One of the players at the Riverside Park pickleball courts denigrates his teammates. He shouts “Come on!” when they miss a shot. He tells them how to improve. He’s the second-best player. No one wants to play with him.
After my final match today, I hung back to chat with two of the players. Quickly, their comments changed to how awful it is to play with him. He’s good when he’s on. But what about those comments! And his complaints about the sun being in his eyes? Sure, it’s hard on lobs from the north side. But half of the shots he missed were groundstrokes!
I laughed and listened and cracked a few jokes. I didn’t add to the opinions – gossiping about that player doesn’t help.
One skill that clown school taught me: complicité. The ability to play with someone like they’re your best friend. The ability to know who’s minor (something like “follower”) and who’s major (leader). The ability to find joy and pleasure underneath suffering and failure and pain.
This guy doesn’t have that. He’s not giving comments from a place of love. He’s not kind and gentle and light. His teammates suffer.
His teammates don’t just suffer cognitively. They play worse.
Pickleball is a team game. And it’s not one where a good player can cover their partner’s mistakes: The losing team is generally whichever team has the worst player. If you speak in a manner that makes your teammate worse, your team performs worse.
There’s also an element of safety. Not only does your teammate perform mechanically worse when they’re self-conscious; they also perform worse as a teammate. There are plenty of circumstances where you and your teammate need to feel voids, fill space, and cover each other’s weaknesses. You also need to make macro-level shifts (if your partner doesn’t have a third-shot drop, you can’t close the distance to the kitchen). All of these improve when a player calmly observes the game. All of them suffer when a player feels nervous with their partner.
Right before I joined this game, I felt nervous. After a few years off from pickleball, the rust was still coming off of my serve. I knew that I might miss some serves, which is a terrible sin (it’s a free win for the opponents!). But I also knew that I could make sure my peers enjoy the game. And in that case, even if I shank a serve or two, they’ll still want to play with me. Plus they’ll have a better time. Duh.
My team won every game.
You know how I said he was the second-best player?
I’m the best.
Julian Wise 