Marc and Mayda, You Rock!
Thanks to the efforts of Marc Aguirre and Mayda Copado, El Paso is in the middle of its FIRST outdoor pickleball league! Plagued by the lack of facilities, this hurdle was overcome by making arrangements to play at the Rio Grande Valley Ranch (RGVR) in Canutillo for the advanced division, and at Grandview Park (outdoor courts) for the Intermediate. Over 100 happy paddlers are participating on 14 teams, with a schedule that runs 6 weeks.
Mary Frances Keisling Pickleball Courts - Now or Never
Two years ago the City held public input meetings and designed eight outdoor dedicated pickleball courts for this Park, at Gomez and Upper Valley Road. Without funding, however, the project has gone nowhere. Your Association has taken steps to set up a fundraising account with Paso del Norte foundation, and is in position to sign an agreement with the City to develop the site.
But! We are at a roadblock. We need help. We need volunteers to talk to individuals and businesses about participating in this capital campaign. Now is the time to volunteer! The whole Mary Frances court project will collapse within a few weeks without some manpower infusion. Contact a board member or email the club at pickleballEP@gmail.com if you want the MFK pickleball court project to go forward and are willing to help.
New Facility, Free Play During December
Sun City Pickleball will have its grand opening on Saturday, November 30, at 6301 Alabama, starting at 10:00 a.m. Food will be provided by KandD BBQ. The facility offers three indoor courts at the following hours:
• Monday & Wednesday: 7 a.m. – 11 p.m.
• Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 7 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
• Saturday & Sunday: 8 p.m. – 11 p.m.
Membership will be free for the entire month of December.
El Paso Women Sweep at SOMO!
Our sister pickleball club in Las Cruces held their third annual Southwest Organ Mountains Open (SOMO) tournament Oct 19 - 20 at Centennial HS in Las Cruces. Thank you volunteers! Although play was delayed three times for rain, the weather finally turned to cooler fall temperatures, matches were completed, and a good time was had.
Periodically people ask me why El Paso cannot put on a "sanctioned tournament." One attraction of sanctioned has been the larger draw of players from out-of-town which provides new competition.
Here are three (current) reasons. Needless to say, your Association is working on it.
To be sanctioned, players must all join USA PIckleball, and this past summer USA PB doubled their membership fee to $65. With a tournament entry fee of $65 for one event, that made the cost $130, and several pickleballers said the cost was why they did not enter. At SOMO, the registration desk was running a survey asking whether people wanted the tournament to remained sanctioned. The results were overwhelmingly in favor of non-sanctioned events.
A second challenge for running any large tournament is getting a facility. In Las Cruces they can use a high school for free. That is not the case in El Paso.
Third, it takes 15 volunteers 6 months to put on that tournament. So Thank You Las Cruces volunteers!
Who Are Those Guys?
(Do you recognize that famous line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?)
Have you seen posts on Facebook or Instagram for open invites to play pickleball, organized by Drop Shot Social? Well, here they are on a Sunday evening at Paul Harvey. Friends Javi and Omar started the club with other friends they knew, and then posted on social media to welcome "Friends they had not met yet" as Will Rogers would say; 35 players turned out for this event. It was a nice casual atmosphere, with players at all levels. You cannot beat the weather in El Paso on a fall evening.
Their second event was November 10. Watch FB and Instagram for their next play date.
Every 19 minutes ...
... an adult over 65 dies from a fall. Falls are the #1 cause of accidental death for that age group.
UT Lunchtime Lectures offered an on-line presentation featuring a biomedical engineer on the mechanics of human mobility and how to prevent falls - not your simplistic "remove carpets." It took two minutes to list the credentials of Dr. Hao-Yuan Hsiao, so I won't. Good news!! "The strongest predictor of falls is frailty, not age." How do we strengthen and improve balance and reflexes? Stepping and weight transfer exercises. Call me a geek but I loved this presentation.
Play happy,
Jamie Fisher
President, Pickleball El Paso Association
love seeing whats happening with my EP Pickleball Peeps