Archive for "Pickleball"
Ladies Round Robin
Posted on May 10, 2022 by Ching under Pickleball.
Here are some pictures from the ladies’ round robin at Riverside Tennis Center last month. It was a huge day for women’s pickleball. Amanda Cervantes and Lacy Waugh had 16 ladies playing a round robin outside while Noi Sourinthone and I had 12 ladies playing in a round robin inside. I continue to be amazed at how much pickleball has grown in our city. It’s amazing that we have 28 competitive female players all available to play on the same day/time. I love that there is never a shortage of awesome players in our city.
Here’s a highlight video I put together.
You can find more videos here. Later that night, Brian and I went to River City Brewery to meet some friends to celebrate Jay’s birthday and we ran into the ladies from Oklahoma who played in Amanda and Lacy’s round robin. These women are so fun and it’s always great to see them, even if just in passing.
Anyway, that is all for now. Until next post. GNG.
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It’s a Big Dill 2022
Posted on May 2, 2022 by Ching under Events, Pickleball.
Here are some video highlights from the It’s a Big Dill pickleball tournament at the Wichita Country Club benefitting the Wichita Children’s Home (WCH) last month.
It is my second time helping with this tournament and my first year of being fully immersed in it, from start to finish. I even volunteered for the kick off party on Friday. It was great because I got to see my friend Misty Miller who I have not seen in a long time. She is an avid volunteer for WCH events.
I teamed up with my friend Jody Vinson to run the tournament along with Wichita Country Club staff members Michael and Bryce. Unlike last year, we ran right on schedule. We had four divisions start at 9 AM and we ended shortly before 2 PM. In fact, Brian and I left after helping with tear down and, when I looked at the clock on his dashboard as we were pulling out of the parking lot, the clock read 2:01 PM. We could not have planned it better!
It feels so rewarding to be part of a successful event that makes a difference for the community. I still hope someday I will actually be able to play but, for the time being, I’m happy with helping put the tournament together.
Until next time, GNG.
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Women’s Doubles Round Robin at WSU
Posted on April 14, 2022 by Ching under Pickleball.
Below are some fun pictures from a women’s doubles round robin that I organized at Wichita State University a couple of weeks ago. Karen wanted to get some practice with Vickie and Erica and I wanted to practice as well. We opened the session up to other female players to get variety. It was windy but we had a great time. Here’s a short clip.
- The teams that participated were:
- Ching and Erica Lopez
- Karen Fox and Vickie Hancock
- Kimberly Howe and MariAnn Heeren
- Patti Mackey and Sveta Yakubovich
- Amy Poynter and Ann Rai
- Angela Farris and Tina Heinrich
- Becky Middleton and Huyen Nguyen
There’s not many days that are not windy here in Kansas so you just have to do the best you can. We had a great time anyway. Can’t wait to do it again.
Until next time, GNG.
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My Friend Chris Wilson
Posted on April 12, 2022 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
I attended a safety meeting at one of our service locations last week and ran into my friend Chris Wilson. I met Chris through pickleball and played with him for months (yes, MONTHS) before I realized that we both worked for the same company. Of course, we were working at different locations so we never ran into one another.
It wasn’t until another pickleball friend (Paul Haas), who worked for the same company, retired that I found out Chris worked at Evergy also. I was looking for someone to play pickleball with me for the Wichita Corporate Challenge and I asked Paul to play because I knew of his Evergy connection, having recently celebrated his retirement. However, Paul was like, “Why don’t you ask Chris? He still works for Evergy.” That’s how I found out. I totally had no idea we were employed by the same company until then. But then, I guess that’s what happens when your company employs over 5,000 people. You don’t really know anyone.
Anyway, Chris has been my “go to” guy for anything pickleball-related that the company sponsors. Evergy chose not to participate in the Wichita Corporate Challenge last year but, had we participated, I would have asked Chris to play with me. With the increasing popularity of the sport, more and more people are work are getting into pickleball so I guess we might have to do tryouts next time. But, back when I first discovered pickleball, I only knew of Chris and Paul and me.
When I first discovered pickleball, Paul and Chris had already been playing a long while. I was a beginner playing at West YMCA when I found Paul’s church on the West side of town — a super secret place to play pickleball that’s not even listed on Playtime Scheduler. It was my first time there and everyone knew I was not any good but they were nice enough and let me play anyway. On my very first game, they paired me with “the best guy there” — because that’s what you do with the worst player, in order to make the games more fair — and that was literally my introduction to Chris. For a long time, he was the best player I knew.
Shortly after (I’m still very much a beginner) he asked me to play in a tournament with him. It happened to be the Senior Games. At the time, I couldn’t decide if I should be flattered that he felt I was good enough to play with him or if I should be offended that he thought I was old enough to play in “senior” events.
Once I had a bit more experience, we did end up playing in some tournaments together — both sanctioned and unsanctioned — besides just the Wichita Corporate Challenge and charity tournaments. We even teamed up for Middle States Regionals. Although, it wasn’t longer after that when I got benched. Chris decided he needed a more “age appropriate” partner. By age appropriate, I mean someone who could play in 50+ events with him.
The bigger tournaments have both age and skill divisions such as 19+, 35+, 50+ and so forth. I guess he was tired of playing 35+ with me, specially when he could do so much better in 50+ events. To be fair to all competitors, players can play down in age but they can’t play up so I could not play 50+ with him. If we played together, he would have to play down to 35+ with me. It really didn’t make any sense when there were several 50+ players he could team up with.
The dissolution of our partnership was an amicable one and it actually proved beneficial to me because it gave me the opportunity to play with some higher level mixed doubles partners. It’s great to have a “young buck” with young legs to play with in younger age groups. Anyway, despite having divorced each other, Chris and I still team up from time to time for events like the Picklepalooza. And maybe the Wichita Corporate Challenge again this year (if there aren’t any other employees who want to represent our company).
Even though we have both moved on and are playing with different partners competitively (we actually had to face off against each other not too long ago in the Oak Tree tournament in Edmond), Chris is still one of may favorite pickleball players to play with and against. He’s good people and I am grateful that he has been part of my pickleball journey.
Until next time, GNG.
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Raising Money for LLS
Posted on March 21, 2022 by Ching under Community, Events, Pickleball.
The pickleball community came together for a great cause earlier this month. On March 6, LLS Students of the Year candidate Josie Morris hosted a pickleball tournament at Chicken N Pickle to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. As you can tell from this short video, everyone had a great time and the tournament was a huge success!
I am pretty sure Chris Heck had the most fun out of everyone. He was drinking the entire time! I don’t think there was ever a moment that he didn’t have a beer in his hand. Actually, he wasn’t playing with beer in hand (that’s a totally different pickleball tournament) but his drink was always close by so he could take a drink every couple of points.
The funny thing is, he wasn’t even supposed to play with me. I had signed up for Noi Sourinthone, my friend from Tennessee who recently moved to Wichita run pickleball programs for the city, and I to play together. However, he ended up having to fly back to Tennessee for a funeral the weekend of the tournament so he had Chris take his spot.
It worked out great that we already had matching shirts. Karen thought I had them made special but they are actually shirts we had from 2020. In fact, they are so old that rule #2 on the back is now wrong and needs to be revised.
Chris and I ended up winning the tournament. Chris is one of the best players in Wichita so the outcome wasn’t a surprise. I think it would have been more of a shock if we didn’t win. Although, I think the result would have been the same had Noi been able to play. Being new in town, he hasn’t met everyone and they have no idea what an amazing pickleball player he is.
Besides raising money for LLS, my main goal that day was not to let Noi down. I was goofing around mostly and almost messed it up. Thankfully, I had a great partner and we ended up taking first place and earning a couple of gift cards to 6S Steakhouse donated by our friend Jen Reifschneider, who is the executive chef at the restaurant. You’ll probably remember her as the old executive chef at Woodfire Grille at the Kansas Star Casino.
Last night, a bunch of us got together for dinner at 6S to support Jen’s restaurant and also so Chris and I could use our gift cards. However, Chris forgot to bring his gift card so I guess we’ll just have to go back. LOL.
6S is a special occasion sort of place but, if you go during “first call” from 4:30 to 6:00 pm when they have $5 drinks and $8 appetizers, you can actually get out of there without spending too much. I might have to take Brian there on a date another night soon. Until then, GNG.
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