[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, welcome to the Sweet Lobs podcast. My name is Kevin Hough.
This is part two on our tournament director series, and I'm just going to jump right into an interview that sky does with Mike Gibson, one of the volunteers at this recent tournament. I'm ahead of the game.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: I'm ahead of the game.
[00:00:22] Speaker C: So our whole team is how to run a pickleball tournament. And when you have a non profit tournament, a fundraising tournament, you count on your volunteers to be able to help you. Everything from logistics to checking people in to running the matches. So tell us, how many tournaments have you helped with, do you know?
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Several. I mean, eight, nine, easily. Oh, easy.
[00:00:50] Speaker C: Maybe this last year.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:00:53] Speaker C: And you also play?
[00:00:55] Speaker B: I do.
[00:00:56] Speaker C: You've been on the side of the fence where you've had volunteers help you and you've been the volunteer that helps them. So what are some important things that somebody who wants to run a tournament needs to know?
That way they can know how to support their volunteers better.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: The one that's running the tournament, really, they require the volunteers. I mean, they need that help. The most important thing is making sure that the matches are in a continuous flow. You don't want a long sit down in between matches because that can get frustrating as a player, especially if you play the couple and then you're sitting for a half hour, 45 minutes. So making sure the matches are continuously going and moving, that's what I would say was the most important.
[00:01:46] Speaker C: And so as someone who's port side, you're often collecting scores. You're making sure the flow of play stays on time.
What are some other things that you see on court side?
[00:02:01] Speaker B: A lot of talking in between, you know, kind of keeping the players from, you know, chit chatting
[email protected]. when it's time to play in order just to keep the flow going. That's the biggest thing, I think, is just making sure that the players know it's okay to talk because it is a community, but we also need to be respectful of the time of the other players as well.
[00:02:27] Speaker C: Exactly. And so it also helps having a second eyes on that score.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:32] Speaker C: Because usually the winners report their score, but it is, it gives that, it gives those teams some accountability.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:02:44] Speaker C: So people know that are listening. This tournament in particular is also the Indiana state pickleball tournament. And gold medal, gold medal players have possibly the option to go straight to nationals, which is, I believe, going to be held in Dallas this year. So there's a lot more emotion, I would say, in this tournament.
And definitely a higher caliber of play than some of our other tournaments because of the possible outcome.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Right. And also being a podcast and because of that, emotions can run high. I mean, you really want to pay attention to making sure that if there's a couple players that are getting upset, you know, which will you get upset, you can make a couple back calls that really could turn the game. So, you know, just being that listening ear again today. I mean, the team, one of the teams wanted a, that they won the rest of the gold medal match and so we waited, you know, 15 minutes for that ref.
[00:03:53] Speaker C: Oh, wow.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: So, but try to be reasonable with the players, but also just making sure that, you know, again, that everybody's respecting.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Each other at this point. We lost the microphone that Mike was using and Skye was just about to thank him anyway. So thank you, Mike Gibson, for chiming in there. On the volunteer side, I'm going to shift now to a friend of mine named Justin Drake.
Justin is the president of the Omaha pickleball. I think it's association Omaha, Nebraska, and they have 1000 paying members. In fact, I'm heading out there in a couple weeks to play with them. So I'm totally excited to get to see what they're doing in Omaha, Nebraska and maybe bring some cool ideas back here to Madison county. So without any more delay, here comes my friend Justin.
Did you get into pickleball in Arizona?
[00:04:45] Speaker D: I did. I remember, grew up in a small town, western Nebraska, Kimmel, Nebraska, and we had, you know, your standard indoor introduction to racket sports thing. During the winter when we couldn't go outside, we did two weeks of pickleball, ping pong and badminton. And I remember all of a sudden I drove past an old tennis club that was by our house in Arizona. I looked, I'm like, are you kidding me? Is that pickleball? I loved it. I remember loving it when I was younger and, yeah, drove past and all of a sudden here we were, just asked if I could play. They said yeah, and here. Been playing for ten years now, give or take.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Wow, you're like an Og in the sport, I was gonna say.
[00:05:22] Speaker D: I feel like it sometimes, people asking like, I've only been playing for six months or two years. I'm like, yeah, it's like ten years for me.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: So, yeah, that's a, that's a hardcore OG. I've only been playing for six and a half years at this point, and even that is like dog years compared to some of the people that have played, you know, that I meet these days that have been playing for a month or a year or whatever.
[00:05:40] Speaker D: Yep.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: Did you play all through Covid?
[00:05:42] Speaker D: Oh, definitely. Yeah, we had a. We had a crew that would play at a. We had a guy that had a private courts and stuff in Colorado. So we go play at his house. And now in Omaha, I'm like half a mile from a guy that has. He moved his boat out of kind of a metal building. And so I. We play a lot and he set up a cord in there. It's like super nice and.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:06:00] Speaker D: Overlooks his pool with like a glass.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:06:03] Speaker D: Kind of a thing. It's. It's pretty amazing.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: So, yeah, that doesn't suck at all. All right, well, listen, inquiring minds want to know. This is the most important question. I'll pickleball. What level are you?
[00:06:12] Speaker D: I've won tournaments at four, five.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: All right.
I took silver and 50 men's 50 plus last weekend.
[00:06:21] Speaker D: Awesome. Congrats.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: There were two teams.
Even more importantly, I'm not a 50 player, but I had 1 hour left to sign up for the tournament because I found out I was not going to be in New York. I actually had about a day, so I threw a big thing out on Facebook. I was like, who wants to play in this tournament with me? You know, 50 plus mins. 50.
And nobody responded, which makes sense because none of us really are 50 players. And so I reached out to several people and I reached out to a buddy, Donovan. And I was like, come on, man, I'll pay for it. Like, let's go. And there's only one other team. So what's the worst that could happen? Well, the worst that could happen was they combined us with all the young pups as you know what that's like as a tournament director, which we're going to get into here in a second. And sure enough, you know, we got it handed to us eight times in a row during the round robin. We did get pickled one game, but we also scored four, four and five in our three best games. So I can't complain too much. So we didn't know we actually got a medal. We knew we weren't in the bracket round. So we went home, came back the next morning, and the TD was like, hey, I forgot to give you your medal from yesterday. And I was like, what?
Okay, quick side note. I shared that story with Justin because I've been wanting to share it anyway, and it felt like it was just easy to tell him that story. But it's my hilarious introduction to 5.0 and my exit from 5.0 pickleball as well. Back to Justin. Tournament director time. All right, so you're a tournament director. Not only that, let's go. Let's. Let's get a little bit of your pedigree here. So ten years of playing pickleball, you moved to Omaha when?
[00:07:57] Speaker D: Three years ago now.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: And when did you start the Omaha Pickleball association or whatever you call it?
[00:08:02] Speaker D: So I joined the board that it was a 501 C seven club that had been in place for like eight years at the time.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:08:09] Speaker D: At that time, I think it was maybe just barely had cracked 700 members already. I just saw a chance. Everything was still very manual when I, when I stepped in. I mean, it was bags of money for, like, the entry fees to get into, like, open play sessions and like, guys, we should probably go digital. I don't really know if I like $300 every single day, twice a day or sometimes three times a day, just laying out there on tables and.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:30] Speaker D: I can help with that. I can do that kind of stuff. Right. So what we, you know, when I joined immediately stepped in as just a regular board member and, you know, took them digital, basically. So I redid the website with a partner that does stuff called Sports carnival. Sports carnival.
So we did all that, got the processing going, helped set up a bunch of tournaments and leagues and things like that. And then as of last year, this time, pretty much about this time, the current president had stepped down due to health reasons. And so I raised my hand and was voted in as the president. And so now I'll be that for two more years starting here in July 1.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: So current president and membership is high.
[00:09:08] Speaker D: Total number members as of I looked this morning, it's 1060.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: Do they all pay to be members or are they like Facebook members?
[00:09:16] Speaker D: No, the 1060 is active paid members. So they pay dollar 25 a year to be a member of the club.
We are upping that, by the way. We're literally doubling it for this upcoming year just because we're. We have a lot of big projects coming up where we're trying to get additional courts, additional facilities, additional times, things like that.
And so we have two big projects that are coming up. One is to kind of redo some stuff at Prairie Lane, which is our current kind of home, if you will. It's a city court by the city of Omaha. And then there's another project there redoing a bunch of tennis courts called Churchich park, which is like a $1.3 million project, but there was a private donor and we only got asked to basically throw in about 30,000 as the club. So that's part of what we're covering with some of those fees and whatnot.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: What else do your members get as benefits? I'm very curious about this before we get to the TD part, because I think they do go hand in hand.
[00:10:03] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: So discounts at, like, Dick's sporting goods or anything?
[00:10:06] Speaker D: Well, we have discounts on, like, pickleball central. We have a bunch of folks that have now stepped up. So there's a new.
One of the new things that we pushed last year was kind of initiative. Ours was with the city. They obviously, they allow, like, banners and things like that to hang in, like, baseball fields. Right. They had never done that with a pickleball court or a tennis court, for that matter. And so we pushed them like, let's. Can we get on that agenda to be, you know, have a discussion? Can we get approval to do that? They did approve it about four months ago. We just signed on our 6th banner sponsor. The smallest for that is $2,000 for the season, which is May 1 to October 31. And the bigger ones, we have two big ones that we call our champion sponsors signed on. That's 10,000 a year for that same season. And they're allowed to basically put a banner up. And you can, you know, have all the fun QR codes or discounts or things like that because we want it to be mutually beneficial, obviously. So we allow them to track that and, you know, get some mutual benefit, and then we meet with them quarterly as kind of a, you know, state of the business. How are things looking? Are you getting business for that kind of thing? So it's been great so far.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Let's shift to tournaments for just a minute. You run some decent sized tournaments. To me, a decent sized tournament is probably 300 ish players. I would consider a small tournament, you know, to be under 100, and maybe a common tournament to be 100 to 300. I think about the time you hit 300. You really have to start focusing on, okay, what does the scheduling look like? Right. Space. How much space I have.
Tell me about. Tell me about just your thoughts in general on being a tournament director, and then we'll get into some more specifics. What's it like to be a TD, I guess is what I'm asking you.
[00:11:41] Speaker D: Yeah. From a high level. I mean, the tournament director role is interesting, especially.
It's always interesting to find out how many partners you need and how many hands you need helping at any one time. Right. I mean, the volunteers are a huge aspect. I think that's the biggest thing we've learned with this. I think I mentioned to you it's the second year we've done kind of what we call the Omaha and councillor pickleball showcase. Last year, I think it was just. We were barely under 300 participants. This year was like 353. We're hoping for continued growth next year.
There's so much that goes into it this year. We actually ended up hiring a. Gosh, I can't remember the guy's name. He's out of St. Louis, but he actually did all the programming for us.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: Oh, sweet. I want to do that. Yeah, I think it's awesome.
[00:12:23] Speaker D: Absolutely amazing. And obviously that's not that far from your neck of the woods, right? I mean, you could drive as much the other way and be in Indiana just as fast, probably.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:12:33] Speaker D: And I could totally get you his name. But he essentially just took a cut of every person that signed up. I can't remember if it was seven, seven to $10 maybe per player kind of a thing. But he. We didn't have to touch anything, like. So he handled all the. He used whatever software he used. It was like the. It text you as either the team captain or both members of the team. Hey, you're next on core 13, whatever it is. And he handled the whole day. We didn't have to touch it. Last year was much more manual. We tried to do it ourselves. It was not. It worked, but it just. It took too long. Like day one. There were so many learning curves and hurdles we had to get over that. It turned into a, hey, we're here till 1130 at night. Obviously, nobody wanted to do that. So there was a big change in, you know, like, we want that part to be smooth so that more the focus can be on the quality of play, the quality of the environment, that kind of thing. And so we learned a lot with that. That was great. That was great to have him available.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: Got it.
Biggest, biggest thrill about being a tournament director is what I think the energy.
[00:13:27] Speaker D: The energy of being the players show up, seeing everybody, you know, you see that mix of people that are there like an hour and a half before they even have a chance to start. They're on the court, they're warming up, they're stretching, they're doing this, and all of a sudden, then the game start. Then there's that next crew that comes in behind them, they're doing the same thing, and all of a sudden it's. And then there's that people that always show up late. You're like, how are you always late for everything? That's amazing.
But thank God you got here. And then all of a sudden, like just pandemonium. Just absolutely. Just loud and chaotic. And there's something about that. It's. It's that buzz, it's that energy. It's like. It's infectious. Like you want to be a part of it, right?
[00:13:59] Speaker A: We rock a DJ at our bigger tournaments. Do you rock a DJ at yours?
[00:14:03] Speaker D: We have a guy that is from Lincoln. He's kind of our guy. Like, hey, Eddie, we need some. We need some, you know, just infectious, make it happen kind of stuff. And he's like, I got you. An hour later, all of a sudden it's like just lights are going off, you're looking around going, what is happening right now?
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Biggest challenge as a tournament director?
[00:14:22] Speaker D: I think it's a few things, right? I mean when you start to look at the initial signup, getting people excited about it and wanting that to go as fast, as fast as possible, to be as full as possible, but also to want to provide the most value, right? I mean, yes, it's great that people get to play and show up, but there's something about, you know, I mean, like this last year compared to the year before for that big tournament, I was mentioning the Pitbull showcase. It's. We had so many more sponsors, we had so much more of a presence with all different industries and, you know, everything from sponsor prizes to, you know, door prizes to a bigger pool that players could kind of win things from.
So I think to me it's that like, look, anybody can put together a tournament with brackets and show up and do your thing and march through it, but like what feels different? What feels like it's got some value to it that players kind of look forward to that and they'll drive five, six, 7 hours, 8 hours, right. I mean we can pull people from like Minneapolis and things like that. That's what we're kind of trying to do next with our next big tournament is how do we get and ensure it's sanctioned first and foremost? Because that does a lot of that for you but have that feel like it's just, holy cow, look at all the sponsors coming and people just want to be there for that alone.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: What is your best advice for somebody who wants to run a tournament but maybe never has before?
[00:15:41] Speaker D: Ask a lot of questions of people that have done it before and get that feedback, I think that's invaluable. I mean every time we do this, we have kind of a. I don't know if I call it a consortium, but it's basically a group of folks that have either been a part of the club or a part of prior tournaments, whether they travel a lot and see a lot of tournaments and they understand, here's the things I like, here's the things, you know, that flow well, don't flow well. Here's the things that, you know, seem to line up well and trying to get that feedback and just trying to get as much as you can from an idea perspective and then narrow down as you want to for your tournament. But there's so much that can come from just one little, one little snippet from somebody and you're like, gosh, I didn't think about that. Thank you. Right. And all of a sudden you, you know, maybe took a lot of time off of what you're doing or maybe you set things up in a way that was a little more efficient. But like that, that's been so huge, it's just to rely on. The folks have seen this, done this.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Yeah, no question. I'm going to toss out what I think our best advice would be. Real quick, just for the pod. I don't know who created this idea. I'm not sure if you've heard of this idea. I learned it from the indie pickleball club years back called a pod captain. Are you familiar with a pod captain terminology? So what they did was they said, okay, we've got four men's doubles, ten teams. We're going to run a double round Robin. Well, round robin with five teams in this pool and five teams in that pool. What they did was they then assigned a pod captain to each of those pools. And that pod captain's job is to keep that pool of five teams on these two courts and keep them running until their entire round robin is done. That's good to do, rather than. Yeah, rather than the system where you don't know what court you're going to be on next, where you're going to go.
You got to watch for your texts and all that stuff. And what we found is that it compresses the amount of time it takes to get through the tournament. We can get more players through in a shorter amount of time. This podcast idea for people that haven't run a tournament before is fantastic.
[00:17:30] Speaker D: That's. That's a good idea on multiple fronts, I would think, too. It keeps the energy up about, I.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: Mean, you're seeing toy does the teams.
[00:17:36] Speaker D: You'Re playing and you're seeing all the things you wanted to see about, like, oh, so and so has that shot. Oh, I got to get ready for that. Right? And all of a sudden.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:17:43] Speaker D: 20 times in a row, you're like, all right, here we go.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: Here we go. Yes. And the fans know which course they can sit at and just watch. Their games have to get up and, like, carry bags and crap to this court. Like, the players don't have to carry their bags and crap. It's all just stationary. And then they just go poof. And they disappear when they're, when they're round robin. And bracket is done.
[00:18:01] Speaker D: Like that. Like that.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Quite brilliant. Any last words of advice for somebody who. I want to stick with somebody who has not yet run a tournament? Those that have run a tournament, we know that there's a lot of things to learn. So any other thoughts on what you would maybe suggest to people who have not run a tournament yet? I mean, for instance, like, use a software. To me, that's a no brainer. Use a software. My wife and I run tournaments where it was on posted paper, and I will never do that again. I would much rather pay the $5 per person, you know, to sign up on pickleball brackets or whatever then. And I like this idea of outsourcing to somebody to run the tournament for you. Most of ours are nonprofits, so they probably wouldn't do that just to keep the money in the nonprofit, but that's a good idea. What other ideas do you have, Justin, for people that would want to run a tournament?
[00:18:47] Speaker D: Yeah. Besides the software piece, I would say really focusing on recognition. I mean, there's so much that comes from that gratification of folks being able to see, you know, whether it's just for themselves to look at, you know, hey, we got second that tournament, or, hey, we got, you know, this. This prize to let others see what they did, what they were involved in. And there's something about not only the gratification and the pride factor, but I think there's so much that comes with the, you know, good for the game, keep the game expanding, keep that growth happening. That's so exciting right now in pickleball. It's not going to slow down anytime soon. And the more we continue to socialize the heck out of this, it's. The more it's just going to keep just ballooning, and that's a fun thing to be a part of, for sure.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: Brother Drake, I'll see you in a month.
[00:19:27] Speaker D: Hey, sounds amazing. Appreciate the.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it's good to see you. I'll be in touch over text. I can't. I want to tell people how we connect reconnected. I am shocked that we're talking today because I never, yesterday morning would have suspected that you and I would have been talking today. But yesterday I get this random text from you.
845 last night. 745 your time. Long time no talk. I can't read. Long time no talk. Hope all is good. Sweet lobs is great, man. I was like, what? My boy Justin's listening to this. He says, let me know if you ever need a guest. And I'm like, why would he want to be a guest on sweet lobs? That's what I'm thinking, bro.
I'm currently the president of Pickleball Omaha, and we have over 1000 active members in and around Omaha. And I'm like, well, let's get them on the podcast. So that's why we're recording you today. And I really appreciate your insight into tournament directing, bro.
[00:20:20] Speaker D: I appreciate it. Appreciate it. Happy to be a part of it. And, yeah, of course, we'll keep in touch.
[00:20:25] Speaker C: Thank you for sharing. It'll help a lot of people.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it definitely will.
And now let's continue with the most awkward version of a podcast on the Suite Labs pod so far.
I'm going to bring in our next guest, who we interviewed. Her name is Ginny Morgan. Jenny used to be the president at community sports and wellness and has really good insight into facilities and what you might look for in facilities if you're going to run a tournament. So here comes Ginny.
You have run that? I am aware of at least one racket facility, and we had multiple tournaments there. What do you think a tournament director needs to know when they're selecting a facility? Like, what are the things they should really be looking for?
[00:21:07] Speaker E: I think what we did well, so I would say look for something like this. What we did well was had a team that was taking care of the whole facility and so that the tournament director could come in and just focus on directing.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: Okay. Like, so trash.
[00:21:24] Speaker E: Trash.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: People coming in the front door reading.
[00:21:26] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: Food even.
[00:21:28] Speaker E: Yeah, absolutely. Food. Coach me along. Yes.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: Well, I don't know, because no food for sure.
[00:21:33] Speaker E: It's, you know, there was a food.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Truck at the last one. That's why. Well, kind of a food truck, but that's kind of why I'm asking. Because that TD brought in the food or arranged it.
[00:21:41] Speaker E: Yeah. Okay.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: But a facility that has food, that makes sense. Cause then the TD can just ignore it, right?
[00:21:46] Speaker E: So taking as much weight off of the tournament director, besides. So they just have to worry about their crews, their, what do you call it? Pod captains, things like that.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: What should you look for in the actual facility? Like in terms of just lighting, ambience, flooring, I don't want to put words in your mouth, all that kind of stuff.
[00:22:03] Speaker E: 100%.
I think the way community is laid out with great viewing, so good open spaces for viewing areas, for gathering. The tournament desk area is wide open.
I'd say viewing in the social aspect of it is just as important. So we always had people on court as well. So we had plenty of room on court. So, you know, players and those spectating. But the spectating area upstairs was great. The ambiance with the music, when they bring music, makes it more of a fun atmosphere.
Even the downstairs area, that's more of the prep and then warm up space, because we had a separate space that allowed players to warm up if they wanted to. Yeah, that was good.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: Those are. And look, that facility in the area is just flat out one of the best for pickleball tournaments. But maybe people listening to this don't have access to community sports and wellness.
Anything you would guide them on in terms of just have to haves. I mean. Cause here's mine, and I don't want to put. Again, I'm trying to put your words in your mouth. Here's mine. You have to have good surface.
[00:23:14] Speaker E: Absolutely.
[00:23:14] Speaker A: I don't necessarily even mean asphalt over cement or vice versa, or even in the right tournament, not a rubberized floor, whatever that type of flex flooring is over there. But I don't want a surface with cracks and pockmarks and balls popping all over the place. And so besides that, like, what do they have? What should they really be looking for in a court or in a facility?
[00:23:34] Speaker E: Well, I recently played in a tournament at a new facility, and I like to think I can move, but I actually hit the fence multiple times. So room around the courts is as important to me.
And then the lighting was a factor as well.
You know, if you can find a place that has good upward facing versus, you know. And so lighting surface, definitely. I mean, and now we're getting a little more spoiled to where lines aren't as planned on a line court versus a permanent court taped. Never thought I would be like, picky, but yes, so permanent with space around it, with. With good lights. And obviously the surface.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: I do want the best surface, the best net. I want it all. How about balls? Do you think that there's a preference there where, like, do you have a ball that you want to play with more often than not. Is there a certain brand?
[00:24:30] Speaker E: Well, I mean, in the beginning, I always said, oh, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. And now a couple years in and a couple tournaments in, I'm like, it matters. And I think for me, I mean, when we were out there playing today, the dura, the dark yellow made a difference. I used to laugh at people like, oh, come on. But, yeah, so I'm.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Yeah, we played with the yellow dura, and then we switched to the neon green dura, and you really can see it a lot differently. But it feels different.
[00:24:56] Speaker E: It does.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: Isn't that weird? Yeah, come on, Dura.
[00:24:58] Speaker E: Yeah.
Kevin, we both played up at Beer City.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: We did.
[00:25:05] Speaker E: What did you like about beer city tournament wise, facility wise? What did you not like?
[00:25:10] Speaker A: There are so on the, I want to call it the west side. There's, I think, four courts that are up against a fence, and right next to that fence are a bunch of trees. It gets a little tough later in the afternoon when the shadow of the trees is on the courts because it's white, dark, white, dark, white dark, or light dark, light, shadow, whatever. So when the ball travels through it, there's kind of like this depth perception thing that messes me up a bit.
But I don't care because I love beer city. I'm a big fan of Andrea. I just think she, she and the rest of the crew up there do such a phenomenal job.
Andrea, Coop, for those that don't know Coop, I love playing with you there. I think we've had a lot of fun, and we did really well last year. Doggone, we just, just let one slip at the very end. You were there, 18 2021 courts. I think normally, I think they paired it down to 18.
[00:25:57] Speaker E: Yep.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: They're in great shape.
[00:25:58] Speaker E: Yep.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: They're all permanent nets. Of course, that tournament, they're all refereed games, which I think is really cool.
I don't have any complaints.
[00:26:07] Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, it was difficult with the, they kept bringing out the leaf blowers.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:26:13] Speaker E: Quite a bit.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: That's true. We had a lot of leaves on the floor.
[00:26:15] Speaker E: Right up by.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:16] Speaker E: Like you said, the, I had problems in the morning the very first year we played there in the morning when the sun was coming from the opposite direction.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: Okay, but was it trees?
Yeah, I mean, it was just the angle. It was kind of the angle. Yeah.
[00:26:29] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:26:30] Speaker E: Okay. Yeah. But it could have been. It was my first tournament outside.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: We sucked it that year. We did much better last year.
[00:26:36] Speaker E: Yeah. We were one and done.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: Two and done. Yeah. Two and through. I think they call that one.
Okay. Any other thoughts on. On facilities?
[00:26:45] Speaker E: You know, from a facility director standpoint? I had fun because my goal was to learn and follow, so I just. I sat and listened so I can see the difference. Like, in tournaments, I would say Shannon puts a lot of extras into her.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:00] Speaker E: She makes it super fun.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: Got that touch.
[00:27:03] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. And so from the, you know, drinking with the milk bottle and kissing the bricks and just that little bit of extra makes you really want to be in the winner circle. Yep.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: Calling us our pit crew, that are the people they're helping her on.
[00:27:13] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. And she does a good job taking care of her helpers.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Well, let's shift to the player side. We kind of did a little bit on Beer City, which actually leads into the first question I really want to ask you because Beer City is known as, like the biggest party tournament that everyone wants to be at. And this year they went to a different system. So this year was a lottery system, really. In the past it's been first one in, but. But it would sell out in like eleven minutes. Right. For a thousand spots.
But I'm going to say this, and I mean no disrespect to Andrea Coop, because again, I love what they do up there. And I think it is. It's the tournament of the year I want to be at. It really is. But the funny thing is, I don't think I have any more fun there than I have at a few of the other tournaments that I go to. But it's got this mystique to it.
[00:28:00] Speaker E: Yep.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: How does a TD get a mystique, like, as a player?
What is it you're looking for that we could tell a TD if this is there. Like I want to be there.
[00:28:08] Speaker E: Well, I think they pull the pros in.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: That's a big deal. And this year it's an MLP tournament. Yeah.
[00:28:14] Speaker E: Oh, really?
[00:28:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:28:17] Speaker E: So that's it. So you're mingling and you're.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: That's a good point.
[00:28:20] Speaker E: So the pros are there. You want to be there where the better players are. You want to be and you want to watch. So I think that was good. I love the little retail section.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: Yeah. The whole square, like in the middle where all the tents are and the. Yep, there's beer.
[00:28:33] Speaker E: There's beer. I've never used my beer ticket.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: I probably. Is it Brian that used your beer ticket or me?
[00:28:40] Speaker E: I think it was.
[00:28:42] Speaker A: I might have used your beer ticket.
[00:28:43] Speaker E: So I think that having that little hook, like, that's a fun hook. It's beer City, you know?
[00:28:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:47] Speaker E: Thinking about doing one in Muncie, and I've already got some ideas of what's the hook. So I think having a good hook.
[00:28:52] Speaker A: I mean, what's Muncie known as? Ball City?
[00:28:54] Speaker E: Well, I mean, Ball Jar city. Ball Jar Ball Corporation is from there. And guess what? You know what? Every year they do a pickling event in the summer, like, where the actual bring people in and teach you how to.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: And so what else do you look for in a tournament as a player? What's gonna cause you to sign up?
[00:29:12] Speaker E: When my partner, Kevin Hubbs says, come on, we're signing.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: That's a part of it, I'm sure.
[00:29:16] Speaker E: Gosh, that's a good one.
I knew I didn't want to miss Shannon's. And I would say again, it's the fun and atmosphere and the community around it, and we've been doing it for a few years. So you get to see people from. I would say it's a good draw from across the state that comes in. So getting to see, I know when the people from southern Indiana aren't there and I'm like, dang, where are they? Yeah. Yeah.
[00:29:42] Speaker A: Last words.
[00:29:43] Speaker E: I kind of like the give back a little bit as well. And so the fact that they pair the organization to donate some money to with that. So a charity event. So you're not just, you know, it's.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: Not other than like regional tournaments, right? PPA and app tournaments.
I think every tournament we play in probably goes to some cause. Yeah, it might be getting courts in the area like we've done in Columbus or maybe even at Lafayette. Yeah, actually, I think so. Just about every tournament we played in has been a benefit. That's cool. I didn't think about that.
[00:30:19] Speaker E: Got you on one.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: You did. Thanks, Jenny.
Thanks for the games this morning, too.
[00:30:24] Speaker E: That was fun. Yeah.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: Thanks for letting us beat you. Those last two.
[00:30:29] Speaker E: No comment.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: Bye.
Okay, candidly, I've listened to this podcast before I publish it, and it is rough, so I think that will be the title of it. I wish sky was here with me to wrap this thing up. But we thank you all for listening. We love you. We're so grateful. Like subscribe all those things. Share. Have a good one. Everybody go play some pickleball.
