much Happiness, Great Health and Plenty of Pickleball.

Rocket

As I looked at the tournament results from this year’s event in Buckeye, Arizona, I couldn’t help but think how great this sport is.

Of course, pickleball is great on many levels, but it is very hard to beat the friends you can make through this wonderful sport.

Even though I’ve only been immersed in Pickleball for a relatively short time, this year’s list of medal winners was already scattered with many friends that I have made either through playing or promoting the sport.

Congratulations on a personal level to my new found medal winning friends, Al Hager, Lynn Carlson, Deb Arnold, Mark Friedenberg, Rob Gartlan and Don Walker.

Pickleball is as great as it is because of wonderful ambassadors like these guys.

Congratulations to all the medal winners and special kudos to all those volunteers who planned, promoted and ran this tremendous event.

If you want to see all the USAPA National Tournament Results.

In the meantime, I’m sure I’ll be meeting many more new friends at tournaments and events throughout the next 12 months.  Can’t wait to get started!

SEE EVERYONE AT THE BIG TOURNAMENT NEXT YEAR!

Hope your days are filled with much happiness, great health and plenty of pickleball.

- Rocket

That is the impression that everyone had of the 2nd Annual Middletown Ohio Open Senior Pickleball tournament.

Team Stanley along with Cheryl and Robbie put together a very professional feeling tournament atmosphere and pickleball paddles were flying everywhere.

If you have never been to the courts of the Middletown Pickleball Club, they are beautiful.  This weekend they were surrounded with food tents, banners and even an ice cream truck.  All put there to make this a great player experience and it worked.

It was a ton of fun along with a whole boatload of high performance pickleball matches.

Starting off the weekend was the men’s and women’s singles matches on Friday evening.

Tennis maven Robbie McClain took home the gold medal for the ladies, while Brookville, Indiana native Jeff Siebert captured the top prize for the men.

SIDE NOTE FROM ROCKET: I got knocked into the consolation bracket in the singles semifinals by my friend and doubles partner Jeff, but I did manage to win the consolation gold.  Very happy to get any type of hardware in return for all the pain of getting out of bed on Saturday morning.

Saturday was another perfect weather day for pickleball and it started with Ron and Deb Arnold winning the mixed doubles crown.  Around 1:30pm men and women’s doubles kicked off and the crowd was treated to a great afternoon of high quality pickleball.

After the proverbial dust had cleared, our great friend Kay Gallagher and her partner Robbie McClain claimed the Women’s Doubles Gold.

The day’s activities climaxed with the playing of the men’s double championship which was a rematch from the 2009 Indiana Senior Games.

Brookville, Indiana natives Rodney “Rocket” Grubbs and partner Jeff Siebert were able to reverse the outcome with a great three set gold medal victory over extremely talented veterans Al Hager and Lynn Carlson.  Taking the consolation gold were Dick Lewis and Rob Gartlan.

Thank you Middletown for a great weekend.

My hats off to you for another super tournament.

- Rocket

See all the Middletown Tournament Results Here

Actually it wasn’t much of a surprise at all.  We had already met a number of Middletown players at the Terre Haute Open and the Indiana Senior Games.  And Stanley Volken’s kindness and welcoming attitude is already well known here in the midwest.

We played on their six beautiful courts for almost three hours.

Everyone treated us great, except Tom and Kay who blitzed us in the first game as soon as we stepped out of the car    We were able to get them back in the next game and I imagine we will play the rubber match on our next trip.  And there will definitely be a next trip.  It was a boatload of fun.

Then two days later a carload of the Middletown Pickleball faithful, including Cheryl, Kerry, Tom and Kay  came to visit us at our new courts in Brookville.

We threw on a pot of hotdogs and some oldies music and had a great three hours of pickleball and socializing.

We are looking forward to attending the Middletown Pickleball Tournament on July 31 and August 1 and hoping to take a few new Brookville players with us.

I’m sure their tournament will be another great example of Pickleball ambassadorship at it’s finest.

Here is a quick link to download and print the Registration Form (deadline is July 25, so hurry and signup)

Can’t wait!

Hope to see you all there.

PauI and team did a fantastic job, first of all giving the players a true tournament feel, with food and drinks provided, along with sponsor’s paddles and clothing for sale.  You felt like you were at a major tournament.

Secondly, this was their first USAPA sanctioned tournament and I was amazed how smoothly it ran.  The tournament play itself was kept right on track all weekend.  Don’t know about Paul’s view but from a players perspective, it couldn’t have run smoother.

I wish I could name and thank everyone who individually made our stay so good.  Quite honestly it was everyone.

Thank you from the Grubbs family.  We will be back for more Terre Haute pickleball, but more importantly we will be back for the great people we met.   Thanks again.

See you all on the courts,

Rodney “Rocket” Grubbs

The Grubbs Family at the Terre Haute Pickleball Tournament

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