Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Seleni's here with the senior Pickleball report powered by TNC Network. Let's get it going.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Today in our people of Pickleball series, we speak with actor Michael Toe. Michael has been in television shows like Law and Order. He's been on the big screen in.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Hocus Pocus, two and free guy.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: He's currently starring on Apple TV and a show called City on Fire. And he is playing in the app tour team league for the Humana cup with Lee Whitwell. So he's a pro and talks about how Pickleball has really kind of changed his life in a lot of ways and helped him deal with some tragic events, which we'll get to in his life as well.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: So before we start that, though, let's go over things that you should be.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Aware of, obviously down in the description, tons of discounts. You can subscribe to our newsletter and always like this video and subscribe to the channel as well. And check out our merch page as well. Some discounts in there. All right, folks, let's get to that discussion. Great interview with actor Pickleball player Michael Toe.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Actor Michael Toe. Welcome to the senior Pickleball Report, Mike.
[00:01:22] Speaker C: Hey, please. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, lots to talk about, obviously, you know, been all over the small screen, the big screen.
Currently in a show that I watched, episode one, last night stand, fire on Apple TV.
It's got me hooked already. Really cool opening episode. So we'll get to all of that. But let's talk about really, because this is a pickleball report and this game has swept the nation and is going global very fast. But talk about how it captivated you because you're a busy guy and this is a game that pulls everybody in from all walks of life.
[00:02:02] Speaker C: Yeah. So I was a tennis player, played in college. My family is a family of tennis players.
My sister was a world ranking tennis player, and she's a professional now and on the regular tour. And so my brother, during COVID two years ago, late at the end of COVID we had a family dinner and he set up in his driveway with chairs as he had no net, so we had chairs for the net. Since then, we were hooked. And so we started to find out ways to play the game and different place to get started. But then as we got rid of maybe about two months in, I end up having an injury and out for about six, seven months. Maybe it's three months in and then out for six, seven months. So what happened was my sister got way ahead of it, but she's a great player. But it's been great because what's been happening is she's been a great person for me to kind of take the steps as you learn the switch off from to not just do the third shot drives and adding some drops and working on all the parts of the game as we evolve and learn it. She was six months ahead, so it was a perfect scenario. So every time that I got to another level of something, she's like, well, this is what I went through. And sure enough, I then dealt with what she dealt with.
Six months later, we're hooked and I'm on the app, Humana cup team.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:47] Speaker C: That's been really a dream from me, to play a professional sport.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Obviously, playing at the app level with the champion senior pros is no joke.
You have to have some game to play there, otherwise you're just going to get embarrassed. And people don't have any problem embarrassing people at that level because it's just part of how it works. It's the mental and the physical kind of combined. So obviously you come from a background of racket sports, and I talked about your family and stuff like that. What has really been, though, sort of the biggest thing you've had to change about your game because this is a different sport and people find that out pretty quick, even if they have an extensive racket background in some other sport. So what was the biggest real challenge for you coming from tennis?
[00:04:45] Speaker C: It was really about just the fact of not just resorting to power and how much is a factor, the consistency, the angles. Not that that's not an issue for tennis, but really kind of controlling, kind of the depth of shots and not always keeping people back, but then the vice versa, too. Times when you're on a speed up, and actually the better speed up actually is something where you take a little off pace a little bit. Right.
Those things were. It's counterintuitive in general, tennis, once it's up in the air, you're going to put all your power in and put that ball away.
And usually when you're putting it away, it's not coming back.
But this game we're here, it's like you're going to have people who are so fast hand speed coming right back at you. And so now it's all right, well, now it's not just about just hitting it hard.
I kind of talk about it with tennis. Sometimes you have those amazing points that you see that the person dives and this, and it jumps and the balls up and the person runs across.
That happens in tennis in kind of the average level of tennis. Maybe once every once in a while. That happens pre game for pickleball.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: It does sometimes every point.
[00:06:10] Speaker C: That's what I've noticed a lot.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: Right. Very cool. So obviously, the app, Humana cup is new this year and the senior game has really sort of exploded. If you look at people that are playing 50 plus, obviously there's a lot of opportunities. I would argue there's more opportunities for really senior champion level players to play in leagues and tours than there are for the Open pros. I mean, if you look at obviously the senior pro tour, which started last year, national Pickleball league, Humana cup, and you could play the app in obviously their draw tournaments at the senior level and the PPA as well. What are your thoughts really, as the game grows? Really sort of being someone who's in an age group where there are all these opportunities for me at being in my 50s, it's almost surreal that we have these opportunities as people who is sort of our second time around at a sport and we kind of get to relive some of our youth, but in a completely new way and in a completely new avenue. I'm sort of in awe of all the opportunities that have really arisen over the last year to two years just for people in my age group. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:07:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree.
I turned 50 last year and so I'm on the young side. And to me, I looked at it as opportunity.
I think my level, if it was combined, I probably would not be able to get into that, into the senior pro, to be competitive.
But what happened by, because there's so many different opportunities, it's widened the gap a little bit in terms of level. And to me, that's an opportunity. As someone who's growing and getting better, literally every week I'm learning new things, and that's a big part of my journey, has been really taking this very seriously to.
I have probably a little bit of a different approach than most, or maybe a little bit very intense approach of kind of trying to. But for someone who's getting better but still has a long way to go, it's been a great opportunity for me and to be able to now play with Lee and I played in our first match back in Punta Gorda. Looking forward to six different events this year, coming in and playing some great competition, some really good players, people who've been playing, many of the players who've been playing longer than me. And so I've been learning so many. Just the shot selection, the mentality of using the rules to the advantage with the ref and understanding.
It's the nuances there that could be a difference. One or two points here that might change the thing, or maybe a mentality switch that could change to get a point here, and then that could be the difference between eleven nine or 911.
It's been really eye opening. I mean, I've only had one, but I can't wait for the rest of the season.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. When you talk about the nuances of the game, especially at the level you're playing at right now, it reminds me of the Queen's gambit when I was watching the film and she would lay in bed and she would play chess on the ceiling in her head to do all these moves. And I'm starting to literally do that when I go to bed at night because I consume pickleball all day. I watch a ton of matches specifically at the senior pro level because that's the level I want to get to as well. And I start thinking about this. God, if I move my drop just six inches to a foot over this way so they can't reach or they're overextending for that person who's trying to poach. So little things like that going through my head. And it's unbelievable because you watch this game on tv and you're like, that looks pretty basic. It's pretty simple. I could do that.
But when you get in there and then you start playing people at that level and you're dealing with one of the masters, Lee, no doubt the little things which you've discussed make a huge difference. And so that's a part of the game I really enjoyed. I've never been a puzzle solver person in my life, but this is really sort of, it reminds me of learning a musical instrument, which I took up recently, too, in the last five, six years. All the little things, the nuances, the things nobody sees or pays attention to while they're watching it that make up this game, and it's endless. You're never going to conquer it. But I think that's the ultimate chase about it.
[00:10:48] Speaker C: Exactly. And there's so much to learn.
But at the same time, back to that point of opportunity right now, as there's a lot of different choices for senior pros, that might not be the case down the road, and then you're also going to get the people who are these kind of mid, late 40s who are at really solid level that will be years coming to the game with multiple years of playing on the younger side, too. So to me, this is like, all right, there's a small window for me to really kind of take that opportunity. This is similar to my acting journey is that the opportunity is there, but I can't just jump in 50%, but not to the level that I want. And so to me, this is like, all right, here's the opportunity. You're shown the door.
Do whatever you can to get your game to that level.
And where I will be at the end of the year, if continuing the way I'm training will be a lot better than where I am right now.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Absolutely. And we can talk about that with acting. Obviously, it's a craft as well that you work on all the time and different opportunities to work with high level people, whether they're writers, directors, or fellow actors.
Talk a little bit about how you're doing this with. You're balancing a pretty interesting life here because you're on location a lot, I would assume, and finding places to play and people to play with. When you're in a place long term, let's say you're on a film set for x amount of time. Talk about some of the challenges and some of the balancing and some of the motivation of playing this game and being a professional actor in dealing with family. Obviously, you got to find time for all these things.
[00:12:45] Speaker C: Yeah, actually, I'm a financial planner. I know a financial planning practice. And about 15 years ago, acting was my kind of my balance.
I lived in Boston, and the main hubs is Hollywood and New York. But the way I looked at it was, hey, I actually am drivable to New York, 4 hours away. Here's a chance I could be anywhere in the country. But to be drivable, instead of looking at it as a negative, I looked at it as a positive. Hey, I could do this if I really wanted to. So I kind of just worked my way up, and it was one of those things where I kept saying, all right, well, let's see what next level I can do. But if I do it, I'm going to take this time. My time is precious with my family, my daughters, my wife and work.
I can't take it half assed. I have to, really.
Otherwise it's going to stay a hobby. And I kind of took that approach by really studying and really honing my craft, not just from the craft side, which I always my shoulder, that I didn't have the same training as other people because I came into it in my 30s, but then coming into it with a mentality of I just need to learn as I need to catch up and learn as much as I can and work harder than people, because if I don't, how am I going to compete to someone who's been doing it for a lot longer than me and who has the theater conservatory? And so that kind of is the way I've taken my acting career, and it's done really well last six years. It's gone to a national level.
And so I kind of take that same approach with Pickleball. And to me, it's the ability to balance a lot of these different things. And so if I can go on set, I was on set last night on a show called Raising Canaan on Stars.
But when I can go there and then all of a sudden have a conversation with some of the other actors about pickleball, we kind of go and I bring my paddles right on times where people, they've heard about it, they've never tried it. So I'm like, there's a lot of downtime.
I take out the paddles and there's a few scenarios where we've kind of played, but then there are other sets. Law and order. I was on with Chris Maloney, who is a top athlete, but into really getting into pickleball.
So we kind of went off during different shoots one day and kind of went to hit and different.
Here's something where acting, but now the flip side is I can teach them all about pickleball. And so it was a great, and it's been really fun, and it's a sport that so many people are so excited about wanting to learn more. Or if they're into it, they're passionate about it. They are passionate, and right away you've mentioned it, there'd be so many different types of people from all different likes, but we can combine together with this one love of pickleball commonality.
Hard to kind of bridge the differences there. And pickleball has been fantastic for that. So whenever I'm on set, I try to kind of bring in the pickleball side while doing the acting stuff that I love. And to me, that's a perfect balance.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, everybody's jumping in on it. And I think you touched on a very important point, which I try and bring up in most interviews, if I can, is the communal side of this game and where we are in the world right now and we are desperately in need, I think, of some connection with one another again, and a game that popped up, been around at that point 50 plus years, and then the pandemic hits and it really explodes, I think really kind of testifies to that, that we are yearning not only because there was a pandemic, but social media. We're all in our devices. We're all living these kind of bubble lives. And then to walk outside on a court and do this activity of a game that has a really nice entry level point, like you can get pretty good pretty quick and know what you're doing is pretty amazing. And I'm still blown away by because my wife taught this game in PE.
She told me about it 20 years ago and I was like, oh, that sounds cute. She just didn't want her kids to have to chase a tennis ball over the fence because they couldn't control it. And I never thought anything of it. But then, like anybody else, you think back and you're like, God, if I would have started 20 years ago, just think what I could be now.
Exactly. Yeah. So I love that you bring that up and you can have these conversations and these pickleball dates with people that you're going out and working with and kind of bounce ideas off each other about each other's game and then obviously having the acting in common as well.
The senior Pickleball report reminding you to check out our podcast, people of Pickleball. That's where I speak with all the people in pickleball, the industry, players, team owners, peril creators, people that run organizations, people that create apps, you name it. We're talking to them on people of Pickleball. It's in the playlist of our YouTube channel. It's our podcast. Check it out. Lots of good information there and lots of really cool folks doing amazing things. You can also catch our podcast on Spotify and Amazon. Check out the link in the description.
Talk about a little know. I watched City on Fire last night on Apple TV and I watched episode one in the hopes of seeing you. But then I looked like further down and you're a couple of episodes in. Yeah.
And obviously what's happened in your life and that role?
Well, you can talk about it, but I couldn't watch that show in that episode knowing what I know and react to it the same way.
So talk a little bit about your experience with that.
[00:19:45] Speaker C: Thank you.
So my daughter Alana passed away a year and a half ago, a year and four months ago. And I got this role, my first series regular on City on Fire, Apple tv show and talks about is it talks about. I play the character of a dad whose daughter gets in a scenario and is in the hospital and you fall and having to.
Having that crazy trip to the hospital and with her head bandaged up, which is exactly the same way. Chase sweet wonders, who's the actor who played my daughter? She had this bandage on her head.
Not my daughter, but my daughter in a car accident.
Same scenario. And in fire. There was so much. It was life imitating art, which was all around this hospital room. In the show was pictures of my daughter. I have three daughters, but it was my pictures with my daughter Alana, who had passed.
And to me, it was fate that this was going to happen. And then this was a way to prepare me, because as an actor, I have to put myself in a scenario. Well, what happens if your daughter gets in an accident where she could die?
And literally, when we finished shooting a month later, my daughter got in the accident and the same rushing to the hospital. In this case, it was in New York, same scenario, rushing through the street. In this case, it was the mass pike to New York.
Head bandages, the same conversations with the doctors, the same looking.
Everything that I experienced as a parent, my wife and I, the worst nightmare, it happened to me three months prior on a tv show, and I don't. That's coincidence.
Out of my three daughters, she was my tennis player, and she was.
I was her coach and trained her, and we went tournaments together. And all the times, a lot of times, it was a love hate relationship where it was like, all right, you got to drill more and you got to hit that work.
And we would battle, have all those battles with my daughter. I tried to get her into pickleball, and she never did.
To be that supportive of my pickleball journey. However, the Father's day before she. Before the Father's day before she passed, she had a happy, this is happy Father's day. And wrote, she goes, here, dad, happy Father's day. It's so crazy that I can call you a famous asian american actor and professional pickleball player.
And I was an actor, professional actor. But she meant that as pickleball player, because I teach, I'm a teaching professional.
I use that as a drive for me to be a professional playing player.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:52] Speaker C: That message to me, and that was my message from her, that this is the right path. This is the path that I want to go on, and I use that as a drive when I go down and 05:00 a.m. And get my training partners grill do sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes four times a day.
On the skills that I need to get to the pro level. And it was the drive from my daughter that really kind of keeps me motivated. And that's why it was so special when Lee drafted me. When that happened a few months ago, it felt like my daughter who was there and saying, you worked hard for this.
This is the right path. It's been so healing for me and my family. My wife has picked up the sport, too, and she's not been an athlete really much of her life.
And you can see the smile that she has when she has a game coming up or when she talks about pickled somebody yesterday and how excited she was. And this is a family that was a year ago dealing with one of the worst things a parent could ever deal with.
Drive and focus. That really, I think, saves a lot of times when things like the paths that you could go down and one of the paths can be a pretty negative, very dark path. But pickleball was the opposite. It provided a weight, a goal, something that kind of gets the endorphins going, something to a reason to wake up every day, a reason to kind of get back, to get healthy, to get to focus on something, not just the things that we're going through at life.
And when you're playing pickleball for that 15 minutes game that you're playing, really can't be thinking much else.
Things kind of going in your brain that might be in the background, but really you're focused so much on the game that for someone who loses a child, I needed that space. I needed that space away from life to focus on something else. And I think that was really helpful to help my healing. And it's a never ending thing that I'm going to have to deal with tragedy that I'm going to have to deal with. But pickleball has really helped me get through and my family get through these really tough times.
And then when you see a letter like that from my daughter, it just ties in that, and that's why I train so hard. I know I have a long way to go, but I know compared to where I'm now, I'm going to be a lot better.
And the people who might have been able to beat me the last few.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: Months will see if they can beat.
[00:27:25] Speaker C: Me at the end of the year. Right.
I say that in a positive way, in a driven way, competitive way, but it's the drive. It's not really about the win. It's more about using it as a drive to have a goal that takes me a little bit away from what happened.
[00:27:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I appreciate you sharing, Michael. And you hit on so many really good points, and one of them, obviously, is, I think it's hard in this day and age to be present and that the game gives us that sort of that gift, even if it's for 15 minutes or a few points, because you're right. If you're not present in that moment, I'm just not good enough to be not present and not get pegged or drop six, seven points in a row. I mean, it happens so fast in this game. I've never played a sport that had momentum shifts of this magnitude. And so being present and you brought up, obviously, the things we talked about, but what you've done is you've entered, and you know this. You've entered a community of people, that there's a community of people within it. I cover senior pickleball. I'm the only person really specifically covering senior pickleball.
It's an unusual niche. But what I have found is that, like you said, you work hard, you train, you compete hard, you guys are at war on the court. But at the end of the day, it's this group of people. And a lot of these people are new to our lives, and they have stories, too.
Some tragic, some beautiful, and all the above that really sort of just kind of enriched the experience of hitting this whiffle ball around. So, again, I'm totally blown away by what has happened with this game and how it's entered our lives. And I don't take it as light as I used to. I just kind of thought in the beginning, like, oh, this is really cool, and it might be a thing and it might go away after a while, but the more I talk to people and the more I play and the more people I meet and the community of the senior pros, there's just more to this. And I'm so excited to see where it goes for not only myself, but people like yourself who are doing amazing things in the world of entertainment and obviously bringing your competitive juices and flow and creative energies to the court, because it is a creative game and it demands creativity on some level.
That's my little rant, or whatever you want to call it. But I do. I feel a connection. And when I talk to people like you, it just reminds me, like, yeah, gratefulness, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.
[00:30:15] Speaker C: Yeah. How lucky it is sometimes when you're in a scenario where you're losing or you lose a few points or losing against a team that maybe you should have beat or missed a shot.
And then I take a step back, I'm like, hey, there are way worse things in life.
To be able to make that as what I'm a little bit upset about at that particular moment, playing a game that's great for my health and with the community and friends and the competitive spirit and all that sort of thing. There are worse things overhead into the net.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Right. Which is going to happen a lot anyway. So you got to kind of accept that inevitability.
[00:31:07] Speaker C: And then what that might mean is that might mean training session the next morning to make sure that doesn't go over the net. But then, hey, that's another step.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: Right? Exactly. Well, Michael, it's early 2024. Obviously you've got a lot on your plates pickleball wise and obviously in your career. So talk about what you're looking forward to for the rest of this year and we'll get you out of here.
[00:31:33] Speaker C: Yeah, well, lots of things. A lot of things mixing with tv and film and acting and with Pickleball. I have the NPL combine coming up in Florida the beginning of March.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:31:51] Speaker C: That come back on Sunday, Wednesday, head back Hebita to Sacramento for the team Whitwell and playing with Lee.
A lot of fun.
And then I go back to DC, right, from Sacramento to DC to shoot a film that I'm a lead in that will shoot for two weeks in DC.
And I've already lined up pickleball places I've already found.
You know, that's the community that we're in. Right.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:32:25] Speaker C: By the end of two weeks I'm going to have connections with people that I will know for years down the road.
[00:32:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:32:33] Speaker C: Popping in, being invited to some of these games and these places and then Delray.
So that's just the next few months. It's a lot of things going on with everything that we've gone through.
I think I'm in a pretty good place.
I think I'm fortunate to be in this place now. It could have been a lot worse and a lot of things going on and I'm excited for it. Absolutely.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate your time. This has been Michael toe. He is a Hollywood actor. He's been on television. He's been on the big screen. You can find links in the description all about him. He's a professional pickleball player at the senior pro level looking to expand into multiple tours and leagues. And you can check him out currently city on Fire on Apple TV. I watched episode one. It is really good show. It'll grab you right away. So check that out and check out Michael's work below. And hey, I appreciate your time and your sharing.
[00:33:47] Speaker C: Please. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Hope you enjoyed our interview with Michael. Thanks Michael, for your time and look forward to seeing him out on the court and on the small and big screen as well.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: Subscribe to that newsletter, folks.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: And hey, at the end of the day, let's pickle.
