SPEAKER_04: 0:00

Hi, I'm Shelly Maurer. And I'm Cher Emrick. Welcome to Life Lessons from Pickleball, where we engage with pickleball players from around the world about life on and off the court. Thanks for joining us. Oh, welcome everyone to Life Lessons from Pickleball. It's so great to have you here and you are really lucky because we're really lucky. We have two Pickleball Hall of Famers, Jim and Yvonne Hackenberg with us today. And Jim, you were inducted into the Pickleball Hall of Fame in 2020. Yes.

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And Yvonne, you were inducted in 2021. Yes.

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Congrats.

UNKNOWN: 0:42

Wow. What an honor.

SPEAKER_03: 0:43

Yeah, that's amazing. And the joy of it was that because Jim was inducted during the pandemic, we both got to appear for our induction live in Texas, right? In Texas in 2021 when I was inducted. Oh,

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that's so great. So we got to share the stage.

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So that made it even more special. It did. And my doubles partner, Hilary Merrild, also.

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Brilliant. What an honor. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah, very. So let's just start. Were you two involved in other sports before pickleball?

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Go ahead. She's a Hall of Famer in two other sports, yeah.

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Okay, let's hear about those.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30

Well, it started with being a little sister to my brother who– dragged me along everywhere he went and he was athletic. And so I got to play a lot of sports at a very young age. And then I latched onto tennis and that was life changing because got to travel, play tennis, played at Western Michigan University, taught tennis, was a tennis pro. And so anyway, then from there, we went to platform tennis, which is an outdoor, Winter sport. And it's on a court, luckily, a court the same size as a pickleball court. And so my pickleball partner, Hillary Merrill, and I won a few national championships. Luckily, we're inducted into the Hall of Fame for platform tennis in 1998.

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Wow. Wait, what is platform tennis?

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Well, it's, like I said, a court the same size as a pickleball court, 20 by 44. Same size net, but it has more of the markings of a mini tennis court. So it's an overhand serve. Score the same. Score the same as tennis. But the unique thing about it is that it has a chicken wire around it. And because it's chicken wire, you can judge the angles because it's a finer mesh than like a fence. And so it's kind of a combination of tennis and racquetball. How

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interesting. But the

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ball has to land in bounds before you can play it off the screens.

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How fascinating. But

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it's the same racquet? It's a paddle, but it has holes in it. And because the ball is a sponge rubber ball, the paddles are heavier and they're much more abrasive because the ball can be kind of frozen at times. And so it's a much rougher paddle and the surface of the court has aluminum oxide particles in it instead of a tennis court, which has silica sand. And so wear out your shoes pretty fast.

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I think I've seen Europeans playing that game.

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That's padel. Oh, okay. You're thinking of padel, totally, completely different sport. Interesting. Platform tennis is, the courts are pretty expensive to build. It's not, you won't see it in many public facilities because it's very expensive to build. And it's primarily at country clubs, right?

UNKNOWN: 4:10

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 4:10

I see. Oh, my goodness. How fun.

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You can't just drop it off, you know, tape it off in your driveway.

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So, wow, you're a Hall of Famer in every sport you've played.

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Well, I coach tennis and I am in the Kalamazoo College Hall of Fame, too.

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Congratulations. Thank you. And Jim, how about you? Were you doing other sports before pickleball?

SPEAKER_00: 4:35

Not a whole lot. I was playing flat platform tennis in the winter, like, like Yvonne, but no, I was primarily into running more than anything at that, at that time. So, and then just, you know, I played a little tennis in high school and that was it.

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Ping pong. Oh, there we

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go. I just like, yeah, it was just like all different sports. And yeah, we, we picked up, Pickleball and took off with that.

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So how were you introduced to Pickleball and what was going on in your lives when you were introduced to it?

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Well, it was kind of the winter of my discontent in a way, but it was winter. It was in Michigan, slushy, you know. And we saw an article in the paper that said that some ambassadors put an article in the paper and mentioned that pickleball was being offered at the YMCA. And it was one of those days we didn't have anything else going on. And so we thought, oh, let's go over there and give it a try. And like everybody else, we loved it.

SPEAKER_00: 5:53

But we had dismissed it. years before, because I had an aunt and uncle that lived in the villages and sent us an article about pickleball. And like so many people at that time, we just missed it. Older people's game. And so, yeah, we poo-pooed it first until we gave it a try. And now, yeah, the rest is history. But yeah, we

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had a skill set going into it and that helped a lot.

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I would say so. Clearly. Well, how did it go from there? Because your involvement is amazing. So tell us about that. You've been so involved in pickleball.

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In 2009 is when we discovered it. And we went to the state games and did well and felt like we were right there with everybody else. And so we saw that the Nationals were gonna be in Arizona later, that we discovered in the spring. And in the fall, the Nationals were gonna be in Arizona. And we thought, let's test the waters here. See if we're as good as we think we are. And we did pretty well. We got a little bit schooled. Platform tennis is a game where you, it's a serve and volley game. So you wanna return the ball low, over the net kind of top spin and low. And so we went out to Arizona and that's how we played it. And everybody said, oh, you got to learn the Arizona soft game. And now it's reversed, I think. It's now a lot of drives. But certainly, yeah, the soft game is part of it still. But so we went to Arizona. I think we, Hillary and I, I think we made it to the finals.

UNKNOWN: 7:45

Yeah.

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And we made it quite a ways in mixed and Jim did well, but we didn't win. But, and it was, we were going from Michigan to Arizona. We, I was gassed. I was so, and then with double elimination, once you lose, then you keep calling your name. And I was not ready for that kind of heat back then. But it was super fun. We met so many people. We stayed with a family when we were out there because that's what we did in platform tennis. You never stayed in a hotel. People hosted you and you got to know them. So it was just a great experience. We had so much fun with it and we're even more inspired. And to the point that we now go to Arizona every winter.

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Do you? Oh, that's fantastic.

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At Happy Trails? Is that where you all go? We're in Grand. The Grand used to be called Sun City Grand. It's the Grand. They want to rebrand it for younger folks. And so we've always gone to the Grand. There are 22 courts there.

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Wow.

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And so, yeah, that seems like our home in the winter.

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At the time, Surprise, Arizona was like the Mecca for pickleball. I mean, some of the top players were from that area. Now, so many other cities have surpassed it in terms of the number of courts and everything that they offer. But it's still a great place to winter, and we love it there.

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That's great. And the wintertime in Arizona is the time to be in Arizona.

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That's right. I might add, too, that in 2010, Hillary and I won. Back then, there wasn't a skill age breakdown. It was just age. It was called open. Oh, okay. In the second year, Hillary went out never having played the sport. But she had a lot of other skills.

UNKNOWN: 9:46

Wow.

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And the next year we won the Open Division in women's. And I think we did well in mixed,

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too.

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Yeah, we won. But anyway, that was the beginning. Fantastic.

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Well, I don't even know. This count's probably higher, but the last I read, you've won 43 gold medals at nationals, 49 gold medals in the World Senior Games, 30 at U.S. Open. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_03: 10:14

Yeah, a lot of it is... is we have wonderful synergy with our partners and we play the mix together. And that's another aspect of it, too, is that we are doing something together and traveling.

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I've had great partners. Let me

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put

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it that way. I credit my partners. We all have.

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Yeah, we both

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have. Yeah. It takes two, Jim.

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But he plays singles, too. I do not. I tried it. It did not take. But he plays singles and has won a lot of singles tournaments, too.

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Wow.

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But it's enriched

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our lives. Oh, yeah. So many people, it's just been great, incredible.

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Such a great community, isn't it? Yeah. So you haven't won all the games that you've played together, and somehow you've maintained this wonderful relationship, and you are known for what is called the Hackenberg Rule. Can you tell our audience what is the Hackenberg Rule?

SPEAKER_03: 11:20

Well, that's when, between points, we touch hands. We touch hands because that just kind of, it's a reset for us. And so that's really worked. You know, the past is the past. Here we go. New point. Let's stay together as a team. No blame, no worries. And so that works for us. We don't do it in rec play, but when something's on the line, that's what we do. Yeah, and now I notice almost everybody does it in the pro ranks, almost everybody.

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I've seen that too. I'm so proud of you for inspiring that because we do the paddle tap, but that's different. That's different. When you touch the hand, it really makes the difference, right? Yes. I'd like

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to say that they all saw our video and maybe that's the route to go.

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Yeah, you're famous. Tony Rogue put that out. He's the one that named it the Hackenberg Rule, so you've got to give him credit for that. I think Yvonne saw it from somebody else and said, we need to start doing that. It's not like we invented it. Oh, I

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don't know.

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I'm going to take credit for it. But we tried to

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promote it. It works for us.

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How do you stay... in love and kind and open-hearted. When you're in a competitive game and it's the two of you, what do you do?

SPEAKER_03: 12:59

Well, if things start to... Maybe going the other direction, I call a timeout.

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Yeah. You call a

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timeout.

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Jim, do we need a timeout? Well, then that means I'm not behaving

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properly. Oh, he knows. Oh, no. But we leave it, definitely leave it all on the court. But we do try to, I mean, it's a team effort. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts philosophy.

UNKNOWN: 13:30

Yeah.

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that the team is more important than the individual. So that's kind of what my mentality is.

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Yeah, for sure.

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That's a nice rule. That's a nice life lesson. The team is more important than the individual. Yes.

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There are a lot of great life lessons in Pickleball.

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What are some of the life lessons that you've gleaned, either on the court that you've taken into your life or in your life that you've taken onto the court?

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I would say that definitely to be kind. I mean, we're competitive, but when it's over, you hug your opponent. It's over. Win or lose. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:18

What about you? That's true. I mean, we always try to respect our opponents. So that's very important. We've tried to show a level of sportsmanship that we're proud to display. So that's a very important life lesson, I think, we try to

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bring. Yeah, because we've played it probably longer than most people. And so we do feel like we want to represent the best in pickleball.

SPEAKER_04: 14:47

Well, clearly you do. A rule has already been established for you guys.

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That's our legacy.

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Another thing that I've read is how you guys really stress how important it is that we all give back to the sport that we love so much. That's

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very true. That's very true.

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And you both spent a lot of time refereeing, and Jim, you served on the USA Rules Committee,

SPEAKER_00: 15:16

right? That's correct. That's correct. Now, we feel very strongly about that part of the game and everything. We wouldn't have been... We wouldn't have found the game if it weren't for the ambassadors that we had here in Kalamazoo. And unfortunately, one of them passed away due to his diabetes. And he ran our first Kalamazoo tournaments. And we wanted to continue his legacy. So we became ambassadors. And we started to run the Kalamazoo tournament. And first we called it the Bob Northrup Memorial. It has since passed. evolved into the, you know, pickleball fever in the zoo and Latitude. Our top sponsor is Mike Stoddard, who is the owner of a Latitude 42 brewery. And so now it's the Latitude 42 pickleball fever in the zoo. But we just had our tournament just a few weeks ago. And That in turn has raised funds that we started our nonprofit Pickleball Outreach, where we have now donated over$100,000 to develop courts, enhance courts or build new courts throughout the local community. And, yeah, we felt strongly about giving back, whether it be through refereeing. I'm no longer a certified referee. I was for a while, but, you know, there are so many now that travel, and there's a lot of excellent referees out there. But I did serve for a while on the rules committee. I was proud to be a part of that. I'm not crazy about some of the changes, but I'll leave that to the others to deal with. But, yeah. No, we feel strongly about giving back. We donate our time to give maybe some local clinics in our area. And no, we just want to grow the sport because of the people before us who did the same thing.

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As you probably know, tournaments can generate a lot of money with sponsors and entry fees. And so creating that nonprofit was a big thing. for us we thought that was really important to put that money because none of us take

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a penny out of it everything goes towards the non-profit

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so we can either put up pay for windscreens or maybe helping to turn a tennis court into a couple of pickleball courts just a lot of various things

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what's the website for that is it pickleballoutreach.com

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yes And then we have a Facebook page called Kalamazoo Pickleball Club, I think. But yeah, Kalamazoo Pickleball. Nice. Uh-huh. So

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it's interesting, you know, you talked about how to maintain your wonderful relationship with each other and to create a good relationship with your opponents on the court. You bring kindness to it and you've carried that out into the broader spectrum of the community and expanding Pickleball and supporting them financially and also with your time. I mean, that's, you're an inspiration on so many levels.

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And

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I'm wondering, have you had challenges that have really kind of I was thinking Shelly and I played this morning with a group of people and one of the gals that I was playing with her favorite line is soft is our friend and I was thinking there are lots of challenges on the court. And sometimes we overcome that challenge by hitting it really hard and fast behind somebody, or we hit it really soft and it's just over the net. And there are so many different ways to overcome challenges. I was just thinking that on our drive home. So have there been challenges in your own lives that you've overcome that

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Are you talking about pickleball?

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Any kind, in life.

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Well, one thing when you said that soft is your friend, I always think the wind is our friend here. We've had the windiest summer ever, and people are complaining about it, and I just say, hey, the wind's your friend. But, yeah, we've had definitely, I mean, I don't even want to get into all the health things, Why not? Go for it. We're all about health and challenges. It was a big deal. Jim fell off an e-bike, had surgery, brain surgery.

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Well, a pickleball friend of ours saved my life, basically.

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Yeah, a pickleball friend. What? What? What? Okay. Tell us your story. Tell us your

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story. What is that story?

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Well, Danella Redinger from Arizona. is an emergency room nurse and the kindest person ever. We played pickleball with her. In fact, once I cut my lip and I said, hey, I've got to go get stitches. And she said, just, I'll take them out tomorrow. Just come to the courts. You don't want to miss the

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game. I'll just go right there

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and we'll play. At the Huntsman Games, Jim was in Snow Canyon on an e-bike and His hat was going to fly off. So he took his hand off the handlebar and he crashed going about 25 miles an hour. And so they, you know, he got a couple of stitches and thought all was good. But then about, gosh, it was about two months later, two months later, he started just, he couldn't stand up. He was wobbly. And it turned out he had a brain bleed from that. Oh my goodness. It happened so much later. And so he had a brain bleed and I took him to the doctor. He couldn't even stand up. And so it was really a dire circumstance. And so we called Danella, showed her the scan and she went into action right then. It was right after the pandemic. I could only visit him for a short period of time. And so she found him. There was no ER or ICU space. There were no beds. And you've got to have a bed before they'll admit you. And so she found him a bed and a great doctor. And within 24 hours, he was having brain surgery. And also... You know, just being in Arizona, we were in Arizona at the time and he, you know, he was able to walk, you know, do, you know, start walking and just gradually playing some pickleball. And there again, you know, getting that, I think that exercise really helped. kept shifting his brain back. And he's perfectly fine now, but he was near death. The doctor said, he said, one more day and you wouldn't be with us. And so there's an example of a pickleball friend who stepped up big time and a life changer.

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She's an angel in my life. And Yvonne, because Yvonne, into action too, after everything happened. So I owe my life to two

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beautiful women. That's an example of pretty, you know, pretty important example of how pickleball changed his life.

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Yeah. Just the community that we get from pickleball is really incredible. I mean,

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she was in the middle of a tournament. And she was. And she was taking care of us and making arrangements. The

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outpouring of well wishes I got from the pickleball community was overwhelming. It was overwhelming. It was really wonderful. A lot of

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cards, chicken soup.

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People were so wonderful. It was really, really encouraging. Really helped with my recovery.

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How long ago was this surgery?

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Probably about three years ago.

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Three years? December of 22 or 1? Yeah, it

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was right over Christmas.

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Wow.

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But yeah, yeah, so that was really sweet. Well,

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people use the phrase pickleball can change the world. It certainly changed your life. I mean, that saved your life. It saved my life. It saved your life. That is so moving. I'm so glad you're okay.

SPEAKER_03: 23:58

Yeah. I agree with that, changing the world, because when we're playing pickleball, we're not talking about politics. We're in the moment. We're focused on what we want to do on the court and the people who are around us. No one's

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checking their messages on their phone, thinking

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about something else. Yeah, it does not come into play at all. So that's just huge in a stress reduction way. It really

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is. Yeah. And especially with the loneliness epidemic going on in the world and certainly in our country, I am seeing how pickleball, certainly in my own life, having recently divorced and moved to a different place. And I found my community on the pickleball court. Shelly and I met the very first day we took a lesson and we became friends. And since now we have this huge group of friends. It's been amazing.

UNKNOWN: 24:58

Yeah.

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Yes. Oh, yeah. It's a

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warm feeling. That's a cool story, I think. Yeah. All our... I won't say all of our only friends, but many of our closest friends now, we are from pickleball. We met them playing pickleball. The things we do, the game nights we have, or the get-togethers are mostly all pickleball friends. When we go to Arizona, it's the same story. They're all just great pickleball friends.

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And people we wouldn't necessarily cross paths with in any other settings. That's true. So it brings that Whole variety and diversity.

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That's right. Wow, every walk of life. Oh, yeah. Yes. And age. And age. Yeah.

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Do we want

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to get into

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that? We're the old people on the block now. Not compared to

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my mom,

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though. Her mother is 90.

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Okay, I'm

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going to... Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03: 25:58

Okay, my mom is 99. Tomorrow... She is being interviewed at the church where she plays pickleball by our local news station. And she plays twice a week. And talk about community. She, she, I mean, there are people much better, much more skilled than she is, but they want to make sure they get a game with Minnie. Her name's Minnie. And they want a game with Minnie. And then there's another mother. I go with her on Tuesdays. I call it Tuesdays with Minnie. And she, she, there's another mother daughter, but her mother's only 87.

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Oh, only 87.

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Incredible. 99. Incredible. They had a big party for her. Her birthday's June 22nd. They had a huge party for her at the church, in the church gym. And just an outpouring and hugs, hugs every time she goes. I'm Hall of Fame, but I am dog meat compared to her. Everybody wants their hugs.

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Our tournament, our annual tournament was held during her birthday and we had her come out and do a ceremonial first service point to her daughter and her friends played. And so they played the first point of the of the tournament on that day. She lives alone. She drives. She mows her own lawn. She's an incredible individual.

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Pickleball has made a huge difference in her life too because her tennis friends fell by the wayside. I introduced her to pickleball and now she has... You know how important that social involvement is when you're older. There's no isolation there in her life. It's huge.

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Joyce Jones was a recent guest on our

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show. She's 94 and still going strong. She's wonderful. She's a wonderful, she's a beautiful lady. She's 94? 94. Yeah, she's great. She's great.

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My mom actually won the national senior games in Birmingham back a few years ago when she was over 95. But she won because she was the only one in her age group. If you wouldn't know it, she kept the medal, hung the medal in her car in the backseat and then had rest.

SPEAKER_01: 28:32

That's awesome. That's so cool.

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That's so great. We laughed because we were mixed doubles. We saw this guy come in with a walker. And we said, Minnie, there's your mixed doubles partner. And it was.

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Oh, for heaven's sake.

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So

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did that gentleman play with the walker on the court?

SPEAKER_00: 28:53

No, he didn't play. No, he didn't use it on the court, but he used it off the court. He wasn't real mobile on the

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court. That's amazing.

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Nice man. Nice man. He was out

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there. How many tournaments are you guys still doing a year? Quite a few?

SPEAKER_03: 29:10

Well, Jim's still doing quite a few.

SPEAKER_00: 29:12

I like tournaments. Because

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he doesn't mind playing down in the 60s. We're 75. So he doesn't mind playing in the 60s, but I'm not as keen on doing that in a tournament. Of course, we play with much younger people on a daily basis. In my age group and skill level, there aren't very many So, yes. What is your age group? 75 plus. 75 plus.

SPEAKER_04: 29:45

Oh, my gosh. I thought you were 60s, early 60s. Oh, thank you. Come on. I'm not kidding. We're friends now. Oh, we're best friends. Oh, my gosh. You're inspiring even there.

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And I think my duper is like 4.7, which is a little inflated, I have to say.

UNKNOWN: 30:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 30:05

Wow.

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I'm going to keep it. Keep it, yeah.

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She doesn't want to play anymore.

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But we're playing in the Nationals, and Jim is playing in several tournaments.

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Yeah. Nice.

SPEAKER_00: 30:19

I said, well, I like to play. My primary partner is Mark Friedenberg. You may have heard of him. He's a Hall of Famer. Yeah, his nickname's Yoda. And he was instrumental in getting the USA Pickleball Association started and everything. He's been playing far longer than we have. And he's just like... a legendary icon of the sport. So he's a lot of fun to play with. So I've played a lot of tournaments with Yoda.

SPEAKER_03: 30:49

Yeah. You have to, you want a partner that you have chemistry with. That's. Yeah. That's really

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lovely. Yeah. And you two have it in spades. So the two of you together, I mean, that's pretty lovely to see the chemistry. So there are a lot of people who haven't tried pickleball yet. They're still a little nervous about it. Or

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they think it's for old people.

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That used to be the case. They haven't shown up at courts. That's

SPEAKER_04: 31:19

right. So what would you say to them? What encouraging words do you have for them?

SPEAKER_03: 31:27

Well, when people come out, we see them watching. We're ambassadors. So back when we played at the Y, we would... We have extra paddles. Come on out. Give it a try. I think they need to be encouraged a little bit. Give them a couple of pointers. You know how easy it is to get going in the sport and have your first decent point. And so I think that helps the be on the lookout for these people who might want to want to play or neighbors. who we think would benefit.

SPEAKER_00: 32:03

I don't think it's nearly as difficult nowadays to get people interested in the game as it was when we first started because the sport, as you know, has grown so exponentially and more and more people, younger people are playing. So I think word of mouth is out there for even the younger people to get out there, give it a try. At our local courts that we helped have developed, you'll see a lot of people high school age, you know, just hitting the ball around. They may not know the score very well or how to play properly, but they're hitting the ball back and forth and having fun with it. So whatever it takes, you know, just get out there and have fun. So give it a try.

SPEAKER_03: 32:46

Yeah, it's so well known now. The sport is so well known. We used to have to explain it to everybody. They thought it was like tiddlywinks or something. They just had no idea. And now, yeah, the word is out. about it.

SPEAKER_00: 33:02

We just attended the MLP in Grand Rapids, Michigan this weekend, and the level of play is so high above what we were able to accomplish in our day. But they're just phenomenal players to watch. I mean, the skill set is just incredible.

SPEAKER_04: 33:23

The MLP, that's the pro?

SPEAKER_00: 33:26

Yeah, that was

SPEAKER_03: 33:27

the pro. Major League Pickleball. Major League Pickleball. Premier League and Challenger League. So Anna Lee's team won the event. It's fun to see her shot making.

SPEAKER_04: 33:39

She's incredible.

SPEAKER_03: 33:41

Very fun to see.

SPEAKER_04: 33:43

And her relationship with her

SPEAKER_00: 33:58

mom

SPEAKER_04: 34:02

is very heartwarming. on the court, outside the court. And I want to reiterate that you have pickleballoutreach.com where people can go and support the incredible work that you're doing. And thank you so much for that. And thank you so much for being on our show. I mean, don't

SPEAKER_03: 34:31

you think? How lucky are we?

SPEAKER_02: 34:34

Yes, we're so lucky. Thank you very much. I better

SPEAKER_03: 34:35

put in a plug for my daughter and grandchildren, too, in case they see this. Because our daughter's athletic and she plays pickleball. And we made sure that our grandchildren knew how to play so they'd have a lifetime sport because they're softball and baseball players. But we wanted that lifetime support for them in there. They have a good skill set also. What's your daughter's name? Christy. And your grandkids? Riley, Tyler, and James Robert, J.R. And they're all

SPEAKER_04: 35:10

famous too.

SPEAKER_03: 35:13

They're going to take it up a little bit later. They're in college age now.

SPEAKER_04: 35:20

Well, thank you. Thank you so much for everything you're doing in life. Thank you for everything you're doing to support Pickleball. And thank you for being with us today. Really appreciate it. Our

SPEAKER_03: 35:30

pleasure. Thank you

SPEAKER_00: 35:32

for

SPEAKER_03: 35:32

the opportunity. Yes, thanks for asking. We appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04: 35:36

And we thank everyone who's been listening and watching. Thank you so much for joining us. And stay tuned for ways that you can even be a little bit more supportive. And we hope to see you on the court. Thanks, everyone. Bye-bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_02: 35:50

If you love our podcast, we'd be so grateful if you'd take a few seconds to follow or subscribe to Life Lessons from Pickleball. This ensures you'll never miss an episode and helps us continue these wonderful conversations.

SPEAKER_04: 36:04

On Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen, go to the show page and tap the follow button in the top right corner. And on YouTube, click the subscribe button under any of the episodes. Thanks so much. Hope to see you on the court.

UNKNOWN: 36:20

you