Great Lakes 'Deli-Fresh' Pickleball Games!

Dear USAPA Board Members, Ambassadors, and Pickleball Players,

I extend my humble appreciation for being the recipient of the first USAPA Great Lakes Region Pickleball Pioneer Award. It is a great honor. Giving honor where honor is due, this distinction truly belongs to Dick Manasseri.

MI Pickleball Players consider Dick Manasseri and Pat Sullivan the man and woman that most dramatically impacted the growth and development of the sport in our Region. Pat Sullivan first taught SE Michigan Picklers the game as we know and love it. Dick is the Pickleball Pioneer brilliantly and selflessly forging forward to provide high quality Great Lakes Pickleball events.

The great word of Great Lakes Pickleball is: "collaboration"! USAPA Board Members, Ambassadors and Players across the Region are investing their time, talents, and energy to grow PICKLEBALL! I'm ever thankful to be the recipient of Great Lakes 'Deli-Fresh' Pickleball games! Thank you for the PoP! POp!

My favorite pickle is deli-fresh and a little crunchy.

http://mipickleball.usapa.org/2008/09/grandma-found-her-game.html

What's your favorite pickle!?!

Yours in pickleball, Janet Razz

*** READ MORE ***

Mid-South Region Pickleball Pioneer Maureen Armstrong

http://midsouth.usapa.org/Home/pioneer

Pickleball Ambassadors

The USAPA Great Lakes Region Welcomes Five New Ambassadors

• Shalda Nelson - Rockford, IL


• Rodd Buttars - Indianapolis, IN


• Tom Hyldahl - Jackson, MI


• Jerry D. Hartman - Mt. Pleasant, MI


• Tracey Thompson - St. Cloud, MN

"Ambassadors promote the sport of pickleball and the USAPA in the Local Area that they have chosen to represent." If you have a question about playing or promoting PICKLEBALL, your local area USAPA Ambassador will be happy to help you.

USAPA Local Ambassador Directory

Stanley Volkens Courts at Leffersion Park, Middletown, Ohio

Pickleball’s fun, but stay out of the kitchen
Sport keeps writer and fellow players on their toes.

By John Bombatch

“Oh, watch out! You need to stay out of the kitchen!” my partner, Linda Laymon shouted to me. I just looked back in confusion. It was hot outside, but I was nowhere near a kitchen.

Laymon, a veteran Pickleball player from Surprise, Ariz., was enjoying some court time with me and more than 21 other Pickleball enthusiasts Friday, June 26, on the Stanley Volkens Courts at Lefferson Park. She and several other players, including Middletown’s founding father Volkens himself, were showing me the ropes on how to play the game.

Pickleball is played on a badminton-sized court, with wooden paddles and a projectile similar to a whiffle ball. The net is roughly tennis-court height, but you can only charge the net if the ball bounces first in what the Middletown players refer to as “the kitchen,” a 7-foot zone in front of the net on either side.
Only the serving team can score a point, and the game is usually played to 11.

Middletown’s Cheryl Wyatt, a recent gold, silver and bronze medalist at the June 13 Indiana Senior Games explained how tournaments sometimes go to a higher number. But I forget what that number was. I was still trying to figure out how to stay out of the kitchen.

In doubles, you get two tries at serving: one yourself and one by your partner. Control of serve goes the other way after the receiving team hits a winner after the second person’s serve.

I played three games in all, with the likes of Laymon, Wyatt, Middletown silver medalist tandem Robbie McClain and Kay Gallagher, Larry Chicovani and Martin Mathers and made friends with them, Rhea Fraley and Volkens himself.

Never won a single match, but Laymon and I came close. We were playing McClain and Gallagher and were making quite a rally. At one point we battled back from 10-2 to make it 10-9, and I had a chance to bash the whiffle ball home to tie the match. The smash was beautiful, straight and true, but when I looked down, I quickly realized my mistake. Once again, I burned my teammate by standing in the kitchen.

Pickleball is played on the Volkens Courts at 6 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and from 8 to 11 a.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. “Everyone’s invited to come out and play,” Volkens said.

Middletown Journal http://www.middletownjournal.com/

More Pickleball Ohio Style! Middletown Pickleball Club Tournament Registration Form

2nd Annual Senior 50+ Pickleball Tournament

Lefferson Park, 2201 S Breiel Blvd, Middletown, Ohio 45044

July 31st at 6PM Men's and Women's Singles

August 1st at 8AM Mixed Doubles followed by Men's and Women's Doubles

The Registration form for the Middletown Pickleball Club Tournament is found here: http://www.usapa.org/file/oh/2009_0731_middletown.pdf

Registration required by July 25th

Fee: $15 for one event, includes T Shirt & snacks, $5 for each additional event.

For more information call or email Cheryl Wyatt (937) 776-4489 or (480) 298-0911 or cwyatt@middletowncityschools.com

USA Pickleball Association Rules will be used. Click here for a complete updated FREE copy of the USAPA Official Tournament Rulebook: http://usapa.org/officialrules/

Dayton Daily Reports on Troy, Ohio Pickleball Tournament

Dayton Daily News

June 25, 2009
Troy, Ohio

Pickleball Tournament attracts fans and players!

The Troy Strawberry Festival’s first pickleball tournament brought fans and players to Duke Park on June 6. The event saw 86 players gather to compete in four divisions:

• men younger than 40
• men 50 and older
• mixed 50 and older
• women 50 and older.

Tournament organizers allowed play in the winners bracket and losers bracket. Play began before 10 a.m. and finished after 7 p.m. The tournament opening ceremonies saw Lois Wright, local senior member at 90, serve the first volley.

---

See the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners on the USA Pickleball Association Strawberry Festival Pickleball Tournament results page here:

Troy, Ohio Pickleball Tournament Results

Ripon Pickleball Courts Ready for Action by USAPA Ambassador Dave Lukoski

New Pickleball courts will be ready for action on Wednesday June 24th

Thanks to new RPBA member Chuck Larson we have received permission to paint Pickleball Courts on Court #5 and #6 at the Ripon College Tennis Courts on Thorne Street. This would be adjacent to Kemper Computer Center and right behind Dave and Sherry Lukoski's home.The pickleball courts were painted on Monday and they look great. We will start play there on Wednesday Night. Special thanks to: Chuck Larson, Pat and Jean Kubisiak, Tom Kramer, Buzz Neuman, Ben Lukoski, Dave and Sherry Lukoski for the hard work in oppressive heat. Join us on Wednesday night @ the new home for Ripon Pickleball. http://riponpickleball.blogspot.com/

USAPA Great Lakes Ambassador News

Great Lakes Ambassadors,

I hope you are enjoying your summer days with lots of outdoor Pickleball.

And lots of Great Lakes Pickleball Tournaments including your own Senior Olympics and State Games.

Our Great Lakes Region website is highlighting all this http://greatlakes.usapa.org/

Please send Janet Razz stories and pictures about your events at mipickleball@gmail.com

Thanks to your efforts to host recreational beginner's clinics as well as competitive tournaments, we are now the 2nd largest Region within the USAPA - 293 Members and growing!

We also have a new USAPA Board Member from the Great Lakes Region; Marilyn Hollady is now our Director responsible for Rankings. Marilyn would be the first to invite you to spread the word about National Ranking Points which are available to USAPA Members placing in the top three in their age group in sanctioned tournaments.

Please welcome our newest Great Lakes Ambassadors:

• Shalda Nelson - Rockford,IL
• Jerry Hartman - Mt. Pleasant, MI
• Tracey Thompson - St. Cloud, MN
• Tom Hyldahl - Jackson, MI
  

I had the pleasure of meeting great people like you at the Mid-South Regional Tournament in Baton Rouge June 4th-7th. Tom Burkhart is an outstanding Regional Ambassador and he had Ambassadors and players from across the Region there to celebrate and compete. We had an Ambassador Workshop during the event to exchange best practices for promoting Pickleball.

I am spending much of my time capturing these best practices from across the country and looking for ways to share them so that your efforts as volunteers can be as effective as possible. Please continue to send me your ideas and comments.

Any candidates for Great Lakes Regional Ambassador out there? - please contact me.

Any Ambassadors who would like to be recognized as a collaborative team working together to cover a state or a collection of counties, please identify yourselves and begin working as a team to host tournaments, ladders, clinics, etc.

Any Ambassadors who would like to co-present Pickleball to state-wide conventions of Recreation Center Managers, PE Teachers, YMCA's reps, etc., please contact me. We have the presentation material that can be edited for your particular situation.

Enjoy Great Lakes Pickleball,
Dick Manasseri
USAPA Director Ambassador Program
National/International Relations

dmanasseri@usapa.org

Next Up: Great Lakes Pickleball Tournaments!!!

The Great Lakes Region is now the second largest USAPA Region, second only to the South Atlantic Region. One of the reasons for the FANTASTIC growth of PICKLEBALL in the Great Lakes is TOURNAMENTS! Six of the nine states represented in the USAPA Great Lakes Region have Pickleball Tournaments on the USAPA Tournament Schedule.

Wisconsin Senior Games

Sun Prarie, WI

Indiana Senior Games

Hamilton County, IN

City of Auburn Hills Summer Smash

USAPA Sanctioned Tier 4

Auburn Hills, MI

Michigan Senior Olympics

USAPA Sanctioned Tier 3

Oakland County, MI

Minnesota Senior Games

Alexandria, MN

Missouri Show-Me State Games

Columbia, MO

2nd Annual Senior 50+ Pickleball Tournament

Middletown, OH

The USAPA Tournament Schedule page details more information on these and other PICKLEBALL Tournaments. The USAPA Tournament Schedule page is found here: http://usapa.org/schedule/

To learn about how to get started in creating a local pickleball tournament or to learn about USAPA Sanctioning read more here: http://usapa.org/sanctioning/index.php

Play the Great Game of the Great Lakes - Play PICKLEBALL!

USAPA Great Lakes Pickleball Tournament Results

The USA Pickleball Association website is the 'Go To' place for all of your pickleball news -- including the results for USAPA Great Lakes Pickleball Tournaments!

The direct link to the USAPA Tournament Results page is: http://usapa.org/tournamentnews/index.php

The May 2009 Great Lakes Region Tournament Results Listed:

Terre Haute Indiana Regional
Kalamazoo Doubles Tournament

Northville 50+ Women's And Men's Doubles

Tournament Directors may send results for posting to: tourn.results@usapa.org

http://usapa.org/

"Join the largest pickleball community in the world!"

"My first real pickleball tournament..."

USAPA Ambassador Rodney "Rocket" Grubbs and his family enjoyed playing the Terre Haute Pickleball Tournament! Read Rodney's story, "Terre Haute Pickleball Rocks", here:

http://www.pickleballrocks.com/2009/06/01/terre-haute-pickleball-rocks/

The Grubbs Family at the Terre Haute Pickleball Tournament

http://www.pickleballrocks.com/

http://www.allaboutpickleball.com/