Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: It has been a hot minute.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: It has.
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Holy moly.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: We are sorry, folks.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Oh, are we on already?
[00:00:09] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: In that case, let's do this.
I think actually we're a little bit behind the game.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: I think we are behind the game. Or the game's ahead of us.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Well, I don't. I guess that's a positive way of looking at it.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: But you know what? In sports, doesn't that happen sometimes? You.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: The game gets ahead of you, you just.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: You hit a wall.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: And sometimes, like what we call getting.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Old, or you just. Or you have an off day.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: I had a bad day.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: Had a bad day. It's not a song. Yeah.
And then. Cheer up, sleepy Jean.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: My wife's a little girl.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: We're not sad tonight.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Cheer up, sleepy Jean.
You'll get over it.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: I will. No, we just. We had tournament stuff. And then after tournament stuff was life stuff.
Well, and work. And then we just got behind.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: But we're back.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: We're back in the studio. It feels so good to be here again.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: It does.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: We're here earlier than normal, too. Like, the sun's out still and I'm like, it's normally. We're like, oh, crap, we gotta go rush over to the podcast today, People in the building. Yeah, yeah. It's like we walk in and it's already dark. It's dark outside, it's dark in here. And it's not only the time change, because we're not normally here till 9:00 at night. It's 7:00, so.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: Well, our building has a new security, so we have to leave earlier.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: They changed it to 11 for me.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Oh, that's nice.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Yes. And you never know, I might test that mark tonight because I have a big meeting tomorrow, so.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Right.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: We'll see how that goes. But I want to talk about the tournament that we just. That we just ran.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Okay, let's do.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: It was awesome. And I'm saying that as a guy who probably sounds like he's patting himself on the back.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: It was a team effort. We had.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: We had a huge crew of people, 75 plus people. When you really look at all the people that helped from a volunteer perspective.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Let'S tell everybody how big the tournament was so they can get some perspective.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: It was huge.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: It wasn't huge like PPA or.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: I mean, I think it rivals some apps, to be honest with you. 450 players in events that played on Saturday or Sunday.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: And it will be one of the largest tournaments in the state of India.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: It will be one of the top three.
The three that are the biggest every year are kind of the same, but it's the Hungry games, which is in November. It's greatest spectacle, which is in May coming up. And it's free. Fracas or fracas. I found out you can say it both ways. Which is in January, February. It's between the last playoff game and the Super Bowl. It's the weekend between those two things.
This year we couldn't do that because the facility we wanted to be in, we weren't sure if they were going to be open in time.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: Right. It was a brand new facility.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Yeah. We were at Pickler in Noblesville, Indiana.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: Beautiful.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Oh, just gorgeous. 19 quarts of pickleball.
All pickleball, I want to say, all the time. They're not. They're not open 24 7, but they are open like 6am to 11pm or something. Pretty.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Something like that.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Pretty healthy. I mean, you know, most people aren't going out at 2am to play pickleball.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: No.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: And if they are, it's probably not a sustainable model for a club to be open at that time. It's tough for.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Unless it's a keyless entry or something.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't think you give up night. I don't think you give up a real facility like with. With paddles and with clothing and all that stuff out front. For people with a key card, that's like a private court where they can't steal anything. You know what I'm saying?
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Anyway, like I said, at the risk of sound like I'm patting myself on the back. It's just when you're a tournament director, your concern is the experience of the players, or should be the experience of the players.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Mm. We've talked a lot about this.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And there's that stress. And that stress. And that stress. There's two stressors leading into the tournament.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Are there gonna be enough players? Am I gonna hit the numbers and are we gonna screw something up? Or have we already screwed something up and we'll. And will people have a good experience?
[00:04:14] Speaker B: What's funny is, I think going into the tournament, you had. We did a podcast on what it's like to be a tournament director.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: We did.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Yep. So now we're on that back end of it.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Explaining kind of how it. How it did go.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And there's still work to be done after the tournament is over.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: Right. For instance, 45 events had to have pictures posted with all the winners tagged and all that Kind of stuff. And you did digital frames.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: We do. We go a little above and beyond. We don't just post the picture, we post their names, the event, all of.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: That in a digital frame. So we get the sponsors some extra air time.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: My biggest fear going into the tournament, which I. I think I only share with maybe just you and now everybody. Now everyone's gonna get to hear it.
There's so many emails.
It's. I mean, it's like 7,000 plus emails, literally. I'm not making that number up. I've looked it up back and forth. Can I switch this? Can I do this? Can I get in? Can you get. I can't get to the system.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Can you help me get in all these things?
[00:05:21] Speaker A: A ton of freaking changes. So just for. Just for sake of changes, 525 people registered for the tournament. 527, I think.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: Only 450 played. And that means 77 people at minimum withdrew were on a waiting list. Not to mention all the. Of the 450, how many had changes? My partner's sick. My, this, that and the other. Okay. It's just a ton of stuff. And I'm not trying to blow it out of proportion because it'd be hard to. It's just a ton of stuff. Here's what maybe gets fear was that I missed somebody always. And that they were going to show up on Saturday morning ready to play, you know, men's doubles, 4.0, 50 plus or whatever.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: And I was gonna be like, I am full. My court, my teams are full. My. I got no wiggle room.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: That kind of happened.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: It didn't happen.
Not at all? Nope.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: I thought there was one person who thought they were registered or they were a substitute and they weren't in the system. So we had to get them in the system really fast.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: That was a guy who wasn't playing, but because of an injury, he was able to substitute in for the injured player.
So not my fear.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Not your fear.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: I mean, I want people to get hurt.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: There is still. No, of course not. But there was still some juggling that.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: Had to happen really fast. Juggling. And it happened to be in the first round. So we were able to take out the. The. The team that had started the tournament and put in a new team, which is effectively what it is when you change a partner.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: It's basically like. Like starting the event over again.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: Yeah. But if we'd been halfway through the round robin, like, we couldn't have done it because then it wouldn't have been legit you know, it wouldn't have been legit for all the. All the rankings of the teams going into the bracket, but it was a great success. We've never had this many comments about how well it was run, how smooth it was run. Now I'm sure there are things that we could have done better. I have my own list. I've been going through it over and over my head. Some people have given me some suggestions. I've appreciated those. So I always want to improve, but I feel like we are on the right path to continuing to do a better event. So I'm looking forward to seeing what Shannon does. Shannon Frederick in May. She always puts on a great show with the greatest spectacle. And then we're looking forward to doing Hungry Games again in November.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: We're excited.
Every time you do an event, whether it's a tournament or even a social or a league, you always learn. And what you've learned, you can apply. So, yeah, it helps to do more and more events.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: It's kind of like having a baby, though. When you're in the midst of it, you're like, no more.
And then after it's over, you're like, okay, maybe we'll have four more. That was. Everybody was well behaved. No, it was. It. We were very, very fortunate. There were not any serious injuries.
I will say one of the things that I do want to make sure we do next time is that we have a hydration drink. Yeah, we had a hydration drink at Hunger Games and we had very few hydration related cramping and whatever. Like cramping or a pulled.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: We had a couple, but not that many at this one either.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: Not.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: No, but it would help avoid.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: It would help avoid those little things.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: A big pickle juice station where people can just like shove their cup underneath.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: They always say pickle juice.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: Yeah, people love pickle juice for that. For cramping some. Yeah. I'm not saying everyone, everyone. I just said people fun.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: Like 5.0.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Shout out to one of the people that have given us a code. So use our code at 5.0. Get a discount.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: Yeah. No, Nice.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: Nice sneaking that ad in there, baby. Thank you.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: I'm very talented. No, the point is, we used 5.0 at the hungry Games.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: We did.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: And that was really, really helpful.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: And it was weird because it was like, this is raspberry and it was clear or like.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: It was clear. It was strawberry.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: And it was clear lemonade or something.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: And people were like, it's clear. Is that okay?
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Well, there's no food coloring.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: Close your eyes and taste it.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: I know. Well, it was kind of a cloudy color, and so people are like. I'm like, there's no food coloring. Yeah, so drink it. And.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: And then they were like, oh, yeah, that's pretty.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: And we're also used to having that stuff in our system.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Yeah. That red number 32 or whatever it is. Red number 4.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: Very visual.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Red number 7. I don't know what red number is.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Hey, it was awesome. So here's what I want to know. I want to know two things from our listeners. What gets you to sign up for a tournament?
[00:09:42] Speaker B: Ooh.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: What gets you to come back to that same tournament the next year?
[00:09:47] Speaker B: Should I give them, like.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: Nope.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: What I think.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: Well, yeah, but I don't want to give them. I don't want to. I want you guys to tell us. So if you see us in person, if you can jump onto, you know.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: Our Facebook or Instagram.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: Yes, definitely.
You know, it's. It's pretty easy to find sweet lobs. We have a Castos site that we have as well. Any of those would be awesome.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: Anyway, what gets you to go to a tournament? First of all, if you've never been to a tournament before, what gets you to go?
[00:10:16] Speaker B: My partner.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: That is so not helpful, because now I have to ask, what? Get your partner to go.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: People, like, people will are more likely to sign up if their partner wants, of course.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: But that's not the attraction model. Something has to attract one of the partners to the tournament.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: Yeah. What made you do it? The first time I wanted to play.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: In a tournament, I couldn't wait to compete. I just wanted to see what other players were like from other places. So I went down to Kentucky.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: What was your first tournament?
[00:10:46] Speaker A: Jessica and I went down to Kentucky with Monty and Cheryl McKinney.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: No way. When was that?
[00:10:56] Speaker A: The. January. One year after we had started playing. January, February. I forget what they called it. It was indoors, in a convention hall. On straight cement? No, with tape.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: And it was the best ever. Jessica and I took gold. I remember that Monty and I lost to a guy who calls himself the Victim.
His name is Gary. Just says his nickname. He calls himself the Victim. Everybody hits him. Everybody picks on him. He's joking. He's hilarious. A great, funny guy. And Monty and I lost to him to get into the bronze match.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: Okay, so your first tournament ever and you medaled.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: Gold medal. I didn't. Just metal. Incredible gold.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure it was 3.0. So for those of you who complain. That is silver or bronze. Just know that there's people like me out there who have gone to tournaments and never meddled. So just keep that in mind.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Yes. I mean, since we're going down this path, I've metal in three zero. Three, five, four zero and four. Five and five. Zero.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Well, let's not talk. Five doesn't even count.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: It doesn't really, but I got silver, so why wouldn't that count? In my world, that silver medal in five O counts.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Okay, whatever.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: The rest of them, you earned. The other one was like, you just.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: That's correct. I have survived one of two teams.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: You survived. You registered and you survived one of two teams.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: We got shoved in with a young pup.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: Pups.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: We were 0 and 8.5.0. We're on 8. And my partner and I just skedaddled when it was. When our last game was done. And the next day, the gal was like, hey, you guys forgot to get your medals yesterday. I was like. I looked over my shoulder like, who's she talking to? And she was like, you, you dummy. You guys got second place. And I was like, that's not possible.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: Wasn't even there.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: She's like, there was two of you there. There was only two teams in the 50 plus, and you guys were one of them, and you got. And the other team, I think, might have, like, taken bronze in the whole thing. They were that good?
[00:12:52] Speaker B: They were, yeah.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: I was like, give me that silver medal. I'll put that thing around my neck.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: Yeah. You wore it the rest of the day.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Heck, yeah. I'm not ashamed of having my 5.0silver, mostly because Luke Gibson didn't have one that tournament. I'm not sure he has one at all for five. Oh, but he might. Oh, he might. He meddled in four or five. He did. He played really well, candidly. A lot of the competition at that level. Some of them went up to play in the open because we gave, you know, it was a cash. There was cash prizes in the open tournament, but he had some tough competition. They got sober. Right. So I was pretty proud of him. He did good.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Yeah, me too.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. Did he get steamrolled in the gold medal match or did they play well? Do you have any idea?
[00:13:35] Speaker B: I have no idea, because I was at the front counter, so, yeah, I did not get much. That's funny. I. I mean, I got to see who got medals because I was taking the pictures, but I don't know much about the games.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Yeah. I didn't get to experience much of the games either, as you can imagine. I was kind of in our war room, which is the conference room.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: I call it the boardroom.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it looks like a boardroom, but we called it the war room for the tournament. I didn't even go up to the mezzanine. I don't think even once I did just to clean. But, man, what a great view from there. Yeah, you can watch, like, on one corner. You can watch, like, all but five courts.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: So it's pretty cool.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: Did we even say where the event was?
[00:14:18] Speaker A: We said it was at the Pickler in Noblesville.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: It's a neat design and great team there. I mean, the ownership team was all there. They were all represented. I mean, outside of Drew Brees and a guy named Jason, who I haven't.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: Met yet, which doesn't always happen. No, but that was a really nice thing.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Ron and Dave and Ben and Nicole and Aaron were all there. Katie was there. She's the manager of the facility. And they were just all so helpful.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: Yeah. The whole team.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: Yeah, it'd be. It was pretty awesome.
Anyway, I wasn't trying to go out back to my. Back to my two things. So what attracts people to a tournament? I. And I think you're onto something. It's not just partners. I think a lot of people will tell us. I don't really want to give them the answer.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: Yeah, don't give him the answer.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Um, and then what gets you coming back the next time? So what. You go ahead as a player, what would get you to come back the next year? What. What caused. From this year? What would cause you to go to your partner, hey, we're playing this again next year, right?
[00:15:21] Speaker B: Well, I think it. For me, it would be if I had fun the first time, even if I lost, if I had fun. And that goes back to player experience, which we've talked about in the past. And the other thing would be, man, I guess it would. It would have to do with.
If I felt like I could have done better and I wanted to come back and compete at a higher level.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: I like that.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: So I. You know, I'm not. I love to win. Don't get me wrong. I was a. An athlete growing up, but as I've aged, I haven't necessarily, you know, maintained that same level of competitiveness because, you know, life has given me different perspective on what's important. Not to say that if you want to win all the time, it's a bad thing. It's Just for me, personally, I enjoy having fun. I enjoy fitness and being active.
But if I was in a tournament and I was like, we were so close, whether it was to metal at all, or if it was, or if we could have. We thought we could have done better, it would. It'd be nice to have that second opportunity.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: I love what you said about how there's other priorities in life. Right now in my mind, hyperlinked way away from pickleball to. Yep, my hot tub is now priority.
When I was younger, I could have cared less. But now I'm like, man, I want to get in that thing every night and just. I like to fall asleep in it. If that was. If there was some safe way to do that.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: But they do have those chambers where you can fall asleep in, like, an egg. Have you seen those?
[00:17:04] Speaker A: No.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: Hi.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: I feel like if you go to sleep in an egg, you end up as brisket. No, no, It's a. Paul McKinney makes that great. All those great meats in his. His egg. He's the green egg.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: There's a spa here in town that has it. It. You basically emerge. You're, like, floating in salt water.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: So like Mork and Mindy type of an egg.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: It's supposed to be like a sensory deprivation type of thing where you can just be. And you're floating on salt water and it's warm and it's cozy. I mean, if you're claustrophobic, maybe not a good idea, but. But you just kind of feel safe and you can just think. You don't have to be distracted by anything else.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: Just think.
I'm just thinking.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: I haven't tried it yet. It's been on my list.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: It doesn't sound bad. I didn't expect to go there on this particular conversation, but I don't mind it either.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: I. I heard you fall asleep. It's like a really good nap.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: I mean. Yeah, that sounds wonderful.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: Honestly, if I could win a spa day at a tournament, I would probably register for more.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: So we. That's interesting.
At this last tournament, we had the ice plunge lady come. I forget the name of the business, but there was nobody that wanted to do it. And actually there were probably people that wanted to do it. It just was a little awkward.
There's 450 people around. Most of them probably won't come around the corner, but some of them might while you're doing the ice plunge. And I felt bad for her because I think she's got. People love the ice bath stuff these days, right? I have not got. I'm just a hot tub guy. I hope to get to the ice bath thing at some point in time, but right now I'm not very interested in that.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: I love cryotherapy. I'm quite sure if cold water would be.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: Yeah, it sounds worse.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: You probably would get in and maybe say some bad words. And if you're in front of everybody, that would be embarrassing.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: I mean, but you guys strip down your swimming suit or whatever and hop into this ice bath in front of everybody, then hop out into a towel, and you're like, I don't know how.
[00:19:01] Speaker B: Many people brought a swimsuit with them.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that was in the messages we sent out was, hey, if you want to, you know, okay, dunk yourself. But I. I think, you know, maybe like a mobile. If it was a mobile, like, you.
[00:19:15] Speaker B: Could go out to a trailer. Yes, that is a good idea.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: And then you go inside there. If it's like a blood bank, you know, you go inside of a. Of a blood mobile, you go inside of an ice mobile, and you do your plunge and ice mobile. Nobody can see it, and nobody. Whatever. And then on the back end, they're making shaved ice with, you know, two birds, one stuff. Two birds, one stone. Yeah, no, of course not.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: But it's not like wine, where you get to stomp on it.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: Oh, I don't mean that. I just mean from the ice or just ice.
You know what? That's probably a pretty good place to stop for today, because I don't even know where to go from there.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: We really took a different. What do they call it? Rabbit.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: Rabbit trail.
[00:19:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Going down a bunny hole or taking a rabbit trail or whatever. Whatever language you want to give it, it don't matter none to me. I will say this much, though.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: What's up?
[00:20:04] Speaker A: I love being back in the studio with you.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Me too.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: It is.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Let's never leave.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: Okay.
Let's just record the next 10 podcasts while we're right here. Right now.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: That's funny.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: Let's keep talking about Woody.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: We don't even know what we can talk about anything.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Well, let's talk about this. Tell your friends that we're ahead of.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: The game and so are you.
That's what I'm ahead now. I'm ahead of the game.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: I'm ahead of the game.
