Justin "JP" Parker

Thank you for tuning in. I'm Greg. I'm Mike. And we are the Pickleballers Next Door. We are for the Joes and not the pros. Your court, our court. Thank you for tuning in to Pickleballers Next Door. We're here with JP. Is that good? Yeah, that's good. JP, that's what I know. Yeah, I think that's what everybody calls me. His Instagram is yourboyjpz. Yeah. Yeah. I follow him. Check him out. Great guy. Very embedded in the pickleball community here in Denver. You want you want good play? Play with JP? I don't I don't know. Come on. Come on. I'll be honest. One of the only one of the few people that I play very well with because I'm I get really I'm very relaxed playing with him. Yes, it's just a goddamn truth. With me? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, that's a huge compliment. Yeah. One of the one of the people that I I can just go out there and play and be be fine and not worry about fucking up too bad. I try to clean up what I can. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. But yeah, no, that's that's JP in a nutshell. But let's hear about him a little bit more. Tell me about how you got involved with pickleball at the very beginning. OK. Yeah. Good story. So my background in sports is predominantly hockey, hockey player, hockey goalie. And in 2020, kind of right before covid, my wife and I went out to Palm Springs and to visit her stepdad and mother were both. Her stepdad was a pro tennis player on the tour back in the day. And her mother was is a really great tennis player. Four, five, five. Oh, tennis player. I think I've played it right. You. Yeah. Did you use my battle? Yeah. Yeah. She's a good player. Really good player. You know what else makes sense now? Your hockey. That's why we can't get the ball past you. Yeah. Usually. Yeah. I think the hockey's definitely helped me. But so we're out in Palm Springs. We decided to go play tennis at the at the country club at an Indian Indian Ridge, I believe it was. And they're trying to teach me tennis. They've all played tennis. And I was having a really, really horrible time. I just couldn't couldn't get it. I'm just sending balls everywhere. And the courts kind of across from us were pickleball courts. And at this time, I actually had a friend named her name's Anna Francia Skelly. And her dad was kind of in the leadership role at USA Pickleball. So I've I heard of pickleball, but I honestly thought it was. What's that game where you like roll the balls to try to get them kind of close to each other? Are bocce ball? I thought it was bocce ball. She'd always be going back to Missouri talking about like, Oh, I'm going to play pickleball. And I thought it was bocce ball. I met her. You met Anna? No, no, I'm thinking Molly. Oh, you Yeah, Molly. Yeah, Molly's. But yeah, I'd be like, Oh, you're such a nerd. Pickleball. I had no idea what it was. But anyway, so fast forward, we're in Palm Springs, and the courts next to us, they're playing pickleball. And I was like, dude, those people are having a freaking blast. Like they're laughing and having a good time. And I'm out here just I'm not having fun playing tennis at all. It's a different beast. I mean, you hit that ball. And if you especially if you got that man, you got the adrenaline going that ball is I mean, yeah, and I'm trying to listen to you know, I know, my wife's stepfather Hall is great guy, tennis coach for a long time played on the tour. So like he's trying to tell me things, you know, I'm just not like I can't figure it out. Right. So I'm like, Hey, can we just try this this other game? And they're like, No, it's you know, that's for old people. And I'm like, Yeah, but it looks fun. Yeah. And they kind of knew about pickleball. And they knew the rules and stuff they've played. So we go get the stuff and we start playing pickleball. And I'm just like, Oh, man, this is this is epic. Like, this is it, right? Yeah. And we have the best day ever. It's like 195 degrees Fahrenheit out there. As it gets as it gets in Palm Springs. Yeah, it's in the middle. Yeah, dude, it's so hot. But um, we have a great time. I'm leaving the country club and my wife and I buy like four pro level paddles. Pro tour bag like we buy everything. Welcome to the addiction. Yeah, the first day I am we are all in on this whatever this is. So then I come back we come back home and kind of COVID happens. And I'm really, really fortunate at the time I had some I was a police officer at the time and I was kind of going through some stuff that happened that you know, we can maybe get into it another time. But some I'm kind of off work. And I'm going to the rec centers to play pickleball with you know, the retired community and Aurora who I'm I'm super thankful old people. Yeah, the old people. And a lot of those people I still you know, I still see them around here and there today and they remember me and and what's scary is how good they are on those courts. Yeah, you know, you that's a different play when you play in those type of courts in the rec center. Absolutely. I'm just getting like, dude, for like four months, I'm just getting throttled. I have a similar story. Yeah. And you know, so much just, you know, respect for those people, and the way that they treated me, you know, and just took the time to, to allow me to learn and give me pointers and just not not be dismissive. So it really taught me a lot in that in in that space. So I learned a lot from those people. And I kind of never looked back, I just kept progressing in pickleball, and I got obsessed with it. And then just kept kept playing, kept traveling, and then finally got a coach and, you know, started taking it more seriously and taking some lessons. Shout out to Tanner van for that. So word. Yeah, Tanner, great coach. Good player. Wow, what a player. Yeah, great player really helped me progress my game. And it's, you know, what I needed is still a good friend to me and you know, somebody that I look to for lessons. So very thankful for that. Yeah, I take lessons from him as well. Yeah, he's great. Great guy. Great coach coach. I'm trying to sneak in there. But yeah, I mean, you know, I, one thing I'll say about pickleball is like, you're never done learning, right? And there's nobody that you can learn from. So if you can take the time or if you have, you know, the financial ability to take lessons, you know, kind of kind of keep that in your back pocket. And I think everybody should do that. And I think there's so many different styles. Absolutely. It's crazy. I started traveling, I travel a little bit and I couldn't believe the difference of here to Florida to California. I mean, and even how the ball travels. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And you kind of see people, it's interesting. You know, I travel around the country as well quite a bit and just to see the different styles and how they kind of adhere to an area of the country. Yeah. It's great. 100%. It's so interesting. Yeah. I played in Connecticut for about a month. How'd that work out for you? Bangers. Sensual bangers. I mean, I had no issues body bagging this 80 year old man because he was banging the shit out of the ball. Yeah. No, I think you want to bang, you can bang, right? Oh yeah. So, well you get a lot of tennis players that come in and they got that top spin and they learn how they come in fairly fast and move up really fast if they're a good tennis player. Yeah. I think, uh, I think there's plus and minus is coming from the tennis world. It depends, you know, if you're going in all in on pickleball, it's like, how open can your mind be to kind of learn the way of pickleball and, you know, learn to play in the transition zone without banging what balls to reset, what balls to speed up and kind of play in the right way. Well, we were just at a court and we were watching some five O's for four plus four, almost five Oh, just yesterday. And it's just, we were talking about that when you start, it's just try to hit the ball, right? You just try to hit it. You don't even know where you're hitting it. If you're lucky and you overreact usually and hit it all over. Then the middle there, you start to get a little confident and you, and if you're a man, you're trying to really drive that ball. Look at me, look at me, look at my hard serve. Then he watched you start to get that four or five and five Oh, and it just looks like music. If they're playing at that level, it's very smooth. Yeah, it's smooth. It's a slower game. You know, they don't, they're not freaking out in the transition zone, which, you know, in the transition zone, if people are newer to the sport, that's kind of the space between the baseline and the kitchen line, right? That transitional area. Some people call it the no man's land. Um, but I think a more appropriate name would be the transition transition. I agree. I, for some reason I'm very comfortable there and I could live there. I think that's, you know, that's a, that's a, that's a good quality to have. Um, it shows what kind of player you are. I mean, if you can play good anywhere on the court, I think it would be that area. Yeah, that's really important. Yeah. I, I want to say I love it there, but I don't hate it. Right. And then when you get up to the level, we went out and we were in a, out at a PBA and then he watched that level of the pros and that's like dancing when the two, you know, the two were, it looks like they're, they're doing a dance. Everything's so effortless. It really is. Or things you think they're not going to get. And it's like, no, I played with the pro when I was in Virginia and she, she reeled it in a lot and she was just wrecking us. Yeah. I think it's like that in a lot of sports. I found that in hockey too, that the different levels that you get to, you don't, you don't understand the speed of the game. You don't understand the talent, right? Until you're, until you're in with those players. I had the opportunity last year to go train and do some training with Rachel Rorabacher. And, uh, I've also done some with Zane Navratil and it's unbelievable. I mean that you don't understand the pace that the ball's coming and you don't understand the amount of spin and pressure that they're, they're able to generate on their shots and make it look effortless, effortless, effortless. Like it could be drinking a glass of water and have a bite of something. Yeah. It just puts like, it puts supreme pressure on you at all times. It's a, yeah, it's, it's, it's fascinating. Yeah. We were talking about the ladies and I said, I'm not getting, I wouldn't get in one of those courts with any of those pro ladies. Yeah. I mean, one of the things I noticed about Rachel, I mean beyond her power and she's using like a Selkirk Halo, right? Hello. Rachel is using a paddle that's like 100% off the shelf. Like I'm not saying anything bad about Selkirk or the Halo, but I think that's a great paddle. But like, it's not, it's not a powerful paddle. Right. I think we can all agree on that. But she is just generating it and she, what I noticed most was just the amount of pressure that she puts on when dinking. It's like overwhelming. It's all, all I can say, but you know, shout out to Rachel, shout out to Zane, both fantastic coaches, fantastic people. And I'm very fortunate to get to spend that time with them and just learn so much from them. Yeah. I'd love to get a clinic with them, you know? Yeah. I think if you have the opportunity, you take it right. They just have so much knowledge that they can pass on. It's, it's incredible. So tell us about the Bang Brothers. Yeah. So yeah, it's not what you think. It's not what you think. So, so yeah, I own a company, it's called Bang Bros Pickleball and it's essentially an event company and I work really closely with Duper and just another shout out to Duper and all the people that work there, just phenomenal people. Ryan, Caroline, all the, all those people, just connections that I built early on just through sending emails, right. And trying to get involved in the community. And I played in a minor league pickleball tournament, which is essentially the same as major league pickleball, the team format, two men, two women. And I just became obsessed with it. I said, this is, this is my favorite format of tournaments of competitive play of any play, right? It's rally scoring. You're on a team. It's so fun. It's all aspects, right? It's men's doubles, mixed doubles, singles, even if it goes to a dream breaker. Right. So I just, I was like, man, we need this in Denver. So I reached out, how can I, how can I get this started? So that's how my company was born, you know? And it was a group of guys that I came up with kind of in Aurora that we used to joke around and just cause we, we sucked. Right. And we would call ourselves the bang bros. That was our little, the group chat. And that was kind of a joke cause we like couldn't drop a ball to save our lives. Right. And most of these guys came from tennis. I didn't come from tennis, so I was just trying to fit in, but yeah, we would just rip the ball. Right. Like we, we became the bang bros. So that's kind of where it originated. And yeah, I just started hosting minor league pickleball tournaments in Colorado and it's, it's just kind of, it's blown up. It's just, it changes pickleball. The way you look at it, the energy you get from it is incredible. I mean, I've got to, I've only had to play it a few times, but it's incredible. I would, that's all I would do if I could do play it that way. So the last event that you threw, yeah, I think I was there, right? I took some photos. Yeah, for sure. They had, he had what? Nine courts full two days worth. Two days worth. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's some pretty competitive play. Oh, super competitive. And you know, the most important thing about that format is, you know, people often complain about sandbagging and pickleball. Um, the first thing you do when you get run over in a tournament is you say, what's that guy's name? Let me look at his duper, right? This guy, this girl, whoever, but in minor league pickleball, when you come and play in my tournaments, it's capped, right? So there's different divisions. If, you know, let's say it's called a duper 16. What that means is it's the aggregate duper score of all four players. So you add them, them up and it's gotta be below 16.30. There's that like little plus of the 0.30. So everybody's trying to get as close to that mark as possible without going over. So it essentially eliminates sandbagging because everybody's in that range. Yeah. Right. It was great about a two is if you're having a bad day, you're just having a bad day playing pickleball, your team holds you up a hundred percent. So that's, that's, that's the goal, right? That's the goal. I mean, but, but you feel that way, even if you, you know, you're like, gosh, you know, I'm just not here today, you know, or I had too much coffee before I played pickleball. Yeah, no, but, uh, yeah, no, you're a hundred percent right. So I, I'm a team sports guy through and through. And, uh, I just love that. I love the team aspect. I love cheering on, cheering on my teammates and, you know, doing that whole thing. And that's what makes it special is your teammates are always watching you. They're cheering you on, you know, they're coaching you, you know, if there's a timeout or something and it's not a one person game where it's like if you played bad, you'll lose in a normal tournament. Right. But with this, you have a team of three other people that are kind of, they got your back in it. So they're holding you up. They're cheering for you. They're, they're getting you jazzed up. And yeah, you're not with your partner. That's like mad because you had a bad day. You can switch, you can switch partners. Right. So a lot of this, a lot of the MLP style is it's strategy based. Right. And you're not stuck with that same partner unless you're, unless you're playing gender doubles, you're stuck with that guy, but you're stuck with that guy. Yeah. Moral of the story is make sure you pick a good, you know, your gender, your gender partner's got to be, if you've never tried this, you have to try it. You have to try it. And that's kind of, that's kind of the space that I'm in right now is, is how do I, how do I get this information to people? How do I get them to try the format? So a lot of things that I do is, you know, I'll partner with people. I think you had Devin on earlier. I'll partner with Devin and what we'll do is rent out courts and I'll use the same software that I use for my tournaments, which is called swish. Amazing app for your phone that kind of does everything for you. And I'll put on these events just for people to come out and try it. And I think once you try it, you're hooked, right? Like, Oh, I've got to play in this. It's hard to get on. It's hard to get in. Right. I mean, it's that you, it's so great that you want, you want to get in there, but you better sign up early. You better sign up early. When's your next event? My next event is January 18th and 19th. So that's MLK day weekend. And we will be doing that at the Pickler Thornton, which is the brand new state of state of the art facility that's opening in Thornton. I'm so excited. Grant street up there. Yeah. We'll be, we'll be there for their grand opening. We are. We'll actually be there. So this is, I'm excited. I'm close to this. So everything, everywhere else that I'm, I'm in Westminster, so it's not very far, but I'm excited and I'm really interested in the way it works. You know that I got this membership. I can go any court on anywhere in the world. I need to get my mom to join. She lives in Thornton. Okay. I'm just saying it's going to be huge. I mean, nine courts, uh, six of which, and if you follow me on Instagram at U R B O Y J P E E Z E or at Ben grows pickleball on Instagram, come follow me. Uh, you know, I'm there all the time meeting with Amber, the owner, her and her husband are the owners of that location. Tremendous people. Um, just really wanting to learn about pickleball. And I think they're going to be, it's going to be huge. They they're on tap for, I believe, two more locations in the kind of Metro area. So yeah. And in Colorado in as a whole, indoor spots are just barely starting to open, which is weird to me because it should have been a thing a while ago. You would think so. I mean, the great thing about Denver and we can all agree is that, you know, it's, it's beautiful out most of the year, but you know, sometimes we get the wind, sometimes the sun suck. We're really close to the sun, right? Well, and we've had the cities and I'm not bagging on the cities, but they've kind of learned that there's another revenue to be made from our pickleball courts. And I know not to get you too, but I'll go crazy. I know. I know. But, but, uh, you know, and I get it. They have to make elbow drop some of those people. But, but, but from where it used to be when I first just started, I've only been three years and uh, that you could literally walk on any court, you know, at the time they weren't great. I mean, I remember seeing what was the concrete cracks, cracks, three foot cracks. Those are bonus hits. If you hit the crack shot off. Yeah. I think, uh, you know, and the, and the cities, I think they're, they're coming onto it, right. And they're trying to do what they can and work with people and that are in the community to try to try to get courts. So we've got some people out here on 16th street mall, uh, doing a podcast. So yeah, we got, those are first fans, first fans. Sometimes we feel like fish up here in an aquarium night, especially people that don't know. We're like right in the middle of 16th street malls with a big, huge windows. We're on the second floor. So people walk by and they can see kind of what we're doing. We probably look a lot cooler than we are. I guarantee you look a lot cooler. I probably look younger too. Yeah, that's right. That's right. He looks like he has more hair. Yeah. Growing. Come on. So yeah, I think the Pickler, I'm excited. I think they're going a different way than all the other indoor courts are. Yeah. They have a different objective and they've been around. It's not like this is new. Yeah, it's not new. So, uh, I've been in contact with, uh, George and Austin who kind of started the whole thing, um, before great guys. And now, you know, I've coached at a lot of different places. I think I'm maybe the first coach that kind of got hired on at the Pickler Thornton. But regardless, I think it's, you know, it's, it's kind of who I wanted to be involved with. And really for me, it's important to kind of find my home base for my company to run events and host these tournaments. Like minor league pickleball is a big deal and it's only going to grow from here. So I think, you know, just the working relationship that I've had so far with Amber and her husband has been tremendous. And I'm, I'm, you know, I'm happy to coach there and I'm happy to, to, to help grow their business. There's, I believe six Pickler locations coming in the, in the Metro area right now. And your membership is going to work at all of them, right? That's what I love. I can go, especially we're traveling pickleball people, right? Our podcast travels around the United States. So we will be, the Pickler will be nice for us to just drop in and have that relationship. Feel like you're going to your old fashioned bank, right? Like you're somebody part of it. Oh my God. Come on. I haven't been to a bank in a while. What's a bank? Yeah. You got to have money to go through. That's a thing. No, it is. It's going to be great. And the thing that you're going to get is, you know, it's a franchise, so it's the aesthetics, the same. They've, they're one of the pioneers in the industry in that regard. So they've figured it all out, right? They've got, they've got the software, they've got the relationships with, with Swish. They've got the relationships with Duper. They've got the relationships with the PPA. So it's all a seamless transition. The walls are black. You're not going to lose the ball. The court colors are the best court colors, right? You're not going to lose the ball in the courts. The nets are premium. Everything is premium about the Pickler and it's across the board. Right? So we're not going to have temp nets. Uh, we're not, we're not going to have all these issues that we have at other places. And the founding members, I, I think there may be a couple left at a different pricing model, but the initial was $109 a month. Yeah. Crazy. And it's all you can play. We can spend that. We can spend that in a week and indoor courts. You could spend that in a day. You could. Yes, actually true. Well, especially if you go to me like New York, like New York city, you're looking at $50 an hour there easily. You got to bring your own net. I don't know about that. No, he was just traveling and he went to Hawaii. Yeah. Hawaii. They had absolutely zero outdoor courts and they were all lined tennis courts, but you had to bring your own net. That's crazy. You have to try to get that on the plane. That's a little tough. And that's where I'm like, you know, we're really fortunate to kind of live in Denver. I, I don't want to like misspeak here, but I think like per capita, I think we might have the most pickleball courts. We're 16th in the United States. Number 16, 16, which is high. I mean, for a smaller community, we're number 16 and that, that's what the, that was, that could have been old stats. Where's Virginia at on that? I think Virginia is that it's high. Yeah, it's high. That's another place that I've been recently that has absolutely zero dedicated pickleball courts outside. Absolutely zero. Isn't that crazy? It's crazy. We're really fortunate here. We live in a beautiful place, a beautiful state, and we have a shit load. Sorry. Can I swear? Yeah. Oh yeah. We have a shit load of pickleball. Oh yeah, we do. Absolutely. And then I know they, they started, they built, they put a Denver, put a ban on building courts and actually shut some down. But I think they just built, yeah, they did. They did. Okay. Right. Yeah. So, so, you know, and ripped a Congress park, Congress park is where, you know, everybody kind of used to hang out. All the really good players traditionally were at Congress park and it was like a rite of passage to get to play at Congress park. Yeah. Got shut down, unfortunately. Um, maybe in the future it comes back, but they did just dump a lot of money into MLK, the MLK courts and they redid. So you've got four on one side on then six, four on the, I believe the East side and then six on the West side. And they just resurfaced all the courts, new nets. I was there this morning. Just amazing. Wow. I was like old school MLK. I went to MLK with like, when nobody went there, right. You know? Yeah. Um, kind of cleaned up the area and yeah, super nice courts. Really, really well done. Very good play. Very good play. Cause everyone from Congress park went to MLK. They did. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So tell me overall and all your travels and stuff, favorite place to play to this point. Yep. My favorite place to play to this point. That's not in Colorado. It could be anywhere you want. It could be Colorado. It could be traveling, whatever. Yeah. I mean, you just can't forget it. It's so great. I know you play when a pick all players. It's like a, it's like a, you just play. You don't even kind of know where you are. Once you start to play, you just go, I've played a lot of places, man. And, uh, I think the most fun that I had, if I'm being honest, was in terms of the people and the play was sunset park in Vegas. Yes. Incredible that I have met a lot of people that I still am in contact with at sunset park. I was just there, you know, I was there with duper, uh, helping run the, the collegiate super regional. They have a tournament side even. Yeah. Yeah. They have kind of like challenge courts, right? So it's like, you can go over there. I met some really cool people, exchange numbers, kept in contact with them. You know, when I go back, I hit them up. So are these outside or outside outside? Yeah. I mean, I love the setup and what is there close to 24 plus courts. It's a lot. The setup is outstanding and it's just a very chill, easy going place to play. It's a great place. I had, I had, you know, wherever I go, I just kind of take my pickleball stuff and you know, I would travel a lot for hockey, like for military hockey tournaments. Um, I just take my pickleball stuff, dude. And when I'm not doing whatever I need to do, I'm just at the, I'm at the pickleball courts meeting people. And I've had it where I go into cities and shout out to a St. Louis Lake, St. Louis place to play banger, right? Yeah. What's the, what, uh, MPC Missouri pickleball club PC. Wow. Yes. Is awesome. A hundred percent. Awesome. I also made a crap ton of friends there. Yeah. Crap time. Yeah. I was there. Short story. I play like on a military veteran hockey team and I was, you know, the team from Oklahoma city called me and say, Hey, can you play in this tournament for us out in St. Louis? Sure. So I fly out to St. Louis, didn't really know anybody. So I'm kind of at the pickleball courts. I meet people at the pickleball courts and this little mixer they had. And then the people ended up coming to watch my hockey game. Oh, that's really cool. That sounds like something I would do. Yeah. And you know, the one woman brought her son and I, I, it wasn't me. It was my team, but I got the game puck. Right. And, uh, I was able to give it to her son and just like, it just pickleball brought all of that together. And those are special things that I feel like you don't see in other sports. No, I agree. And the other thing we're trying to do with this podcast and traveling and everything is we want to make it a more cohesive, more welcoming, more inviting, more friendly. And not that it already isn't, but we want to make it even more of a community, like community. It doesn't matter what level, what you do. This is about getting together and having a good time. Yeah. A hundred percent. I'm totally on board with that. I mean, that was one of the things that I thought about when I started my company is, and before I was doing the tournaments, I was just like holding events, you know, going to Costco and loading up on pizzas and getting people together on Friday nights. I've been to those. Yeah. You have. Yeah. I would do these things called Friday night lights where I just, you know, rent a bunch of courts, buy a bunch of food and put on play for people to meet new people. I'd, I'd get with a Gordon from Yola. Great guy. Um, hockey guy too. So, you know, he's a good guy, but yeah, just bring paddles out for people, demo paddles, whatever it is. And, you know, thanks to Yola to just always backing me. Like they've just been such a huge support for me and my company. I can't thank them enough for that. We're, we're, uh, we're in the, we're in talks, which is nice. You know, we're, we're excited. Gordon Gordon's Gordon's the, the man, I think his title is, uh, CEO, chief experience officer. That's exactly. I mean, that guy's just like, he's a great guy. Another one answers the phone answers the phone. We, I don't want to, you know, we were making some phone calls and talking to people, but you don't get CEOs. They, the gatekeeper answers the phone. They don't give their phone, their cell phone. Yeah. He actually gave us his cell phone. This guy's like, oh man, he's unbelievable. It blows my mind. That's funny. Cause we, we met him the other night. I met him playing with you. Oh, you did? Yeah. We played with them one time. I played with them one time where we're at court 13. Okay. Yeah. I remember it. I remember it very specifically. 13 in court nine. Yeah. He's, he's always traveling around, but I, you know, it's, it's nice to link up with him when he's in town and get some games in. But the thing about him is like, you know, no matter what the title is or what position he holds, like this guy just goes to normal courts and plays with normal people. And you would never know. No. Right. You would never know. I think I was friends with Gordon for like, it was a decent amount of time, like a year plus. I had no idea. I just knew like we bonded over hockey and then we were both playing pickleball. That's the best kind of CEO. Someone that you don't know is a CEO, but it's all about it. It blew my mind. I, we, cause we made our first call and it was busy. We called on a Monday and everybody's busy on a Monday. We made a father, another phone call today answers right away, sets a meeting up. I mean, it was just professional and it was, it blows my mind. I've been in business 40 years, so I've had to go through every gatekeeper you can imagine from their to the kids to talk to the dog, some other person that doesn't even own the company though. That's, that's Herbert. You've got to tell Herbert and Herbert will tell you. I mean, it's, it's just an, it's impressive. And a lot of things in pickleball impressed me how people are open. When we went to the PBA, it was my first time. So he's like a movie star, wherever I go, people are, I'm pretty sure he's going to get autographs, big dog. And it really is. But, but, uh, how, you know, right there with the pros and they're just shaking hands, taking pictures and treat, it's not like any other sport. No, it's, it's really not. And I think, uh, you know, the people that are involved with pickleball, they understand that there's a, there's a greater goal in mind, right? And if you can make somebody feel special or make them leave, whatever, you know, whatever play you're at smiling and having a good day, they're going to come back tomorrow and they're going to think about it. Right. And they're going to come back the day after that. And I think that's how you grow the sport is you just, you know, you just be, just be a good person. I know that sounds tacky. No, no. I live by that. I mean, I, my daughter lives in Branson, Missouri and I play pickleball out there. And you know, I don't only go out every few months or a couple of four or five months. I might not be there. I go back out, they open their, they, they remember my name because I'm the guy in the humidity that is dripping on the court. He's dripping into 32 degrees. They know you, they know it's funny because they know that you don't belong there. Right. They're dry. And I'm just my glasses, everything's just filling up my, that's funny, but it's, it's amazing that they remember my name, where I played and welcomed me in that, that, that's just a warm feeling. Yeah. And I think, you know, if you, we're not saying that, you know, people don't act shitty sometimes, right? People don't have an elitist attitude sometimes, but you'll have them there. They're there, they're there. And what I tell people is just don't, don't be like that. Right. Remember how maybe you had that situation, how you felt or make sure that you don't make, make anyone else feel like somebody like you want to be treated and you don't know their full story. You don't know. You don't know their full story. But the funny part is the pickleball is we'll push them out. Yeah. I've seen courts where you get little, somebody cocky or arrogant in there, or, you know, there's a little old lady playing in their body bag and her, you know, they're like, no, get out of here. I've watched people walk off courts. Like I'm done. You're not, if you can't respect this lady or man or whatever, a child, right. Get out of here. And I mean, it's no problem for, you know, a higher level, higher level player to play, you know, two, three games with somebody that's a beginner. Always give them some tips. Right. It's really, really important. Fully agree. And if they're playing them in a game, they need to reel it in. Really? Yeah. They need to reel it in. We're not in a tournament now, right? We're not in a tournament. And you know what? Like maybe the next rotation, we can, we can play with somebody else or play with our friends or whatever it is. But I always see it as kind of being an ambassador to the sport. Absolutely. A hundred percent. You know, the goal is to grow the sport because the sport is for everyone. It started with everyone and it will end with everyone. Absolutely. This is one of the only sports in the world that almost anybody can play. And you know what? We're not, we'll never see anything like this in our lifetime because we are still in the infancy. We are, we are still in its infancy. And I think one of my favorite things about pickleball is that I can go onto a court and play against a 16-year-old, play against an 80-year-old and get absolutely annihilated. Yeah, you can't. I know a couple of like 14 and 15-year-olds and I used to love it. I ran another pickleball club and these young men would come in and they were brothers. There was one who was 10 and one was like 12. And then they'd be at open play and you just watch these older, younger guys. It's like, I don't want to go on the court with him. They annihilate him. It was crazy. It is crazy. It's crazy. It's just growing at such a rapid rate. It's like my last tournament, the one you were at, at Epic. As I'm leaving, I'm packing, my wife and I were packing up everything. And I'm like looking at these little kids. These kids are gotta be like 12, right? And they're good, like good, 4-0 plus kids. And I was just like, kind of, I was like, wow, these kids are going to be nasty, right? And as I'm walking out, the one kid's like, yo, you're Bang Bro's Pickleball. I was like, yeah, dude. So this is my Instagram brother, man. I was like, that's so cool. Like this kid recognizes me. So I went out to the car, got him a bunch of stickers, some sweatbands and stuff and gave him some stuff and took some photos. Yeah. It's just like, you know, these kids are loving it. They could be out, you know, doing anything, doing anything, right? Doing whatever you do on the street. They could be, I mean, right. Like you can get into a lot of trouble. Oh yeah. And these kids are in, well, inside or even outside practicing. These kids were drilling bro. Oh, wow. Like they're practicing Pickleball. That's insane. We're at the other night. I love it. We're doing a podcast at another club the other night. There's a six-year-old and a dad with a ball machine and he actually, he's on our podcast. We put him on our podcast. He won a paddle from us. Nice. It was, he was so happy, but he was hitting the balls. I mean, this is a six-year-old trying to imagine being how small this is. The paddle's bigger than him. Yeah. I mean, he's, it's growing. And like I mentioned earlier, being out with Duper and running the collegiate super regional in Vegas earlier this year, like to see these college kids coming up there, there was a guy, I forget his name, but, uh, I think he was 32 years old playing. He's like, yo, he's like, I came back to get my master's just so I could play college. No way. That's loophole. Like, I mean, they, I think they won that, that, that one. But like, yeah, these, these kids that are, that are in college right now, like, dude, the scholarships are coming. Yeah. The high school Pickleball is coming. And what other sport is truly co-ed where we can do this? Right. And I think that's where the team, the team format, the MLP format is, is instrumental in building that. So, um, yeah, I mean, what a great thing for kids to be involved in. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm looking forward to where Pickleball is headed for, you know, I, I've before when I first started, it was only what, God, was it two, three years ago now. And you didn't really hear about the pros. You didn't hear much. And all of a sudden they have their own channels now. They have, they have advertisements or like product endorsements in seven 11s. Like it's wild the way they're going. Yeah. I mean, you can go, uh, go into local Dick's sporting goods, you know, and buy a paddle, right. It's like a nice one. I mean, it's unbelievable to see the trajectory that it's on. And, uh, like you said, I think we're in the infancy and I, I think we can all agree that we're just happy to be a part of it. I mean, if you would ask me three years ago, I'd be on a podcast talking pickleball, your podcast, my podcast. Yeah, it's nuts. And the reason I want to do this is just to do what we're doing now. Let the people hear that there's more of us. Cause a lot of people get stuck on courts, right? They just go there every day and that's the same place. They don't know there's any more out there, a pickleball. Well, we're going to let people know there's a little bit more to it. I found it got, cause I got hurt snowboarding in Alaska. Think about that. Yeah. The reaches in Alaska, in Alaska. Yeah. Well, I had maybe if you could explain one more thing about the duper, I know duper duper is not that old, right? I mean, it's not that old. No. So a lot of people in that are getting, that are playing at pickleball, I'll go out to courts and you'll hear the, some of the guys talk about duper and these people are just like, what are they talking about? Soup or something? What kind of super is duper soup? That's a, that's a good point. So duper is kind of, it's the, it's the official rating system of pickleball. And in my personal opinion, it's the only rating system in pickleball, right? You have other, other things that are trying to come in as rating systems, but like we mentioned before, you get waxed in a tournament. The first thing you do is you look up their duper. Yeah. Nobody's looking up their UTR rating. Nope. Cause that's a weird rating. UTI rating. I don't know. It sounds like a, it sounds like a, it sounds like a urinary tract infection. That's what it sounds like to me. Yeah. I'm pretty sure they may, yeah. Penicillin or something. I don't know. But anyways, so yeah, duper is a rating system. I'm fortunate to be involved with duper. I'm an ambassador for duper. I think I might be the only one in Colorado who's kind of on the duper crew. I don't know. I might be the only one in Colorado who's kind of on the duper crew there, but I get on my on monthly meetings with all those people up there and I get a lot of information and I try to get it out to the community. I also have a team reach for my company, which I believe it's the largest team reach in Colorado. We're close to a thousand thousand people on there now. Yeah. Wow. Yep. So yeah, if you, if you want to join the team reach, yeah, that would be great. We'd love to get that from you. Let me get that real quick. So it's called my team. We just called the Denver metro pickle connection hosted by my company. And basically if you download the team reach app, it's free and it's going to ask you for a code. And if you just type in Denver three zero three, you'll be added to my team reach. And what I do there is I'm kind of in the same space as you guys. I'm just collecting information. I want to do court reviews to tell people where they should play, what they're going to expect from that facility. Do they use duper? How are their leagues right? So we can all make informed decisions, but also, you know, people that are selling paddles or somebody leaves the paddle at a public court, they can post on there and reach everyone. That's great. And then just getting, getting play coordinated for people. That's kind of what I use it for. That's great. Yeah. I'm really, I'm super excited for duper. Cause when I first started, I didn't know anything and I'd go out and I get in, I tried my first tournament and just got killed. I mean, not that I wasn't some good player, but no, at that time people were playing, you know, if they were a four Oh, we're playing three. Oh yeah. I mean, you knew the difference. I mean, even at me at a beginner, I mean, they're just doing things that I didn't even know were possible to do with pickleball. So I was like, wow. And that's kind of where we want to get is like, right now you'll see most tournaments are like, Oh, it's three Oh, two, three, five. But in reality, a, an actual three Oh player playing a three, five players almost never going to win that match. So what we want to do is we want to get that. We want to get those numbers down and be in like the 0.25 or even closer increments for tournaments. And people say, well, how do we do that? And the way that we do that is we give the system more information. The more data that we can collect on people, the more accurate the ratings are going to be. So what I'll tell people is, and people say, Oh, my duper's low. I think my duper's low, but you know how, do you know how I get it up? I play people that are better than me and I win. Right. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm kind of, I, I, I like to, I like to play duper games and I like to play in tournaments and things like that. I think it's important that when you're looking to play in these tournaments, realize that if you're playing in a tournament, that's not using duper, it's kind of for fun. Yeah. It's kind of, you really, you really are kind of for fun. Like you're saying from three, five to four Oh, that's a big difference. It's a big difference. And we, when you can't, we can't do that. You know, I I've got a friend, I don't know if she wants me to name her or not, but so I won't name her, but, uh, she plays at a certain location here and her duper is, is, is on the lower side, right? It's like two point something, 2.8 or something much, much better player than that. But she's playing at these tournaments and these leagues at these, these indoor facilities that don't use duper. That's very dust, bro. That's not real. If you're playing a competitive game, we need that information. The only, the, the only thing that it's going to help is you, right? It's going to help you. We want your duper. We want your rating to be accurate. That's what we want. And the only way that we achieve that is through collecting data. Yeah, that makes sense. So we have to do it the right way. And I understand there's from some frustrations with duper, but what I will say about this company is that they are always listening to the consumer and they're always making changes to the algorithm to try to make it the best that it can be. It's never going to be perfect. Somebody is always going to complain about something. Yeah. You can't, you can't, um, a hundred percent of the people, a hundred percent of the time, right? You can't take care of them. You can't. But what I'll say is these, these people at duper work tirelessly to try to get the best product out and they're doing some great things too. Not, not just doing duper. I mean, they are sponsoring, they are, I mean, the little bit that I'm reading and hearing about them and is there, they're not just about duper. They, they are, they're doing some great things. They're up. They're about growing the sport of pickleball and doing it, doing it the right way and making the changes. They're out in the community, you know, they're hosting events, they're hosting tournaments, they're super involved at the collegiate level. Um, and I, and I, I think the high school levels coming, coming soon too. So, um, yeah, man, it's going to be insane. It's going to be insane. And, uh, so if you have any questions about duper, like read, reach out to me on the socials. I'm happy to explain everything. I'm actually a duper certified coach. Now, if you don't have a rating, I can assess your gameplay and provide you with a rating. So it used to be, and that goes straight into duper. Yeah. Nice. That's nice though. Because some, like I played, I had a bad tournament and my duper just stupored tank just went the other way. And, uh, and I haven't really been playing some duper stuff. So I'm rating where, you know, my, you know, so it's hard to get back. So that's nice that I could call you and say, Hey, can you come rate me and get my kid? Well, that doesn't work like that. If you don't have a duper, he can get asked that question. Yeah. So it's like, if you're new and you don't have a rating, I can give you a provisional initial rating. So what we used to have to do is we would have to coordinate a duper game where we all agreed it was a duper game. And at least one person on the court had to have a rating. And then we played that game. And then, you know, in a couple of days, the algorithm would run through and then you'd have a rating. Well, what we were finding is, and it's through really just miseducation is a lot of these facilities are having these duper rating events. But dude, if I know that you're a three Oh player, and I put you on the court against a four or five player, you're going to get, it is not going to spit out an accurate rating for you. So when we're talking about these initial ratings, we have to be very, very careful about what we're doing. Instead of just trying to make money off of people, we need to think about the people, right. And their rating and do what's right. And that means take a little bit of time and a little bit of effort and group people together that are of similar levels. So they come out with the most accurate rating possible, and then they can grow from there. That makes that makes sense. Yeah, for sure. So I just have to change my name, get a new social security card. No big deal. Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing, too. It's things that they're looking at a duper is like, for me, for instance, I have so many games logged hundreds of games log that, you know, even if I'm winning against good players, my my duper is moving incrementally, right? So it's like, how do we change that we're looking, you know, they're looking at the half life? And when do games kind of go away and fade out? And how can we really perfect this algorithm? Not perfect, but make it as good as it can be for the consumer. So shout out to duper, they're doing some really great things. And I'm happy to, you know, have any involvement with them. They're super supportive. Awesome. Awesome. We're gonna wrap up here. That's JP. Bang Brothers Pickleball. Bang Bros. Bang Bros. Bang Bros. Brothers abbreviated. Yeah. Bang Bros. Pickleball. And your boy JPZ on Instagram. If you ever are in Denver, or I don't know, you might you might run into him at an ML MLP in your town, because I know he goes out and does that stuff. I'm everywhere. He's everywhere. And you'll know him because he's a great guy. Yeah. Yeah. And I just want to say thanks. Thanks to you guys for having me. I of course, you know, I've known these guys for a while and what they're doing in the community is huge. And I'm so supportive of it and very thankful for you guys. We thank you for that. We thank you, man. Of course. So thanks for tuning in. And we'll see you next time. Next time. My court, your court.