If you have the good fortune to play with 4.0s or some of the stronger players on Monday Funday, do yourself and them a favor - hit the ball to/at/by/thru/over them. You both will enjoy the results. Click here to read what you should do if "Your Opponents Won’t Hit the Ball to You."
Aiken Pickleball News
On Mondays all six courts will be open for drop in play from 845-10am mixed play and 10-11am court designation.. We are encouraging higher rated players to join us this one day per week for early morning mixed level play to pass on their expertise to others. . We all want the experience of playing with better players - well here is our chance. And for the better players this is your chance to "pay it forward". Hope to see you all there for our Funday Monday. We hope each of you will spread the word personally to people you play with. Thanks for your support.
The Aken Department of Public Safety and the Cayce Police Department are planning a Pickleball Battle of the Badges on August 23rd in Cayce SC. Please save this date on your calendar to come out and support our local ADPS. More details on timing and location will be forthcoming.
A drill and practice session for ADPS is scheduled for Saturday July 23rd at 8:30 in Odell Weeks gym 1. We need four volunteers to help Mo train the ADPS Pickleball team. If you are available for 2-3 hours and want to help please sign up here
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/8050b4ba9a62ca5fb6-volunteers3
APB
Hello Aiken Pickleballers
Here are the final results from the Senior Tournament interest survey-- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JKVa5X44NhpNJNGz9T-HDougJ2j0dgfb/view?u...
Looks like there is good interest to hold a competitive senior tournament with age brackets starting at 50+ this fall. We are looking at Saturday November 12th for the tournament, look for an announcement soon. We suspect there will be interest from Augusta and Columbia for a senior tournament.
Here are a few of the suggested tournament names from the survey.
Super seniors
Aiken Senior Piccadilly Tourney
Aiken PB Nuggets
Pickleball Bug Senior Tournament
Senior Picklers
We're still here!!
Movers and Shakers
Born To Rally
Be safe out there
APB
Click here to read the article about the City Challenge tournament.
We had a no frills, no fee, no medals, no worries Open Scramble on Saturday, July 9th at Odell Weeks - six games - rotating partners. Check-in and court setup began at 12:30pm. First 24 that sign up were in. Admission - one Onix Fuse orange ball - returnable. . Five players were moved up from the wait list.
The next Skill Rating Sessions will be held on a Monday, December 19th the Smith-Hazel Recreation Center between 9am-1pm. Click here to sign up to be rated in the next session..
Watch out, Aiken pickleballers, a new generation of pickleball players is coming up the pike! The proceeds of last year’s Palmetto Tournament raffle ticket sales were used to purchase a class set of pickleball paddles and balls for Aiken Intermediate School. Lori Secrist, P.E. teacher at this middle school, says her students are having lots of fun learning the game.
Plans are in the works to expand this pickleball program throughout Aiken County Public Schools with a pickleball in-service in August for all Aiken County P.E. teachers. This year’s raffle sales will go to promote pickleball at another Aiken school. Purchase a ticket or two or ten at the Palmetto Tournament, and not only will you get a chance to win a cool prize, you’ll also be helping to grow our next generation of pickleball players!
The minutes for the May 2, LTM meeting have been posted. Items discussed included the new guest pass system, frequency of meetings, John McCowan taking over the Calendar and Signup Genius, and much more. The next meeting will be held on Monday, August 8th. Go to Forums or click here to see the full report.
Generally, the Aiken Pickleball community is made up of older adults. On average local players play 3-4 times a week at one or many of the great facilities available to use in the Aiken area. One thing we may not think about is injuries. We expect that after pickleball we will go about our day finishing up our to-do lists, not planning for a trip to Urgent Care in our schedule..
Be aware fellow pickleballers, a recent Emergency Department study of ER visits estimates that there are over 19,000 ER visits related to pickleball annually. Patients over 50 accounted for over 90% of patients where 50% were male…
So be careful out there, do your stretches, watch out for barriers and walls and sometimes just let the lob shot go.. It’s just a point in a pickleball game.
Aiken Pickleball
Ref: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31796221/