The Mt Olive North Carolina Pickle Festival

The First Pickleball Event at The Mt. Olive North Carolina Pickle Festival

The first ever Pickleball Event of the 22nd Annual Mt. Olive Pickle Festival, Mount Olive, North Carolina, took place on Saturday, April 26, 2008. Competitors came from as far as Sebring Florida to take part in this fun event. Although the number of competitors was limited, interest in the game by spectators was high.

John Simpson, the ambassador for Charlotte, North Carolina, saw the natural tie in with pickleball and The Pickle Festival and convinced the organizers to host a pickleball tournament as part of the festivities. A portable net was set up on the street and the courts were marked off with chalk for the day. Experienced players from Crumpler, North Carolina, Sebring, Florida, and Charlotte, North Carolina put on a demonstration of the game for passers by.

Some younger spectators and volunteers joined in to learn the rules of the game and play with the experts. They enjoyed learning about the game and were given the name of the USAPA website to take back to their physical education teachers to promote the teaching of pickleball. A volunteer from the Mt. Olive Community College was also an observer and was given information about pickleball and the demonstration CD by John Simpson.

Although there were no real winners of the competition, participants in the mixed grouping received the “green” medal, a case of Mt. Olive Kosher Dill Spears compliments of the Mt. Olive Pickle Company.

John hopes with more promotion next year’s event will be even larger. He also wants more spectator involvement in the event next year. It seems such a natural that pickleball be part of the festivities.

Thanks to John for his efforts in getting the event going. It shows that with a little ingenuity pickleball can be played anywhere.

For more pictures click on this LINK: http://picasaweb.google.com/rwroswell/April272008?authkey=fg-rEXlVsE8

Submitted By:
Wayne Roswell
Ambassador, Sebring FL

New Website for Pickleball Players

Pickleball Success

We're pleased to inform you that our blog site -
www.pickleballsuccess.com - is up and running! Our intent
is to post articles on it that would be informational and
of value to you as pickleball players. It would be most
helpful to us if you would look at our site; check out all
of the links; and then give us some input via the comments
option following each article posted or the "contact us"
link.

Our book, "Drilling for Success in Pickleball", will be
available to ship, April 30th. The book - 70 pages in
color; 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 and signed by the authors - is $15.00
+ $5.00 (shipping and handling) plus $1.34 (Arizona sales
tax if applicable). The synopsis of the book is available
on our blog site. If you wish to purchase one, send a
check or money order to: Pickleball Enterprises
200 E. Southern Ave. #201
Apache Junction, AZ. 85219

We have, unfortunately, met some snags in putting in place
our downloadable book. There have been some technical
difficulties that we hope will be resolved soon. Once the
downloadable book is available, there will be a notice
posted on our blog site.

It is our hope that our expertise in the teaching of sports
can be of value to pickleball players. Thanks for your
support in this project.

Mary Littlewood
Sandy Stultz

Pickleball Takes Local Ambassadors Back to School

Coach Megan Leahy Brings Pickleball Demo to the Nancy Bartles Middle School in Tampa, Florida.

Local ambassadors Donna and Rich Donald of New Tampa Florida went back to school recently to teach pickleball to a group of middle school students. They assisted Megan Leahy a Physical Education Specialist at Nancy Bartles Middle School in Tampa Florida in introducing pickleball to her students. Donna and Rich invited Don Bass and Renee Glassman, local Pickleballers from Meadow Point II, Wesley Chapel, Florida to help with the demonstration.

They have described their experience in an excellent article. Please read about their "Back To School" experience.

Pickleball_Takes_Local_Ambassadors_Back_To_School.pdf

Congratulations to Ms Leahy for introducing the game of pickleball to her students. This is a life long sport the students can enjoy.

Hopefully, more ambassadors will be able to build on Donna and Rich's lead.

To see photographs of the students participating and enjoying this sessions, please click on the following link: http://picasaweb.google.com/rwroswell/NancyBartlesMiddleSchoolInTampaFlorida?authkey=PlW4t_g2jzw

Coach's Corner

The following section contains two articles in our series called Coach's Corner. Neal Nightingale has been able to line up some excellent contributors to this feature.

The following articles on "Pickleball Practice" and "Backhand Technique's" have been written by Gale Leach.

Her profile is provided below:

Gale H. Leach
Surprise, Arizona
Secretary, USAPA

Author of The Art of Pickleball which won the 2007 Arizona Book Award and will soon be available in its second edition
(Amazon.com, BN.com) -- $19.95

To do the articles justice, they are being published in their original format. The article "Pickleball Practice" is the first of the two. To open these excellent articles, click on the following links:

Backhand_Techniques.pdf
Pickleball_Practice.pdf

After reading these articles, I am sure you are going to want to purchase her book. Thanks Gale for your excellent contribution to our blog.

Mt. Olive Pickle Festival North Carolina

First Ever Pickleball Event - Mt. Olive Pickle Festival, Mt. Olive, North Carolina

Pickleball in a Pickle Festival - How Appropriate!

My name is John Simpson and I am the N.C. USAPA ambassador. I want to be sure all of you know that the Mt. Olive Pickle Festival is hosting its inaugural pickleball tournament. This edition is low key and will be an "open" doubles tournament, with teams of men, women and mixed all playing in a round robin format. The organizers are excited about their natural tie-in to pickleball and looking forward to expanding the tournament groupings in the future.

Update Information:

Where: East Main St (between Southern Bank buildings)
Mt Olive, North Carolina

When: Saturday, April 26, 2008 12noon to 3pm

Format: Open doubles (individual players will be paired together)

Cost: $5.00 per person
Pay in advance, or just show up and play!!!

To Register: Kevin.daniels@goldsboroymca.org
OR sign up at the Mt Olive Chamber Office!!!

For rules visit: www.usapa.org

Hosted by the
Goldsboro Family YMCA
www.goldsboroymca.org
pickleball.pdf

Coach's Corner

Coach's Corner

Coach’s Corner will be an extra special feature of this blog. We have some excellent pickleball coaches lined up to provide material for this special section of the site. Some of the writers will include George Brewer, Gale Leach, Mary Littlewood and our own Regional Ambassador, Neal Nighingale.

Mr. Pickleball, George Brewer, of The Villages, has written our first article in this series.

Coaching BY GEORGE

Every Wednesday afternoon I arrive at the pickleball courts a half hour before my weekly "coaching" class and prepare the courts for two (2)one hour sessions of intense pickleball instruction.

I take out my chalk and mark the courts with x’s, arrows, dots and dash’s. I draw broad/solid lines outlining exactly what part of the court each player is responsible to protect and the direction they are to move while on the court. When the players first arrive and see the chalked off courts, they are reluctant to even walk on the court much less play on them and are intrigued at what must be ahead of them. But, for the first time in their lives they are actually seeing the court. Their transformation has already begun.

Before play begins, I explain the markings and ask them to promise me they will play the way I ’ve asked them to for the next 45 minutes. No backhand shots are allowed. After honoring the 2-bounce rule they must never let the ball bounce again during the rally. Whenever possible, never play further than 2 feet from the non-volley zone line. When they return the serve from their baseline, they must be standing at their own NVZ line before their returned ball hit ’s their opponents court. I don’t just teach movement, I teach how, when and why to move.

Most important, they are taught to be a good partner. How to, and when to, communicate. How to play with a "lefty". How to reduce mistakes and create a distraction by just standing on the court in the proper position during serves and rallies.

If you ’re still awake after getting this far, you might be interested to know I have been asked to write more about coaching in future articles and I have accepted. Next time I plan to talk with you about what makes a good partner. I bet you know someone (other than you) who should be listening.



c u on d courts……. george brewer
Coaching%201%20by%20George%20Brewer.pdf

Joint Ambassadors - New Tampa, Florida

JOINT AMBASSADORS – NEW TAMPA, FLORIDA
RICH AND DONNA DONALD

Rich and I reside in MeadowPoint II in Wesley Chapel, Florida and work as a Team as Joint Ambassadors for the New Tampa area.

Like most people in Florida, we are from somewhere else. We were both born in upstate New York and relocated with our jobs to Florida in 1994 and have made this sunny State our home.

Actually, we should probably say that we have made this our “home base”.

We both retired in May of 2006, and with our best travel companion “Beau” (our 12 year old Beagle) we packed up our RV and…………………travelled head on into the world of Pickleball.

It was November of 2006, while camping in Wauchula, Florida at the Thousand Trails, Peace River Preserve when a fellow camper, a gentleman from Tennessee, after several days of trying, finally convinced us to ‘take a look at the game’. We left for the courts at 8:00 AM; the weather was cold and windy. Surely no-one would be playing this morning!! Men and woman in sweats and jackets and gloves filled the courts. As you can imagine, we were welcomed into the group and immediately hooked on the game. When we arrived at the campground we did not know a sole. At the end of two weeks, we had only just started to establish friendships with people across the country that loved, or would learn to love, the game of pickleball.

During the summer of 2007 we travelled in our RV from Florida to Michigan and back, stopping in several States along the way. With paddles in hand we headed from park to park in search of Pickleball players. It was at another Thousand Trails park, this one in Clermont, Florida that we met Dorie Diedrich. We were both in the adult lodge for Line Dancing that morning and this lady had on this blue shirt with pickleball paddles on the back and big letters reading USAPA. She had already met my husband on the courts the day before and she learned quickly that we were hungry for information about the sport. As the USAPA Ambassador from Canon City, Co., she provided us with more information and hooked us up with USAPA.

Almost everywhere we stopped that summer we found people to play with. If they didn’t already know the game we taught them. We must have taught close to 100 people that summer. As we headed toward New York state, we got on to the USAPA Website and found Jim Plotnik – the Regional Ambassador in Schenectady New York.

We were able to hook up with his group in Scotia, NY, and just by chance, Louise Barrette and Marcel Lemieux, the Ambassadors from Quebec, Canada were also visiting the area. Don’t laugh at this picture – this is what serious players look like after a few hours of play! We all shared our adventures and ideas for promoting the game.

Keeping in touch with our traveling pickleball friends we headed north and we all met in St. Clair, Michigan at yet another Thousand Trails Preserve. We recruited several new players and our playing group grew to over 35 players in the span of two weeks. It was here that we first learned that pickleball is played in the State’s Sr. Olympics. Two of the players we met in St. Clair played, and medaled, in the Michigan Sr. Olympics. One of them was Jean Mulder. We met up with Jean again later in Florida and introduced her to USAPA. She is now a local Ambassador in Holland, Michigan. Back in Florida a new RV park in Bowling Green hopes to have three courts completed in early 2009 and we hope to work with the staff there to promote the game with training, clinics or demos as needed.

When our travels brought us back home to Wesley Chapel, we had no where to play! From the USAPA website we found the KingsPoint Pickleball League just south of us in Sun City Center. Louann Dubendorf, the contact for the league, promotes this game more than anyone we know in the area and she immediately welcomed us into the League. Both of us often traveled 45 minutes one way several times a week to play. This league has become our extended pickleball family. With members from the league, Rich began entering several of the Florida Sr. Olympics and has successfully medaled in both the men’s and mixed doubles. During the winter of 2008 we were very busy and we worked with Louann to promote the game, to solicit new players and to set up some friendly competitions. Her timely Pickleball Jamborees and Wing Dings were events that provided fun for everyone with mix and mingle play as well as friendly challenges between the League and our RV pickleball players. These events drew the attention of Tampa’s local news station. In February, Charlie Belcher, a reporter for Fox 13, featured the KingsPoint Pickleball League and the game of pickleball on Good Day Tampa Bay, in a live segment called “Charlie's World”.

If you visit the Tampa area in Florida you need to hook up with the Kings Point Pickleball League. You can find Louann at http://www.gotpickleball.com/, along with pictures of the members, our tournament pictures and results, pictures of the group with Reporter, Charlie Belcher and other fun events.

MeadowPoint, in Wesley Chapel, is a large community, but we have not been as successful building a club at home as we have been on the road. The development has three tennis courts and we were able to get lines painted on one of them for our group to use. We taught 20 to 30 people how to play, and while the group of regular players is still very small, they try to play two or three times a week. One of the members of the group has bought paddles for his children as well, so we hope to gain some interest as a ‘family’ sport. Next on our agenda is to try and promote this game in our local schools, and our first opportunity is at the Bartles Middle School in Wesley Chapel where we will be providing information, and a demo of the game on April 17 to about 30 children.

Summer will probably find us on the road again to points north and west looking for new RV’ers ready to learn this great game, and we will also be visiting family. Our son and his family have heard all of our pickleball stories. They better get ready, because we’re bringing extra paddles for the whole family!!!

Summitted by:

Donna and Rich Donald
Ambassadors

New Tampa, FL

JOINT_AMBASSADORS2.doc

To Whom It May Concern

The blog for our South Atlantic Region is presently in the beginning stages of its development. We are presently gathering all types of information that will hopefully provide Pickleball players nationwide with information about what is going on in our South Atlantic Region.

Our region is blessed with a great group of Ambassadors. They have all worked very hard in the past, and are doing all they can do presently to promote our game. In the future, they will all be making major contributions to our blog.

Since this is a new blog, it is imperative that we give these people ample time to submit interesting and thought provoking information that we all will appreciate and be grateful for. I personally feel our new blog will be the biggest blessing to hit our South Atlantic Region since the beginning of Pickleball.

Therefore, it is without question, imperative that ALL communications from individuals in the future provide their name AND e-mail addresses When Sending in or asking for information. We do not want to be talking to a wall.

I suggest that new players and people new to the region check the USAPA national website for information about pickleball. A LINK to the national site has been posted on this blog. I ask for your patience until we can gather all the information we would like posted on this site. It is a "work in progress". Thanks.

Neal Nightingale
Regional Ambassador--South Atlantic Region

Florida Senior Games

Florida Senior Games State Championship

Richard Donald and Walter Kuehn compete in the Florida Senior Games. For more information on these games and how to qualify go to http://www.flasports.com/ - Link Senior Games.

This site provides excellent information on all the games included in this event, how to qualify, tournament rules and places to stay. For the real competitors in your club, this is a site they must visit.

Local Qualifying Senior Games

To find out about tournaments in your local area go to: http://www.flasports.com/page_seniorgames_localgames.shtml. This website provides information on all the qualifying tournaments for The Florida Senior Games. This site will assistant members of your club to find out about events occurring in their area or an area they may wish to visit in a different part of Florida. Again, make sure every member of your club has this site bookmarked on their computer.