[00:00:02] Speaker A: Sleeve's senior Pickleball report is brought to you by TNC Network. Get ready for an exciting episode of People of Pickleball with Mike Sleva. We're about to dive deep into conversations with influential figures from the world of Pickleball, so let's get it going.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Sleeves here with the senior Pickleball report, powered by TNC Network. Today we have a special guest, Sam Veal, of the First Dink foundation, based in Florida. It is a youth foundation, basically, getting youth involved in Pickleball. It is a nonprofit, and it is somewhat modeled off the first tea foundation that was started by the PGA Tour. So it's an exciting thing for youth getting involved in the game. And at the senior level, we all know that this sport, its future is children. So let's get a little information from Sam here, and you can find all the links that we talk about in the description as well. So here's the interview with Sam. All right, enjoy.
[00:01:15] Speaker C: So, Sam, why don't we start with what I always start with, and what seems. What everybody sort of starts with is how you got into Pickleball. And then we'll get into the first ink Foundation.
[00:01:28] Speaker D: My very first experience was up in a little tiny, tiny hamlet on the western shore of Maryland called Tolchester beach, which long, long time ago was a great carnival kind of entertainment area for the residents of Maryland. And then, of course, time passed, and its time passed. But my wife's parents, her father's retired from the Coast Guard, built their house right across from a little marina right on the shore. And part of that marina has a large, paved concrete pavilion area where they have weddings. And I was up for my wife's sister's daughter's wedding, and they were setting up the day before. And I happened to notice these people on the other end of this very large concrete space. They had a net up, and they had these paddles that looked like oversized ping pong. And they were playing with this yellow ball that looked like a whiffle ball. And they were having a blast. And I moseyed over in my jeans and my loafers, and I said, what the hell is this?
And they said, this is pickleball. And I said, what the hell is pickleball? So they gave me a quick primer, and they said, well, it's kind of like tennis, kind of like badminton, kind of like ping pong, kind of like racquetball.
And I watched them for a little bit, and then they were very gracious, and they said, would you like to try it? And I said, sure. So in my jeans and my shirt and my loafers, I got out on this thing and started whacking the ball, and I was immediately hooked.
Shortly thereafter, I came back home to Florida and was having breakfast at a local eatery and ran into a 92 year old man that I had known all my life but hadn't seen in 20 years.
And he had been a stellar tennis player, and I had actually played tennis against him in my early years.
And I said, hey, Don, great to see you. Hadn't seen you in a long time. How's your tennis? He goes, Sam, I don't play tennis anymore. I play pickleball.
And I said, really? Let me tell you what just happened to me. And so I told my story, and he laughed, and I said, well, where do you play around here? And he said, well, if you go up to Neptune beach to Jarbo park, ask for a woman named Verna or Nan, and they'll get you started. And so off I went.
The rest is history. I started playing, started playing more, started playing a lot.
Started looking at things, started reading things, started practicing things. I set a trash can up in the back of the driveway of my house. Then I ended up putting a pickleball court in the back of the house, and it grabbed me hook, line, and sinker, much to my wife chagrin.
[00:05:09] Speaker C: So what time period are we talking here? That's. This all we can for you?
[00:05:14] Speaker D: This was about four and a half years ago.
[00:05:16] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah. So, actually, in relative terms, for many of us, that's a very long time to be playing pickleball, because I've been playing about a year.
[00:05:27] Speaker D: It seems like yesterday. It really does. I mean, time has stopped when it comes to pickleball, and my body rhythms have now become acclimated. That first thing I do when I get up in the morning is I do my routine, and off to the pickleball courts I go, right on.
[00:05:46] Speaker C: So talk to me a little bit about from that point where you picked up the game in your jeans, so to speak, and met an old friend, to becoming executive director of the First Dink Foundation.
What happened in that journey?
[00:06:01] Speaker D: Well, I'm a father and a grandfather, and so I have kids, and I'd always been involved in youth sports as a kid myself. And I always was appreciative and grateful that there were adults who took the time and made the effort to help kids get involved in sports. It was something that helped mature me. It helped me to learn about sportsmanship, to teamwork, and learning how to get along with others that you disagree with just because the person is your opponent, you don't have to hate them.
And the great thing that pickleball appealed to me was that I like to call it, and we've kind of codified it by calling it a unique social sportsmanship system, or ethos, I like to use, although people don't understand the word ethos, however.
So what I had observed was that, yes, there were a lot of old people playing pickleball.
And then I started seeing the influx of kind of middle aged people playing pickleball. And because I had played with my kids in the back of the house and some of the neighbors, they really had a blast. But I noticed that the pickleball courts around in the area, kids were given short shrift. They were kind of kept off the courts, right?
And it kind of rubbed me the wrong way. And in talking with some of my other fellow pickleball players, I said, this ain't right.
And so it just festered in me, and I said, well, you know what?
And I have a lot of experience in the nonprofit sector. I've been the executive director of a nonprofit organization that puts on community music festivals for 30 years, been involved on the board of directors of other nonprofits in the community. And I thought, well, and also, my wife works for the PGA Tour, and I grew up around golf and on a golf course. And, of course, I live where the home of the PGA Tour is. So I was very familiar with a wonderful program called the First Tea Foundation. Right, which was started in 1997 by Tim Fincham. And what was really attractive about that program was that they used, as part of their training regimen a methodology called Positive Youth Development in sports. And I went on and I researched everything I could. I read everything that I could. I looked at everything the first heat was doing. I read some wonderful scholarly articles from the University of Virginia and other universities that had studied the first Heat foundation's efficacy in positive youth development in sports and found that they're the gold standard. And I thought, wow, neat idea. So, again, it bubbled and festered a little bit more. I played some more pickleball. I saw more kids who really. They'd stand around outside the fence, holding, hitting it back and forth with each other, but not getting on the court. And I thought, this ain't right. And so one night, it just popped in my head. First dink foundation. Because, as we all know, dinking is really the heart and soul of pickleball. It's also the first thing that you really learn how to do is just get the damn ball over the net.
And it's also, if you watch kids play, little kids and bigger kids, they try to do that first until they learn how to whack the ball first in foundation started talking to a couple of people, and I'm blessed to have a wide array of friends, some in high places. And so I started chatting with them, and next thing you know, I'm getting an attorney friend of mine to file the proper paperwork with the IRS in the state of Florida to set up a 501 nonprofit organization. I get another friend of mine that I've worked with for over 20 years who's designed a lot of the posters, which you see in the background, you can see that. That's the 1992 Springing the blues poster, okay. Which is world renowned blues Music Festival held right on the ocean here in Jacksonville beach. And so he designed the logo for first ink and some other things for me, and I started talking to some folks. Hey, would you be interested in being on the board of directors of the First Dink Foundation? It was like, well, what the hell is the first Dink Foundation?
I came up, I studied everything I could about the first Tea foundation, and I said, they're the gold standard.
I figured that if we could just emulate the first T's methodologies and practices, not imitate, not imitate, not plagiarize, but to emulate that, because, again, why reinvent the wheel when you've got organization that's already doing wonderful things for kids? And the idea of blending, teaching the game of a sport, in this case golf, and in our case, pickleball, and bringing it together with positive life skills, that the goal is not to just teach them how to play pickleball, but is to teach them through these life skills processes incorporated into the teaching methodology to become productive, responsible members of society.
There you go.
[00:12:33] Speaker C: Well, I mean, I can't think of a better game at the moment to do that. And I can't think of a better time where we are in desperate need of people who are responsibly in a civic way, because there are no more civics classes, really, in schools anymore. And so people don't know how to engage with one another in a way that is, I guess, beneficial to the larger group.
And I think Pickleball is excellent for that because, one, it's intimate, because we're closer than tennis, we're further apart. Two, it's a game that really gravitates towards doubles. I know they're singles, but a lot of people, most people play doubles and I find this, between games, there's a lot more socializing than there are in other sports that I have played.
[00:13:26] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:13:29] Speaker C: This is just launched, this was like, right around National Pickleball Day that you kind of kicked off first ink foundation, is that correct?
[00:13:36] Speaker D: That is correct. Technically, we launched our first event called Pickleball 101 on the Saturday prior to National. So August the 6th, we launched our first event, and then we had our official launch where we sent out press releases and all kinds of stuff to national media on National Pickleball Day.
And our first event, we had 53 kids show up. If you've been to our website, you see the picture of all the kids and the things that are going on. There's so much opportunity, there's so much involvement in the community that can happen through this initiative.
I like using the format paddles, not pistols.
[00:14:31] Speaker C: Right.
[00:14:33] Speaker D: We want to go into the areas of the community. I've identified over 100 very non used tennis courts that are within a lot of the city parks around in our area in Jacksonville. Now, the city has done some great stuff, and they've converted some unused tennis courts into pickleball courts. And of know, if you have two old tennis courts that are side by side, you can put six brand new pickleball courts for not very much money at all. And it's great. It's great what they're doing, but there has to be the human involvement element. There has to be the desire, the community outreach to get to the youth of our area. And what we hope to do, again, emulating the first he foundation, is to create the prototype here and have it operational. We've got lots of irons in the fire right now, and then we want to refine it, and then we want to open chapters around the country.
[00:15:44] Speaker C: Right?
[00:15:45] Speaker D: And we've already had a lot of response from a lot of people in a lot of areas who are very interested in what we're doing. They've been to the website, they've seen what our programming methodology is, and so we're just very excited about it. Of course, everything takes money.
So to anybody that's watching this, please go to firstinc.org. And if you feel so moved, press the donate button, and it's 100% tax deductible. We're a registered, authorized 501 nonprofit organization, and we are focused on youth and developing good, productive, responsible members of society through Pickleball.
[00:16:33] Speaker C: Excellent. So before we go, let's talk a little bit about the meat of some of the content and the programs. So walk me through maybe what a young person might go through as far as programs goes.
[00:16:47] Speaker D: Well, again, depending on the age of the person, depending on whether they've had any exposure to pickleball at all, is two. So we're kind of guided by those two criteria as to how do they step into a program. We have several programs that are age specific and the methodologies that are within each of those age specific programs incorporate.
Nicholas Holt wrote the Considered, the seminal book on positive youth development and great, great book. So using these methodologies and incorporating them in. So let's say if it's in the real young age, we'll have them doing pickleball activities. But incorporated into those activities will be elements of positive life skills that they may not even be aware of. Now, we have a code of conduct that will be given to each kid. There's a responsibility factor. Each kid's got to sign off on an agreement to where they agree to the certain specifics of what we're doing.
A buy in, so to speak.
And then it just goes from there. If you're a young kid and you get into the young program, we teach you the game that's designed and specific. We are certified by USA Pickleball as a youth program provider. We use some of their methodologies and our hope is that these kids will get on board early and stay on board all the way up until they turn 18 and then off they go. And we hope that by that time, a kid that's six today, he would be twelve years down the road. And hopefully by then we'll be talking to him about college scholarships and playing Pickleball.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: Right.
[00:19:02] Speaker D: And so again, we have our hands in a lot of pickleball pies, so to speak.
We're talking to school systems for in school programs, after school programs, weekend programs, high schools. We would like to see the Florida High School Athletic association take on Pickleball. We also know that Pickleball has got a real good chance of getting into the Olympics.
I don't know if you watched on Saturday, CBS broadcast Live was terrific. And as a result of that, we posted some Atta boys on the PPA feed, is that we've gotten a contact from the folks at the PPA who are interested in what we do and want to talk about collaborating, which I think is fantastic.
[00:19:59] Speaker C: Excellent. So if I'm sitting here watching this and you mentioned before, it takes money but also takes people, how can I get involved or how can somebody get involved?
[00:20:08] Speaker D: Again, best thing to do is to go to firstinc.org, read all about it. There's a section on the website that talks about getting involved again. Coaching is huge and we provide the training materials that have been incorporated from USA Pickleball and the PPR registry for coaches. You don't have to be a pickleball player necessarily to coach at a certain level because we'll give you that training. We'll get you into pickleball. You'll have a paddle in your hand and a ball in your hand and you'll know how to play pickleball. That's our goal. And then with coaches in the upper levels, if you looked at the people that we had at our launch event, we had 50 players that gave of their time and instead of playing on the court themselves, they gave of their time for that two and a half hours on Saturday to help teach kids. And then what was the coolest thing, which you don't really see because we haven't posted the video, is once the kids got finished and they sat on the side in the shade, is that the 50 players actually played matches. Oh, kids got to see high level.
[00:21:22] Speaker C: Pickleball, what it looks like.
[00:21:24] Speaker D: Yes, exactly.
[00:21:26] Speaker C: Right on.
[00:21:27] Speaker D: That's it.
[00:21:28] Speaker C: Very exciting. I love what you're doing. And again, let's remind people it is firstdinc.org, correct? That's correct.
[00:21:37] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:21:37] Speaker C: I'll have all the links in our description for this video and been speaking with Sam Veal of the first Dink foundation and we thank you for your time and what you're doing. I'm excited to see where this goes because I saw where first T went and this is booming. So I think you're right on board and absolutely.
It's interesting because kids kind of when they see something going on that they don't quite understand, they kind of, like you said, they're on the edges and they're looking in and this is an excellent opportunity to really sort of shoot some youth into the sport, which it's a little cliche, but children are the future and it's the future of this sport as well.
[00:22:19] Speaker D: Exactly. And I also didn't touch on what I think is probably one of the most important aspects of it is the health aspect of it.
[00:22:29] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:30] Speaker D: There are too many kids that sit in front of a screen or on their phones and just hang out and are caught up in that. And we want to get them to put that down and get on the court and get some exercise, have some fun. We want everybody to realize, you can have fun, you can be social, you can be healthy. And I mean, it's great for physical health. It's great for mental health. It's great for social health. And we need a lot more of all of that today.
[00:22:57] Speaker C: Absolutely. And it's great for problem solving, which is what this game is all about.
[00:23:02] Speaker D: Exactly. And cooperation and teamsmanship and etiquette.
I can't emphasize how important it is at the end of the game to walk up to that net and to tap paddles and say, good game.
[00:23:15] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:23:16] Speaker D: Even if you lose.
[00:23:17] Speaker C: Even if you lose, which I do very often.
[00:23:21] Speaker D: I did want to remind one more thing about firstink.org. Also, we're on social media. We're on Facebook. So follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. And so we look forward to everybody checking us out. And again, please feel free if you're so moved to contribute in any way, whether it's time, talent or resources. If you're interested in coaching, there's a whole thing about coaching. You click on and you tell us you're interested. We've already had a couple of people do that.
[00:23:53] Speaker C: Right on. And we'll have all those links in our description. And, folks, if you have any, you know, ask in the comments, I'm sure Sam will be looking at the video once it's posted, and if he's so kind, he can answer some of those. If you have any questions that we.
[00:24:07] Speaker D: Did not cover, feel free to email me.
[email protected] Excellent.
[00:24:13] Speaker C: Well, thank you for your time.
[00:24:14] Speaker D: Thanks very much. Take care.
[00:24:16] Speaker C: So there you have it, folks. Sam laid it out.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: The first Dink foundation is a great program.
Looking forward to see what it does over the years. And if you're really looking to get involved, I think this is an excellent way to get involved in the sport. All the links again are provided in the description.
[00:24:32] Speaker C: All right.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: Thanks for tuning in. And hey, let's pickle.
