Episode Transcript
[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 Sliva. We're about to dive deep into conversations with influential figures from the world of Pickleball. So let's get it going.
All right, today we have an interview with senior pro David Comey. David has started a new podcast called Comey's Homies. There's a couple episodes out right now, and we talk about everything from MLP, PPA merger, a little bit of app, and of course, a bunch of senior pro stuff, a little bit of music, and some of the things he's overcoming as far as some of the surgeries he's had over the fall and what he's looking forward to when he comes back to play. All right, but before that, let's talk about some of the things that you should check out in the description.
Crown, hey, ball, price is going through the roof. Not crown, great quality ball, low prices. Check out the link in the description. Use the discount codes for all the things. Paddles, you name it, from rain and wind paddles to bread and butter, a whole bunch down there. Check out our merch page as well, and subscribe to our newsletter. Check out what's going on in the pickleverse almost on a daily basis. All right, let's get to that interview with David.
All right, we have David Comey. He has been playing pickleball over the last few years at a very high level, at the senior level. And he's been playing singles, doubles, mixed gender, you name it. And he's also got a podcast going as well that just started. And he's had some pretty big guests on which we'll talk about. And the name of the podcast is Comey's homies. Welcome to the senior Pickleball Report. David Comey.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Yeah, man. Boy, I'm sitting in our guest house on a property I live on, which I didn't get the fire started. So it's probably about 45 degrees in here, and you get that cool background going with the waves in the palms.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's really in Austin. It's really about 50 degrees and, like, 40 degree. I mean, 40 miles an hour winds. It's crazy out there right now.
So it's all an illusion.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: Yeah, it's nasty, like a lot of things, right? So I always start basically with kind of how we all got into this goofy, crazy wiffleball addiction game. And it'll be no different from you. Talk to me a little bit about your athletic background. And then what kind of brought you to pickleball itself?
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Well, I love tennis, and I played it as a junior and I played it in college. And then I tried to know at the time they weren't called futures, they were called satellites, pro stuff. And I basically didn't have any money, and I wasn't that, you know, I would go to these know, they'd come through Florida or maybe they'd play the south or something. So I'd play a, you know, I'd win some matches, but they were in the qualifying, so I never even earned a single ATP point. But I kept on playing, and I played that, and I played in Georgia and the south, and I did all those things. Then I moved to Texas and played there. And then I tore my shoulder once, had some other injuries, and finally I tore a calf muscle and I was like, that's it. I'm good.
And I think that I took 17 years off between the time tennis ball and the time I first hit a pickleball. And I went out with my sister in law at this place called Bolden Acres in Austin. It's like a bar that has a couple of courts and the ball know I had a bad shoulder, right. So everything overhead kind of sucked, right. But ball was bouncing, like super low. And I'm like, I can might be able to hit this ball because everything's so low. And I went back to continental grips that I used to use years ago. Chip and charge and serve in Bali, all that stuff.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: The interesting thing, though, was then the ball was bouncing so low, and I had spent no time really doing athletics, other than maybe at the gym or something like that, that I started pulling muscles, like in my hamstrings, in my butt, because I was having to get down, so.
And then, you know, within two weeks of playing at Bolden Acres, I built a court at my house. I started building a court at my house because Austin, there's a bunch of great players, but there's still a lack of.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: And so I built a court at my house and got a ball machine, started having people coming out, training. I loved it. I was addicted. It was during COVID too. I started like when everybody else did. Around Covid.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: And then I started playing tournaments. And then I realized I can travel again like I used to, and be like a kid again. Be all excited about traveling and playing tournaments, and so I did.
It's been an amazing journey. I met a lot of great people, had a lot of good times. The pickleball community, I think, is amazing.
It's just been a gift that came, I think, late in life for me.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I think we all sort of feel that same way. We've kind of gotten a second chance to do something athletic in a game that obviously, I don't know if anybody saw this coming, of what this is becoming or has become already.
I played beach volleyball in the. In the. That game exploded, but is a microcosm compared to what's happening in this game.
Talk a little bit about what you think, because obviously you got into it and it blew up, too.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Well, I have an interesting perspective, right, because I live in Austin and I'm friends with, like, Steve Coon and. Yeah, so the game of pickleball was small, but it was widely recognized as the fastest growing sport in America. So they would come over and we'd play, and we'd sit there afterwards or maybe in between, and they would talk about major league pickleball and duper and all these kinds of things. And I remember thinking, like, I was just watching Ben John's playing singles, like a few days before, and there's 200 people on the stream. And I was like, okay, you're going to have a major league pickleball thing. But he's got such great ideas and such great vision that I think he was a big reason that the game has exploded. And to watch it happen and be there from that initial, initial conversations has been. I guess that's a really real treat as well. I just feel like I've been able to be a witness to a lot of history.
Right?
[00:06:53] Speaker A: And now, obviously, you have a podcast, and I'm assuming you started already with the first two episodes to explore some of those avenues, talk a little bit about how the podcast came to be, and then we can kind of delve into some of those topics.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: So I got injured. Well, I needed to have two surgeries, and I wanted to stay busy. So I've done things, became, I'm the president now of my community's pickleball association, which may be one of the dumbest things I've ever.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: Big responsibility, David. Don't fuck this up.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: Oh, my God. It's like so many hours a day, and it's so unappreciated. But anyway, and then I messed around with being an agent because I'm a lawyer and I'm friends with a lot of the players, and I didn't really like that. I'm kind of semi retired from my law career. I mean, I have a thriving practice, but I don't really do it. My brother handles it. I delegate a lot out.
But I thought about doing a podcast, so I'd wanted to find something that I really liked about pickleball that I could do other than just play and compete. Sure.
So I've always listened to podcasts, and I think one of my things with podcasts that I always didn't like was when the host does all the talking, and I really wanted to kind of get into more of a biographical thing with people. I thought there was an opening for that. And in the pickleball community, it seems like the podcasts are done by a lot of young people, and they kind of want to know a lot of the late. They want to talk about the latest gossip and this and that. And I kind of wanted to go into more of a biographical thing where you could go back and say, well, I want to know about that person. And then they go and they find my podcast.
Vince Van Patton was supposed to do. I was supposed to work with him yesterday, but he's got Covid, so I rescheduled that one for later in the month.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: That'd be nice. Yeah, that'd be Fun.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, he's got an incredible background. That's absolutely real renaissance man. So, anyway, it turned out that after I did the very first one, I had Zayn Navertol. I walked out of there and I was like, that was amazing. I love that.
I'm going to continue to do that.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Right on. Yeah.
Great choice for first guest. Zayn grew up about 30 miles from where I grew up in Wisconsin, so I have never really spoken to him, but I'd love to have him on sometime. But I like watching him, mainly because I don't get a lot of bullshit when I listen to Zayn. And he's not afraid to speak a little bit of truth to power in the pickleball world, which is refreshing almost to a fault.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: But I think he's a brilliant young man, and he has got so many sponsors, and he got them all himself. He's done clinics. I mean, he's really figured out. I think he's so afraid to go back to being an accountant again.
He's really worked it, and he's an example for a lot of people to follow. And when he speaks, the other players listen.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I think he'd be a great leader down the road, and he is one already, but maybe in an official capacity.
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Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about obviously some of the people you've rubbed shoulders with and some of the things going on. Again with major league Pickleball, PPA, a little bit of on the side. We got the app. So it's still the wild, wild west of professional pickleball. You are in really in a state and in a city that it can be considered a lot of the epicenter of what's happening along those lines.
Talk a little bit about what you've seen over the last year and maybe what you see coming for 2024 as far as some of these things with the merger and maybe not a merger, and obviously new balls and all of those things happening at once. And then we got a tournament starting up in a day or two here.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: All right, where do you want me to start? Do you want me to start what's happened in the last year?
[00:11:59] Speaker A: Yeah, let's just start like the last, really, it could be the last six months.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: It seems like every two weeks that.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: There'S something new, right? I mean, the merger was on. There was this battle. Obviously we could talk about going on for players, and obviously people throwing money at it. Talk a little bit about what was going through your head when you saw some of those things going on.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: So Steve Coon is a friend of mine, and he's a real sweetheart of a guy, and his motivation in all of this has always been the love of the game and really wanted to give these players an opportunity to not have to work a day job and to make money.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Right?
[00:12:37] Speaker B: So incomes, the PPA and those guys, and they bring in a major benefactor.
He's got a lot of money. And so that guy's ruthless right now you got this guy who's in it for all the right reasons, a real sweetheart of a guy, trying to have business dealings with just a ruthless has never. It's not been a good fit.
The PPA has not wanted to be collaborative.
They wanted to dominate, and it's just a bad fit. I think they're talking about a merger again, but I just don't really see how it's going to succeed, in my opinion, unless the PPA controls everything like they wanted to in the beginning, which I could see that happening. I think it may be headed in that direction. I can tell that already, because the MLP contracts that they wanted people to redo are now being negotiated by a lawyer for PPA. So I had dealt with the other day, that's where we are. I mean, that's why it didn't work in the first place.
It's never been collaborative. It's been combative on one side with the intent to dominate. And now I think they're in the position where maybe they can dominate. So it can be a merge, but it's merger, but it's going to be an alpha with somebody who's.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: Think that. Because I'm thinking along the same lines, you are in a lot of this. And do you think MLP still wants to merge mainly because Steve and Brooks are no longer really in the picture? Because if I'm in that group and I'm in that MLP camp, there's no way I want to merge with these. Can you see it daily, what's going on? And I'm like, why do I want to go there? And maybe it's just because it's for pure survival. I don't know.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: Well, with Steve gone, it was kind of like a hornet's nest in there that I don't think they knew which way to go, but they had two guys coming in that were going to fund $50 million, which that keeps you going for a while. I think, though, from what my perception is then they went and met with the billionaire from the PPA, and then their allegiance changed from pro MLP to pro Nuco, which is the new company. That's the merger. So I think they kind of moved their chess piece a little bit. And that's allowed.
I think there can be a merger, but it's going to be, like I said, with an alpha.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: It seems to me that if I'm a player, that when all the biding war was going on at the end of August into early September there, and I signed with MLP, and I've seen the way the other entity has generally regarded people who have not been in their camp. I'm a little worried, one, from obviously, a negotiating standpoint, but two, just from what I call petty things, things like seating, whatever happens, whatever. Preferred parking, who knows?
[00:16:06] Speaker B: You can see the seating now. Did you see what, you saw that, right?
[00:16:08] Speaker A: I did. I saw this morning the Jack sock and Jeannie Bouchard and people that earned points all season that no longer are getting the buys that they've earned, because obviously, these are two people who were signed by the PPA and are somewhat of the new face of what they're trying to promote. Yeah. Right. First tournament of the year, we're still doing the pro wrestling type thing where nothing really matters. And it all seems to be rigged on some level.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Yeah, they get double buys. They haven't even really. Jeannie Mshard hasn't even played before. She's got a double buy.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: Yeah, she's a 2.0, according to.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: I'm sure she's going to be good.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: I'm sure she'll be fine. I don't know how well she'll do at that level right away, but obviously, she. Incredible tennis player at one point in her life, and still is, I'm sure.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: And she's very marketable. I don't know if she's playing singles, but she would be good at singles probably right away.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
So it's sort of the same old thing kind of going on here into 2024. So it's going to be interesting to see because I believe what the end of this month is supposedly the deadline of whether this merger is going to happen or not.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Well, we were here on the 9th, which is today, and I don't know.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: So MLP had over a million dollars worth of attorneys fees in the last bit here. And I've seen some of the documents, and they seem to be a little bit all over the place, and they always have these really strict deadlines. And everything is, to me, it's done by people who are worried and scared.
I don't know if they have a lot of strategic direction. I don't know if the MLP can have a lot of real strategic direction when it comes down to the end of the day. They need the PPA billionaire to sign off on things.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: So it's a very fluid, very confusing.
Especially, I feel bad for the MLP athletes. So they signed because Steve Kun had always paid them. He was always true to his word, and now he's gone. Now other people have moved in, and these people might, I think they look as players more as assets, and they have brother PPA controlling from behind. And the PPA players are not asked to do all the same things, and they're actually getting more money. So you've got that.
I think PPA is petty enough to punish the MLP players in more ways than one. And so they're happy to pay them less. They're happy to make them work more, make them work camps, do all this and that and give them sketchy seatings and all kinds of stuff.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: It seems like a strange way to run something that's trying to just really get off the ground and gain its footing in the respectable quotes again, sporting world with tv contracts and all those things coming up, I would think you'd want everybody that has talents to be on board and to be happy and to be pulling all in the same direction, but I don't see that. And I just wonder how long something like that is truly sustainable for an organization. You already see players starting to organize a little bit, which I've talked about in Adenazim for a long time, that in anything where there's negotiating going on, you need some leverage, and you're part of the equation. You're the players. Obviously, there's ownership and management, but it is a two way relationship here. So what do you think long term, kind of the way things are going? And again, things change on a dime, like you mentioned earlier. But do you see things being sustainable at the way things are kind of moving forward into 2024?
[00:20:15] Speaker B: I think there's too much money for it not to be sustainable in 2024. I think what you got to kind of look at is more further out. How long do people want to keep spending money if they're not making money? And then I think the $50 million question is, is pickleball tennis in its viewing, or is it like racquetball in its viewing? And, I mean, what you've seen is we used to see Ben Johns play singles every 200 people. Now there's 5000. Right. But then you've got some 17 year old girl in her room on TikTok putting makeup on, and she's got 50,000.
It's got a long way to go, and I think you see these tv deals and things, but right now they're paying for those. They're not getting paid for them. Right.
I think that's the issue.
Is it going to put butts in the seat? You've seen stadiums start begin to fill, but then if you see the general public looking at it in their comments, they don't understand how hard that dinking is. But do they really want to watch a 30 ball dink rally?
[00:21:28] Speaker A: Right?
Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah. Because obviously the game has, there's nuances to the game that the person who plays knows about and people that play at a higher level even know more about because they're good at it. And I appreciate watching. I love watching J. Dubbin Fraser play the john's boys and going 30, 40 points back and forth in the dink.
But I understand that that's not exactly what Joe Schmo on the couch is going to necessarily want to watch as well. And then obviously you got the app sitting out there doing other things internationally, trying to build up the collegiate side, the high school side.
And I always look at that as maybe the other option, that some of these players who were app players at one point are just get fed up to a point in 2024, 2025. And maybe the app who seems to me is playing the long game here benefits from some of that. You have any thoughts on that at all?
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Well, I agree with that totally. And app has always been player centric. App has, I mean, Ken, Herman, Byron Frezzo, those are upstanding people who are doing it all for the right reason. And they've been kind of caught in the crosswind of like exclusive contracts from.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: PPA and all that stuff, which got that all going.
[00:22:50] Speaker B: Yeah. And they just kind of adapted, say, okay, we'll do next gen. We'll really work hard with the seniors. And now they have super seniors. They created that, the 16 over pro, right, and then college. And Ken's out there developing players. He's out there feeding balls and doing all this stuff.
Yes. So the MLP players that stuck to their original contract, supposedly PPA is going to try to punish them by not allowing them play PPA, but some of those MLP contracts allow you to get permission, or people already do have permission to play apps. And I think app is going to be the beneficiary. I think you're going to see some more players in there, but interesting enough, too. It's like, I've been to some of these app events and the quality is still great. There's so many. It is so much depth.
It's not.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: Well, we haven't even touched, really, the international marketplace and players. If it blows up in Asia, look out.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: Yeah, there's some other federation. I'm not sure who they. Some. I heard somebody's name that's really going after the international market. Hard spent a lot of money, but I haven't really been following that close. But you're right. I mean, the PPA and MLP, this is all us. There's a few international players, but they live here and the sport is exploding worldwide. Really?
Yeah. I think it's an exciting future for worldwide.
Maybe that's where the live streams really beef up is, because you start having people coming in from international.
But to get a tv deal, what do you have to have? You can't have 5000 streamers, right?
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Yeah. You need more folks, obviously. And it seems like it has done well when they've had particular slots in particular moments. I think last year when they had Jack Sock played that exhibition, I think that did all right and things like that. So I do think there's some potential for that.
I think you're right.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: The tennis players in probably the highest ever watched one was with McEnroe and Agassi and know, and by the way, McEnroe got a huge paddle deal with.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: That owl paddle thing and they're doing it.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Uh, I encourage the players that I know to try to go play some of these international events because there's so many sponsors out there that are international. I went to France and we played some pickleball there and there were guys, there were five, they, but they were like their best and they were decked out in a lesser stuff.
They were head to toe, just decked out in pickleball stuff. And these american players, if they went over there, they would probably dominate and then they could really increase their sponsorship.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. They could be like, you find out once in a while, some rock band is huge in Japan and then it has to be a us band.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: Like Chief Drake went to Japan, it got big. Tom Petty went to England and it got big. That's what I'm telling these guys that I know.
You're 30 in the world. Go play the English Open or go play the Italian Open or whatever. Go to Asia and win and be the man.
Leapfrog over this thing. Right now you're getting screwed on seedings, right?
[00:26:13] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Well, let's talk a little bit about something that is a little more in our age group, and that is the growth and the newly formed leagues and tours for people who are 50 plus, 60 plus, namely, obviously, the National Pickleball League and the senior pro tour. So we have a bracket based tour, and we have a team concept like MLP. Slightly different, obviously, in certain aspects, but pretty cool to see seniors sort of, I don't know, read the tea leaves a little and kind of go out there and really create things on their own. And because obviously they have a lot of professional knowledge, they have a lot of life knowledge, and they have a lot of means to do so. So talk a little bit what you've seen over the last year or so and what your thoughts about the growth of the senior pro game.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: Well, we've seen that for sure that you've talked about, but I don't know if, you know, the app started their own. Yes, teammates, champions 50 and over. And then there's 16 over pro league, which I got drafted in that league. So there's more leagues. I think it's great.
Let's see. So the senior pro league that Matthias does is great, and its angle is that 100% of the prize money goes to the players, and it's really player centric, and I think everybody's really enjoying it. And now they have 16 over, and then they've got a futures thing, like 40 to 49.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: Right. People kind of in that no man's land, so to speak. Yeah.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: And what I thought was interesting is, as I heal here, it's like they've got 60 and over pro singles, which the app doesn't have. And then the leagues. Okay, so the leagues are just fun. And when you're over 50 and you're playing pickleball or over 60, you want to have fun. And those, for sure, like little kids out there screaming and yelling for each other. And sometimes the tournaments can be a drag. Right. You always start at 08:00 a.m. So you got to get there while it's still dark outside. Get out there. For me, that's a problem because I like to go out the night before, maybe and have friends, maybe have a beer, but it's like, oh, shoot, I got to go to bed.
And then you end up playing a lot of pickleball, hopefully. But then there's a lot of waiting.
Know there can be. Know there's all bunch of players around you. But in the team event, I don't think it's like that. So I think that's killer. I think Rick Whitskin and Beth and Michael Chen have done a great job.
Everybody I know that played for the most part, wants to go back and play again.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: And then the know what I like too is like, app is increasing prize money. There's really good prize money in the app leagues because they're sponsored by the.
Oh, yeah, there's more money, more opportunities. And if you love pickleball, there's so many opportunities for you to play. The only thing about the leagues is I think you have to pick one or the other. They don't want you to do more than one.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it seems like the senior pros have more options than the open pros. It's like, oh, well, I can go do this. And if my schedule works for this particular entity and doesn't work for that one, I can kind of mix and match. So I think it's pretty cool. It seems like it's what pro players, open pros used to have a few years ago before contracts started, get thrown around and things like that. They had a little more options and they could float.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: You're exactly right. Because for the young pros, they're really trying to restrict them and have.
It's really. It's an exciting time for senior think, you know, and I think it's also partially reactive to the PPA doesn't acknowledge the senior pros hardly. They don't even want to call them pros. They call them open division and get parking.
You don't even get refreshments in a tent or anything like that.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: Leads you with 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.
And I wondered, I've said this out loud and I was on a podcast the other day, I think as we go along, and I'm talking open pros that are starting to kind of figure out that we need more of a voice.
They've done this playing wise as far as having mentorships with senior pros, but I think they could do the same thing in starting to look at what the senior pros have done over the last year or two. They don't necessarily have to replicate it, but they can take some things from that and learn from these folks and pick their brains about what can we do? Because if you're a division three tennis player and all of a sudden you got three days to sign some contract and you don't have an agent or anything like that, that's a tough position to be in. But when you have a group of people that we get to play with and against who have all the professional experience, whether they're in marketing or they're in law or whatever it happens to be, they do have that benefit of sort of leaning on one another. And not everybody has to depend on one billionaire to do something for them or not do something for them. So what do you think about the idea of maybe some of these open pros really sort of looking at what the seniors are doing and talking to them about it?
[00:32:01] Speaker B: Well, I think that some of the top senior pros are actually coming into the pro level. As coaches now.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: Yeah, as coaches.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: Then you become kind of a confidant, kind of like a big brother or sister or whatever. So there is some of that. And the problem that you have is that money talks.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: You can have all the greatest ideas in the world, but if somebody is going to spend a lot of money and pay you to be somewhere, you're going to be there, because right now there's not a whole lot of options and there's not a whole lot of money to be made in prize money or sponsorships. I mean, if you're the top pro, there is, but we're talking about where you can quit your job and just play pickleball and have a very comfortable living, maybe even put some money away for the future. You kind of got to go where the money is.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And obviously, you don't know how long the money is going to be available.
This could all just go away overnight.
We've seen that. Yeah.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: I can tell you. That's why the things that I've worked on, we try to get money up front as much as we can because it would not be surprising to anybody if a few months out, the check stopped coming from one source or another.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
And that's the thing, whether this merger is going to happen or not. And we already saw people sign contracts and people are being asked to take pay reductions, and the contract wasn't even in play yet. So again, it seems like we're in a very somewhat volatile spot, and I don't blame people at all for trying to get some money while they can, because obviously a lot of these folks are young and trying to. The difference is they're trying to make a living where we have made a living already. And this is all a bonus for us.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: So you're retired?
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I retired pretty early in my mid forty s. I was a schoolteacher and then just kind of left and went off grid and started growing some stuff once in a while.
[00:34:07] Speaker B: Okay. All right. Well, good for you. Sound like pickleball is perfect for you.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: It is. It doesn't mean I don't work. My wife and I sort of do temporary stuff. We live in a valley that's got about 500 people, and it's a fairly older valley, so we're in our mid 50s, so we still do some of the heavy lifting, whether it happens to be yard work or cutting down trees or whatever it happens to be. And my wife's really the queen of that. She's got her own truck, she's got her own set of tools.
And I do things once in a while, but I'm trying to get this pickleball thing going a little bit so I can have some fun and maybe someday have a little bit of a supplemental income from it.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: Well, maybe your podcast will take off.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Who in a. I'm in a movie that's coming up that's about the tour wars, and I'm actually narrating it. And I actually did interview Steve Coon briefly at MLP Mesa last year right before the finals. He came out to stretch his legs, and I had about three minutes with him. And I had the same impression, not knowing the man at all, but really sweet guy. I mean, gave me his time. I was doing for my channel. I was just there interviewing a bunch of people and told them kind of how I lived and stuff. And really gracious guy with the time he had, considering the finals were literally about ten minutes away.
[00:35:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that sounds like Steve.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
So let's get back to you before we get you out of here. Obviously recovering from full shoulder surgery, is that correct?
[00:35:44] Speaker B: Full right partial knee placement and partial left knee. Yeah.
So I could knock them.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: Hitting balls yet?
[00:35:53] Speaker B: I am. Yeah.
When I first started hitting, I couldn't move like hardly one step, and I still had a lot of swelling in my knee. And I felt like sometimes I'd go to go.
Anybody see me play? It's like they'll tell you that I probably hit the ball too hard and don't work on my off came. Well, I'd go to hit the ball hard. I'd go to hit the ball hard. And I felt like I knew where it was going to go, and then I felt like I had some child's arm attached to mine, attached to my body, and I was like, that's not going where I think it's going. So I've been having to struggle with that. I finished the physical therapy, and now I'm in the gym working out, and I'm getting strained. I'm able to get down low again with the knee, but I didn't play for four months, and my game is very timing based, and my timing sucks. So I went from 50 to a three five, and I'm maybe a 40. I'm working my way back up.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And, I mean, you've played a lot of singles, which isn't easy on the body either. I don't care if you're 20 or if you're 60. That's no joke. So are you going to continue to try and pursue singles eventually or not?
[00:37:03] Speaker B: If my body continues to feel the way I am, I'm going to. I had the surgeries because, well, my shoulder injury was so bad. Okay. So I quit tennis, and then it continued to kind of get worse, and they wanted to do a shoulder replacement on me, like nine years ago, and I said no because I thought it was too gruesome. But I finally had to do it because the pain was just so bad and my range of motion was getting into nothing. So the whole time I played pickleball, I've had pain, and I played singles through it. So now I'm pain free.
It's amazing.
I'm playing like crap, but I don't have any pain, so I'm encouraged. So it makes me want to get out there. And I'm starting to drill again and everything. And, yeah, I think I would. I think I'd like to compete with.
They have over 60 pro now, right? Haven't had. So that kind of is intriguing to me. So we'll see.
[00:37:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Little carrot out there for you to kind of, when you're working out and having those bad days, you're like, okay, this could be out there next summer or whatever it happens to be.
[00:38:02] Speaker B: Yeah, well, there's a big difference, too, between 60 and 50, for sure.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: I'm going to be 57, and I can already tell that's coming.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: And then you got the guys that are 49 that come in and they turn 50 during the year, and you're like, wow, your body is like, you're 27. You look like you're 35. You're gazelle. Yeah.
[00:38:24] Speaker A: You watch Altoff and you're like, holy crap.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: And when Whitkin came in, he's gifted genetically, his body. He can take the wear and tear. He's fast. It's everything.
[00:38:37] Speaker A: And he's a big dude, which is surprising the amount he can play, like, all three events for the season. He put in the year before, like 30 some events. I'm like, man, I don't know how you do not break down being. He's not like 510 or buck 50.
He's a big dude. He's a big man.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: Yeah. We used to room together a lot, and he'd start in the morning and I'd be done because if I went three and two, it was a good tournament for me. But he'd be all day, so I'd hang out and we'd watch him, and he'd play till the nighttime, and we'd go out to dinner, and I'd be sore from what, you know, I'd be beat up. And maybe he'd ask if there was an Advil around or something. He was just totally fine.
Get up the next morning, do it again all day long.
[00:39:25] Speaker A: Yeah. He's a genetic beast.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: Yes. It's a freaking nature for that age. Mircha is the same way. Olin.
[00:39:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it's so funny because those guys are all the guys that are at the top. They can hang. Obviously. They have the talent and they have the work ethic, but, yeah, they're just built a different way.
I get up some mornings, I walk like I'm 100 years old. I'm like, holy. I played 2 hours yesterday with some rec players.
[00:39:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it gets really hard, like in the lower back and the hips.
[00:39:54] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:39:55] Speaker B: Especially if you're drinking a lot or whatever.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I had to start doing yoga because my lower back just couldn't take it.
[00:40:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I remember years ago, I started doing yoga because I was getting injured, and then I got injured at yoga.
[00:40:08] Speaker A: You know, things are going shitty when you get injured, but the things that are supposed to help you. Yeah. How about I know you play in bands and stuff like that? How have these surgeries impacted your musical life?
[00:40:20] Speaker B: Well, I quit bands because we used to travel around some, and they were being like, let's try to play this festival, or let's travel over here to play this gig. And I was like, well, no, I'm going to deciding if I'm playing the PPA or I. They understood because we had a lot of time invested, but I had just got lucky and won a national singles thing. So I was like, I think I can do this pretty well. And so they were all behind me and everything, but I never looked back. By the time I quit, I was late fifty s and guys in my hand a lot of time were really young, and I was dyeing my hair and going to the gym, trying to make my. And I just decided it'd be nice just to let that go.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:41:08] Speaker B: And get onto something else. And I thought it'd be healthy, too. I don't really imbibe with a lot of what these guys were doing, but I was around it, and it's a lot healthier to be in the pickleball world.
Healthier lifestyle.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: Yeah. We all have to do that. We had to make choices for this sport.
A different choice for me. I was a runner through high school, college, most of my adult life, and I just could not do both. My knees and hips and ankles could not do both. And I'm like, you know what? Pickleball is just a new challenge. It's more fun. I've run 30 years. That's enough.
I'm going to do something else as well. And so when I told people I stopped running, they're like, really? I'm like, I did it, man. It's fine. I'm not going to get any better at that.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: Did you have any ping pong, racquetball, tennis, any kind of racket sport background?
[00:42:00] Speaker A: Not really. I did all those things occasionally. Like anybody would. I had a tennis racket that I'd pick up every so often, every few years or whatever, but I was mainly a sand volleyball doubles guy, so I've had good court sense and things like that, and hitting angles and stuff like that. I played a fair amount of baseball as a kid, so I have pretty good hand eye coordination. But, yeah, I can hit ground strokes. That looks like I know what I'm doing. But there's once in a while I'll do something that's a little unorthodox, maybe that a tennis player or a table tennis player wouldn't do. But I think right now I'm probably at about somewhere between a 40 and a four five.
I've played one mixed tournament, I played a few singles tournaments and found out real quick that those tennis guys are tough.
But for me, the biggest issue is I've got to get to a place where I'm playing against people that can destroy me on a regular basis and get in some of those groups, and they're not always easy groups to get in because nobody wants to be in a group where they're not necessarily being challenged. But I found a group out here that I got to do 80 miles round trip where those folks are at least somewhere between 40 and four or five. And so that's the group I can hang with for now. But eventually I taught high school in Phoenix and I have relatives there. I may have to go hang out in Phoenix for some periods of time during the year and play some high level ball if I ever want to actually get out of the 40 range.
[00:43:31] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot of good pickleball in Arizona.
[00:43:34] Speaker A: Yeah. So there's not a lot here.
[00:43:37] Speaker B: How far are you from Rio DOsA? Because I heard there's a lot of good pickleball there. Is that a totally different.
[00:43:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm far away from everything since there's nothing in this corner of the state, so I'm probably still 3 hours from there. Actually, Phoenix is slightly closer to me than Albuquerque even is. So as the crow flies, I'm about 15 to 20 miles inside the state line, about 5 hours due east of Phoenix, just inside New Mexico.
But it's okay. I'm kind of delving into other areas where it'll allow me probably to travel a little bit and play some places. So we'll see what this year brings with opportunities, hopefully from the film and the channel as well. And just making connections with folks like yourself, too. It's always good to talk to folks to see what they're doing and then get a chance to meet in person someday, whether it's at a tournament or not.
[00:44:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure I'll see you out there.
[00:44:30] Speaker A: Yeah, man. Hey, I really appreciate your time. Anything you want to tell me about podcast wise or anything else coming up, sponsorships, whatever you want to mention before we go and we'll get you out of here.
[00:44:42] Speaker B: I would just say I'm sponsored by Gearbox. And that new progated paddle is unreal.
So you think it's power, right? But I've never been able to drop volley like I have with this thing. It's got so much feel, so much spin, so much power.
Yeah. I have to give a shout out to gearbox.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: I've heard nothing but amazing things about that pedal. I have not hit it yet, but I've talked to several people who have, like yourself and same thing. They're like, oh, my God, and it lasts. That's the thing about gearbox.
[00:45:15] Speaker B: They last for a year.
[00:45:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
My first paddle was a gearbox because I'm like, I can't afford. It's before the channel. I can't afford to be buying paddles all the time. I need something that's going to last me a while.
I still have it.
Yeah. Hey, man, I appreciate it. Listen to Comey's homies episodes coming up. He's got two out at the moment and great show.
I'm a subscriber and subscribe to his channel as well. And thanks for your time, David. Hope to catch up to you in person sometime, man.
[00:45:44] Speaker B: All right. Thank you, my friend.
[00:45:45] Speaker A: All right. Hope you enjoyed our interview with David Comey. All the links in the description, mission and hey, at the end of the day, it's all about one thing.
[00:45:54] Speaker B: Let's tickle.
