Episode 70 Michael Zervas - Inside the Newest Pickleball Destination, Fort Collins

[00:00:00] Thank you for joining in. I'm Mike. I'm Chrisana. We're the Pickleballers Next Door. Campbell Chiropractic, your path to wellness. Your path to wellness starts here. Our services include chiropractic care, laser therapy and custom orthotics. We also provide personalized nutrition plans, rehabilitation and sports physicals.

[00:00:24] Visit us at castlerockchiro.com or call 303-663-8365. Good morning, Christana. Good morning, Mike. How are you? Well, we're here at the Inverness going to do an event today and we have a special guest on. Yeah, we got Michael Zervas. And did I say that right, Michael? You did. That was pretty good.

[00:00:51] Not bad. I let her say it because if you want to hear me say something the way I pronounce names, it's horrible. And then, Michael, you're one of the owners at 002, right? Club in Fort Collins? That's correct. We just opened up about four months ago. We have a 36,000 square foot facility with 17 courts right in the heart of Fort Collins.

[00:01:15] It is beautiful. I visited you last week and what a beautiful facility. And I'm glad to have you on this morning because I'd like to go over some of the stuff that we talked about, you know, how you got there and why you did the way you set your club up. And I mean, I love that because we are we're innovated and we're making things better and better as we go. Yeah. And I'd love to hear the story. I didn't get a chance to come meet you, but I'm excited to come meet you.

[00:01:44] Well, I'm I'm looking to meet you also. It was good to meet Mike and we had a nice visit. The only thing negative of the visit, Mike, is we didn't get to go out on the courts and hit. That was what I was thinking, too. I was like, why didn't I just go grab my paddle and we could hit a few balls? What? Yeah. Well, we'll see in a couple of weeks here. And I'm sure we'll be able to find time to get on the court if you're I think you are like everybody else.

[00:02:13] You're always looking for the opportunity to get out there and hit that that crazy little ball. I do. I do. I mean, that's what the funny part is, that when you get into the business, you own a club. We are at clubs like daily and we never get to play. Yeah, hardly. You don't play as much as you would think. Right. Because we're always around it.

[00:02:33] Well, what's the old saw that says that says don't turn your avocation into your vocation and that journey to get this place open? We we really didn't play very much pickleball. You're so consumed with the project itself. And then when you're open, your first primary importance is the members and their experience.

[00:02:57] And so you're building that environment for them. And I'm getting to play a little bit more now. And that's been great. But as you guys know, the pickleball community is so wonderful that even when I'm not playing, I'm still surrounded by happy, fun, engaged people. So it's it's pretty great, even if I'm not able to get on the court. Well, tell us about how you how the zero zero two came about.

[00:03:25] We'll even go a little bit further. Tell us how you got into how you ended up being. You know how this is. You got in this crazy sport, right? Like, how did you get into pickleball? Well, I grew up playing. I'm 65 now. So back when we were still riding horses to grade school, I was playing every sport. We weren't specializing like the kids do now.

[00:03:49] And but a lot of the sports I played, my body just aged out of them, quite frankly. I'm you know, I'm not going to be playing football. I played basketball for a pretty long time.

[00:04:00] But a friend introduced me to pickleball about five years ago and I went on the court and was soundly defeated by a couple of 70 year old women who I anticipated that I was going to be able to out athlete them around the court and was quickly disabused of that notion. And I got it just captured my imagination.

[00:04:30] How did this happen? How can they do that? And it made me want to come back and try again. And as you know, that starts the journey, right? All of a sudden I'm engaged. I'm moving around and I'm feeling like, wow, I can be a little bit competitive. This isn't as hard on my body and I can play. And, you know, the next thing you know, you wake up from this fever dream and I've opened a facility.

[00:04:56] And we have a podcast like what the freak happened before warrant. Right. Yeah. You don't know what's going to happen to your life because four years ago I had no clue about a pickleball. I traveled and seen people having fun and I was like, I got to try that. And next thing I am doing podcasts, I'm traveling all over the place. I'm playing every day as much as I can, you know, and it's crazy. What do you mean you had no clue? I thought you still don't have a clue. I don't know. Oh, come on.

[00:05:25] So tell us, are you from Colorado? I am not. I am originally, as you probably can hear from my blended accent from both New York and Chicago, grew up, was born in New York, grew up in Chicago, went to school back on the East Coast and then migrated West and spent a lot of time in Arizona.

[00:05:46] I've only been in Fort Collins for 10 years now and was recruited to do a turnaround on a national healthcare consulting firm. And when we got that turned around and got it sold and got through COVID, and I was kind of done with doing those big projects and was really playing pickleball quite a bit.

[00:06:11] And a lot of the community kept coming to myself and my partner, Neil Belfay, who has a similar background as a serial entrepreneur, and said, you know, you guys should build a club in Fort Collins. There's no clubs in Fort Collins. And, you know, we listened to them, which was kind of crazy.

[00:06:34] I think the truth was that neither one of us were both were kind of retired and were, as serial entrepreneurs, getting a little bit itchy, if the truth was told. It's hard to, like most people in our generation, you know, you started working at 13 or 14, and 50 years later, it's hard to stop. Yeah, it's even worse. I think it's worse. I think you really look at things differently because it's easier, simpler sometimes, but harder, too, at the same time. It's an addiction. Yeah. Actually.

[00:07:04] Yeah, entrepreneurship is just like pickleball. It's got its really highs and it's got its lows. I think that's right. Yeah. But I also love, I mean, they didn't go little here. This wasn't like you said, oh, let's just put, like, a couple courts in. These guys went big. Like, this is a large facility and very thought out. I mean, they repurposed a building and it's awesome what they've done. So, I know you couldn't see it because you were goofing off, but I went and I actually, I made the appointment. It's always Mike that does the work here.

[00:07:35] But, so, do you have some courts outside, too? Yeah, we actually went in. One of the entrepreneurial businesses that I had, I've always been involved in real estate, both investing and doing a little bit of development. And, before the, kind of coincided this pickleball facility idea, I had been looking at this building and watching this building for over a year.

[00:08:03] It was a building that I was thinking about purchasing and repurposing. It was abandoned pretty much and was in a blighted condition. It used to be a call center. And then this converged and I said, you know, I happen to know one building. And so, we went and got, looked at this building and it was, met everything that we needed. Very high ceilings. It was a wide open, empty space, large on a four acre campus.

[00:08:32] And, the owner was pretty aggressive and willing to find a way to convert this and turn it into something that was usable within the neighborhood. And so, there was kind of an alignment of the stars. And, we decided to bite the bullet. And, we built six outdoor courts, championship sized outdoor courts. And, then we had the 11 indoor courts. And, so, things just kind of came together in some ways a little bit magically.

[00:09:02] I don't want to use that term too much. But, there was just a nice convergence of different elements that need to come in place for this to go. And, they all seemed to happen. Well, I also like to tell the story too. You told me that when we were together. That you actually traveled to other courts around the United States before you built this. I thought this was an interesting story. And, I thought this was a great, what a great, what a great plan.

[00:09:27] Yeah, we kind of, we did a couple things. You know, we had this clamoring in the community of a couple, two or three hundred people wanting to build a court. And, so, we started by doing a very unscientific but thorough. We had 500 responses survey to random players in the community. That started to give us a framework of what they thought they wanted.

[00:09:53] But, then what we did was we said we're going to go travel to other clubs around the country. But, not talk to the owners. But, actually just go and talk to the players. And, find out what they love and what they hated. And, see if we could do that process. Gain other data points. And, see if they all started to crystallize around some central themes that the vast majority of players want to see in their club.

[00:10:18] And, that became our guiding principle and our blueprint to build the club. Both from a cultural standpoint. A physical plant property standpoint. A programming standpoint. And, so, we started working from that. And, that became our true north, if you will. That was our north star. And, we kept coming back to those same guiding principles over and over again.

[00:10:42] As the development process and everything that's involved in that continually try to knock you off your path. So, we just kept trying to keep coming back to, we know what's true. We know what they want. Keep trying to reach for that goal. And, you see it. I was there. I actually seen your vision. And, it was neat. I mean, we talked about all the, from the lighting to the courts to, one of the neatest things I thought I'd seen there that was really neat was the wall. I call it the wall. Sound proofing. The sound proofing. But, it's not, it looks like you're outside.

[00:11:12] And, it's like a viney wall. So, they have these big windows. And, I'll let Mike get a little more detail about it. But, it just makes you, it gives you this, like, you just feel like you're in a, like a jungle, like the way the wall looks. And, so, are they real plants? No. Oh, okay. So, what is that, Mike? Michael? It's a, it's a, yeah, it's a manufactured product that we found that has a depth.

[00:11:42] It looks like bovines. So, we wanted to bring outside, inside. That was one of the things that people talked to us quite a bit. So, that informed our design elements, the colors, the look and feel of the club. But, one of the things that we also found was that these vines are pretty thick. And, the structure of the vines act as a natural, create turbulence in sound waves.

[00:12:11] And, it prevents them from bouncing back off of a hard wall. And, so, what happens is the sound waves get broken up and dissipated. And, that coupled with a high-tech soundproofing solution that we put on the ceiling. The other main area where sound will go up and then bounce back down and create this rebound effect actually allows the club to be significantly quieter than a lot of clubs.

[00:12:37] Which, which was a number one thing is that everybody complained about how loud pickleball clubs are, how disturbing it is, and how they don't like it. And, so, we kind of serendipitously found this product that killed two birds with one stone. It added a little bit of a design element, but kind of secretly also broke up sound. And, so, you'll see that throughout the club. It gives it a warm and friendly feeling.

[00:13:04] And, then, we kind of took the same approach on lighting. And, I got to tell you, lighting is so complicated. And, there's so much math involved in getting lighting just right. It became, the mathematical side of it became overwhelming, quite frankly. My sister's a physicist, and I had to reach out to her and say, can you help with some of these calculations? And, you'd think, it's just lighting.

[00:13:33] Just make it really bright. But, it's so confusing. And, the brighter you make lights, the more likely you are to have shadows on the courts. Yep. Which make ball tracking difficult. And, you also have dead zones. So, it might be bright from your chest up. And, then, it might be kind of dark from your chest to your knees. And, then, it's bright again. And, that makes tracking the ball very difficult. And, so, we actually don't have any lights directly over the courts.

[00:14:03] They're actually all on the sides of each course. And, we do what's called cascading light, where the light is falling onto the court from multiple angles, eliminating shadows, and eliminating glare. And, I got to tell you, that process took us three months of math, and then putting lights up, and testing, and then doing new calculations.

[00:14:29] And, it was, it was probably the single hardest and most challenging element of the project. That one element to get the lighting right. Yeah, it was, it looks really good. I mean, it's really neat. I, I can tell the thought process, because we're in a lot of courts on that. And, how big is that wall? I have to ask. How big is the wall? I was trying to tell her. But, isn't that like 15 feet or 12 feet? Is it, it's pretty high, the wall with the vine?

[00:14:57] Yeah, well, we actually have multiple walls. The one wall you're talking about is 12 feet high. And, that's pretty much around it. But, there's a couple spots where we go up a little higher on solid walls to make sure that there's no hard, solid surface. So, yeah, that was, and attaching those vines was a, I'll call it a labor of love. Although, the workmen that were doing it weren't loving us very much. It was very tedious and difficult work. Well, these are freestanding.

[00:15:26] So, there's a hallway behind it. That's what's really tough. I'm in construction. So, I kind of understand that, you know, that you, that takes a little bit more thought process. And, to make that wall, it's not going to fall on somebody. Somebody's going to push it over. It was really good. The lighting, the courts, this, this vine. I loved it. And, I think what I really loved when I walked into your facility is you had your desk there, like most places. You know, hello and greet and get you set up. But, right away, you could go right. You could go to the coffee shop. Or, you could go left.

[00:15:55] You had this beautiful sitting area where people could hang out. And, you know, my wife doesn't play pickleball. So, she'll go with me. But, she's not going to go stand there watching me hit a million balls. She'll go read a book. Yeah. She'll go read a book. So, you really made that inviting when you walk right in. Yeah, I'm excited to see it. That's kind of you to say, Mike. It was another thing that we learned from talking with members is that, you know, we had a choice to make all that area in there, Mike.

[00:16:21] We could have redesigned the building and stuck another court in there for sure, right? Oh, yeah. But, the members, both of other clubs and our clubs, you know, it's a social game. They want to be able to hang out with their friends for 15 or 20 minutes after the game and grab a cup of coffee. And, we have a whole, on our courts, we have a whole video system with scoreboards and instant replays.

[00:16:47] And so, it's downloaded directly to their accounts on their app on their phone. And, I'll see people sitting there and looking at shots and plays and laughing and reliving that moment. And, for us, that became another guiding principle was to continue this sense of community in the club. It's not a cookie-cutter club. You don't just walk in, get in, get out.

[00:17:08] It's not, you know, the old gym model where we're going to jam as many people in as we can and move them in and move them out. We wanted people to stay and to enjoy the space. And, we think we're getting there partially as we see more and more people just hanging out. And, I got to tell you, one of the best days for me is when I come in there and there's people in the lounge. And, there's kids sitting and laughing and playing with their folks.

[00:17:38] And, they're in the lounge. And, the place is just filled with a lot of joy and happiness. It's pretty great. I did. I got that feeling right when I walked in. Beautiful pro shop to the right there. And, then I love, too, this is something that they do need there. They have a, you go through a little walkway. I'm kind of walking people through because this is like smell-o-vision, right? I'm kind of showing you through our eyes. But, I walk through this hallway. There's a couple bathrooms. Really nice. And, then you walk and there's this area for like helping people get rehabbed and help.

[00:18:07] They have a personal trainer that actually comes and does, helps people with their, kind of like a physical therapist but also training. And, I thought that's another neat aspect of this. Yeah. Thanks for noticing that. We are actually lucky. We have, she calls herself a movement coach. But, she's actually a trainer for the U.S. Olympic Committee.

[00:18:30] In fact, one and a half years ago, she was named National Trainer of the Year for the U.S. Olympic Committee. So, she's got her, she's got her ducks in a row. And, what she does is, she's pretty passionate. She's both a coach. She's a very high-level player. But, she also likes to work with people to get our bodies in shape and maintained in shape so that we can continue to play the game at the highest level. And, so, she actually has Mobility Monday.

[00:18:59] She has different classes throughout the week where she teaches people what specific exercises and stretching and mobility movement they need to do to maintain their, to prevent injury, quite frankly. And, so, we developed and dedicated a space for her to do that. We see people in there now stretching and warming up and cooling down. So, that's been kind of great, too. We're really lucky and blessed to have her on the staff.

[00:19:24] It's not every day you open a club and an Olympic-level trainer comes out of the woodwork and says, hey, I'd like to do some stuff for you. Well, and everybody needs that. Well, and we talk about this all the time. We're all guilty of it. I am just as guilty as everybody. What do you do? You're so excited to play pickleball. You don't care about anything else. You do a couple little stretches. I don't even know if they're called stretches. You think that you stretch. You jump on that court, and then your warm-up is dinking a couple balls, and it's like, let's go, 100 miles an hour. Here we go. So, yeah.

[00:19:53] It's exact. I'm glad you have somebody like that because these are all things that the clubs need to develop to help from injury, right? For you, you don't want injured people because that means they're not going to play anymore, you know? Right, and they keep them healthy and playing, and definitely. So, I love it. Well, you know, yeah, the goal is to, for our facility is, you know, Neil and I are at the end of our business careers,

[00:20:18] and so we feel a little bit less pressure to squeeze every nickel or dollar out of the club, and so we can kind of focus on fun and atmosphere and vibe and amenities all within reason, of course, but the idea is to create a space where everybody can meet in the community, put everything outside the door that's driving us crazy,

[00:20:41] and find a place where you can socialize, have fun, take care of your body, and then go back out into the world and do battle, right? Oh, yeah. So, we claim and we believe that we're not really a pickleball facility. We're an experience company, and what we're trying to manage is an experience from the moment you walk in the door to the time you leave, and so it's about the experience, and yes, the courts and the lights are part of that experience,

[00:21:10] but so is how you're greeted at the front desk, so is how you're greeted at the cafe, so is how other players treat each other, and so that culture, that experience culture is really what we focus on. Absolutely. I felt that while I was there, and I mean, I was only there an hour, and I felt really comfortable. Everybody was great. I got a nice good coffee. He made a really good coffee there. Yeah, he did a press, coffee press, and it was really good, so I had a nice coffee.

[00:21:40] That got me a little jittered, but that was all good. Jittered? Jittered. But then, so the last place that we went, and this is how methodical this was thought out, is that you go up these stairs, and there's a little runway, and there's glass everywhere, so you can go upstairs and see the whole club. You can watch the club, but there's a ping pong table room, which can be taken down, used as a room to hang out or a party room. Party room or something, yep. Had a business room. There was a bunch of businessmen in there as we were there, using the room and doing a big conference.

[00:22:09] And then going down and playing pickleball for an hour, and then coming back up, right? Yeah. I mean, every spot of this, they used every, there's no wasted space in this building. They've used every piece of it, and it's well thought out. Nice. Nice. I'm excited to come see it, which we will be coming and seeing it. Tell us what's coming up. Well, on May 29th, 30th, and 31st, we actually were lucky to land a PPA Challenger Series event,

[00:22:37] which entails a lot of top-level pro players coming from around the country to partake in this Challenger Series. But not only is the Challenger Series for pro players, it all the way goes all the way down to 3-0. But what's really exciting is that you have 6-0-plus level players playing for a championship and for points to apply towards their tour membership.

[00:23:06] So there's a lot at stake. Our resident pro who plays on the tour is playing. Our senior pro is playing. We have, obviously, people coming in from around the country. I think I've already looked, and there's close to 50 teams already signed up. And as you guys know, tournaments are signed up at the last second, just at the 6-0 above level, at the pro level.

[00:23:34] So there's going to be some top-level play. And then the PPA live streams this, so you can watch it online. But I'm excited to see these top pros play. I'm sure you guys have seen this way more than me. But when you sit right by the court and watch these 6-0-plus level players play,

[00:24:02] it really feels like a different game than the pedestrian 4-0 level game I'm playing. Oh, it's nuts. I mean, it's crazy. The volleys, they go on for five minutes. I mean, it's nuts. The stuff that you just – they're not going to get it. And they get it. And they get it. And that ball keeps moving. And speed it up. And lob it. It's crazy. But we've got to give you a high five here, you know, to have the PPA tour to come to your place. That's just telling you what kind of club we're talking about here. Yeah.

[00:24:32] Oh, thanks. Well, I have to be – I've got to be correct about this. We had a great partner in the city of Fort Collins, and specifically Visit Fort Collins, who helped us connect with the PPA, has been highly instrumental in navigating all the logistics that need to happen with the city and the hotel rooms and everything that needs to come in place. They've just been a remarkable partner.

[00:25:00] And then our business community here in Fort Collins, we have a nationally known brewery called New Belgium. And they have partnered with us for this event, helping us. And so there's going to be giveaways and prizes and a lot of activation at the event by sponsors. And so it's very exciting. But quite frankly, it's a lot of people coming together to help.

[00:25:25] A lot of people in the city of Fort Collins, the Visit Fort Collins, and vendors and partners. We have a local car dealership, Peterson Toyota, that has stepped up in a big way and bringing vehicles out. And it's just turning into quite a carnival and a festival. And that wouldn't happen because of Neil and I. It's quite honestly a village coming together to make this happen. Well, that's what you've got to love about pickleball, right? Community. The community is huge.

[00:25:52] I've never seen something in my life as pickleball that people come together when some – it's the craziest thing, a plastic ball and a couple paddles, and it just brings this whole world together. I mean, we raise money. We help people. I mean, we bring people from places that they were so down and desperate or their health. It's just incredible, this sport, and that's why it's growing. It's one of the fastest-growing sports in the world. So it's crazy. But you have done a lot.

[00:26:19] I mean, just meeting you, you can tell what a great man you are. It was very nice to – how you walked me through. And even when I walked in, people said hi. You were out there actually on the courts helping people, which was awesome. You're not just in an office somewhere. You're there in the facility actually making sure this is part of it. Well, I will tell you, thanks for those kind words. But, Mike, you've already let the audience know that your ability to judge people is suspect.

[00:26:48] So I am – I'm just a guy out there hitting a plastic ball, like you said. But I've learned over the course of my business career to surround myself with good people. I've got to tell you about this pickleball community real quick. So one of the members comes to me and says, hey, listen, we have an idea. A whole bunch of us would be more than happy to house some of the players who are coming in from out of the country and let them stay with us. Oh, wow. That's exciting.

[00:27:19] We want to deliver food because we know it's hard for them to eat healthy and everything. I'm thinking to myself and going, this sport of pickleball and specifically this town of Fort Collins is – it's crazy. Like you said, Mike, how people just come out and open their hearts up. And we all come together around this sport, which maybe in this time when it feels like we're all fractured and everyone's arguing, it's kind of great.

[00:27:47] You've got a sport and a game where we come in and play and we don't have to talk about anything but the next shot. And if we're cordial to each other, we're almost guaranteed of having a wonderful day, right? Even if we don't play great, it's still a pretty great time. It is a great time. I tell people all the time and I'll tell this to everybody. When I go on a court, I get to exit the world. No phones, no traffic, no – That's right. Nothing.

[00:28:11] I get to just enjoy my life for that couple hours and I just meet these great people that I've never met in my life like yourself. And it's just awesome. I mean, so, yeah, this thing is – I would never have thought of where it is today, where we are with pickleball. I just thought it was a sport. I was going to play it and I was going to get really good. I did get grumpy for a little time there, but I'm not so grumpy anymore. I'm still trying to get really good. Hey! Oh! Oh! Hang on.

[00:28:38] I'm going to do a rim shot and a drum roll there for that shot. She got you, Mike. She did. She's always – I mean, I appear sometimes on this show. Oh, you wouldn't even believe what I get. I have a feeling that I kind of see why you guys make a good team. You're good in the conviviality and the joy between you is easy to see.

[00:29:02] I would be remiss maybe you guys to mention that you guys have graciously agreed to come up to the tournament and do some podcasting from the tournament itself, which we're excited about. And you're going to get to interview some players and kind of give a look and a feel of the event itself. So that should be a little bit exciting, no? Oh, yeah. We're excited. Yeah, we're excited. I was going to tell you there's going to be this great podcast company there that are a lot of fun, and they're just awesome.

[00:29:32] And the pickleball is next door. I mean, this is what we do. I hear that the female side of this is really good. Yeah, well, that's a lie. Yeah. Well, no, it's not a lie. I heard also that the female side is very humble, and so a lot of good qualities and a lot of good traits. We're excited to have you up. Oh, we're excited. It was very nice to meet you, and what was interesting to me was your guys' perspective

[00:30:00] because you travel to so many different clubs and so many different events. I wanted to ask you guys a question. What do you see as kind of a trend in pickleball, either on the courts or in the clubs or in the tournaments? What are you noticing that you go, huh, this is changing. This is a little bit different. You guys have a front row seat. We do.

[00:30:22] I think that the crazy part when I started, the speed up of this whole thing, the people that are coming into this now are like, I mean, they're moving up so fast. You know, Kristana hasn't, but she's trying, and I give her that credit. But a lot of the other people that are playing, they are moving up. I mean, I play with some people, and I come back, and I come back to a club that I've played with somebody that just started a few months, six months ago, and they have just leveled up.

[00:30:50] Well, and a lot of young ones. A lot of the youngsters that are coming in this. Oh, my gosh. It's crazy. Why do you think that the pace of people's ability to play the game seems to have increased? I've noticed the same thing. Do you have a sense of why that might be or what you might attribute that to? Well, when I ask what's dinking and what is a job shot, they're like, what? You know?

[00:31:16] Those shots of the speed up of the game itself has just become – it's so fun. We've brought a lot of – which I know this is a touchy subject is the tennis players. But we brought a lot of tennis players that have either retired out of tennis or they found that how great – they've been talking bad about us pickleballers. But now guess who's playing? Guess who some of the top players in the world are? Yeah. Our tennis players. So I think they brought the game to a new perspective.

[00:31:42] We've watched that over time and time is they have sped up the game because they play the back line, and they know how to work with the ball. So they have changed the game quite a bit. I think they were a big – a big ball – a big changer in the game. Well, and what kind of sport can you have a 5-year-old and a, you know, 95-year-old play? Yeah. There isn't a sport out there that is like this. So it's amazing.

[00:32:11] Yeah, and I can teach people in 15, 20 minutes. And they're not going to be a pro, but they're going to have fun. In 15, 20 minutes, I can have somebody on a court, you know? I think that's – I think those two things are interesting.

[00:32:38] I think that's a great point. and you play golf and you're miserable you go out and play tennis your first time and it's really difficult that ball is really bouncy and high and there's a lot more court to cover and so you can you can immediately access this game like you said in 15 or 20 minutes and

[00:33:05] hopefully we can play this until i was going to say tell him an old man and realize i already am an old man but an older man well mike is pretty old so hey we're watching him oh my god he's like hey don't even go there she knows what's gonna happen we're gonna pull out the idea but you're right you're absolutely right you know um that's what makes the difference of this game is that you anybody can walk on that court and i love it i mean even you know we're watching the adaptive players

[00:33:34] now isn't this incredible the wheelchair guys out here and there and we get to play with them and it's like crazy like how good they are yeah they're awesome yeah so and i was going to say something else i think another thing that's changed you were asking about tournaments we have millionaires now in pickleball we knew we knew and interviewed players a couple years ago that just started in the game and they had a lot of trophies these are guys were the best guys in the world and they had

[00:33:59] they didn't get in they paid to be play this game and they had the trophy room and all the medals but we have millionaires now in pickleball so i mean that's changed that's moving this game into a pro a pro pro series you know where people are really you know pros they're making money there's i mean we one of the companies that we sponsor or sponsor us is denver iconics seniors the pros here million dollar teams yeah you know so it's crazy and they got three series now going they got a 40 plus a 50

[00:34:29] plus and a 60 plus yeah well our uh interestingly or coincidentally our uh senior pro graham mcdaniels uh is on the denver iconics okay i was going to ask you that when you said senior pro yeah he's he's on that team and um we're seeing some more interest there and so yeah i agree with you well i'm hopeful that um anybody who's hearing this can come out and visit and see uh come out and

[00:34:58] play um there's levels all the way down to 3-0 up to 6-0 if you're feeling so inclined and um uh come out and check out the facility if you just want to come and watch some top tier talent um it's going to be an exciting championship sunday and there's going to be a lot of fun activities for kids to do and and uh might win some prizes so uh to the extent that anyone's interested we'd love to have you come out and uh host you at our facility and fort collins is a beautiful place

[00:35:26] i mean what a great place great food great atmosphere i mean it's always has energy there i always say that like boulder and fort collins are you just get there and it's like a charge maybe that's what it is i just get energy there yeah like amped up being there well we are so thankful for having you on and michael can you tell us um where do we find you oh yeah um your site just so we

[00:35:48] on social media yep you uh you can find us at uh zero zero two all spelled out dot pro www.002.pro you can look for the um uh the tournament is on uh is under fracas in fort collins the fracas in fort collins and it's on pickleball tournaments.com um you can look at ppa challenger

[00:36:17] series you can put in fort collins ppa challenger series any of those search terms it'll all come up and um it's on may 29th through the 31st and uh we look forward to hosting this great event and watching some world-class players uh get after each other oh it's gonna be awesome you guys got to come and you got to meet mike mike i mean mike's are all great anybody with the name mike is usually a really

[00:36:41] good person so i mean my mom told me that my mom told me that all mike or michaels are uh troublemakers so yeah you know what i i'm looking at one i know i i agree with your mother well and she raised one so she probably knows so um mike we're just gonna have to wear the mantle of being a little bit of a troublemaker and make up for it in other ways it's our smile and hugs i mean

[00:37:06] that's what it is so we you know we're good people i had one last question i forgot to ask you in the beginning i ask every club that opens their own club how did you come up with your name zero zero two because my partner didn't quite understand it okay so do you know okay so you know you can look at something like you know the pictures of like jesus and you're like looking and you're like and you don't get it until you get it and you're like oh that was really stupid that i didn't get that so

[00:37:34] i admit it i admit my faults no it's okay we you'll see what color her hair is the uh i'm not sure i understand the the analogy to jesus but we're gonna go with it yeah i was kind of going there too you look at a picture and you're supposed to look at that picture and what do you see right and you're looking at it looking and they go oh that's a picture of jesus these are the tests that they have her do these are the psychological tests that i think they're having

[00:37:59] they let me out today so mike i picked her up that's funny the uh the name was really um uh it was a for us uh this uh building the facility was uh kind of a leap of faith but more importantly a uh a new beginning um a new beginning for a club in fort collins it was and it was a new beginning for

[00:38:24] this core group of a couple hundred hardcore players that supported us in so many different ways that we couldn't even that'd be a whole podcast in and of itself if we were ever to tell you about all the little things that happened along the way to bringing this to life and all the people who stepped in at just the right moment to get us over that hump and so zero zero two the beginning of every game the beginning of a new adventure it just felt like that's what it was right and this was

[00:38:51] the beginning and there was possibilities right you start the game you don't know is zero zero two you might you might get pickled or you might pickle someone else or so everything's fresh and new and that's how we thought about it and that's it's really just that simple story of how we came up with the name it's a great name it's a very good name and now i'm thank you explained it i did a whiteboard for her and uh but uh this is it's been good so we appreciate you so much and we can't wait to see

[00:39:19] you and i can't wait to play some pickleball guys and see it i'm it's it'll be so fun yeah so we likewise and go ahead i was just gonna say likewise we look uh forward i know that my partner neil is anxious to meet both you know we're anxious to have you at the club we're going to have you all set up and uh and thanks for being gracious enough to come on uh on your show and to be able to promote this tournament and and let people know what's happening uh we appreciate it's very kind of

[00:39:48] you thank you thank you thank you we'll have a great day play some pickleball if you get a chance to all our listeners guys get the fort collins get to zero zero two dot pro right okay there you go all right guys when you come up bring your equipment we'll see you then see you then have a great day

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