Do you know the most misunderstood role in all of pickleball? Well this morning
neither did I. That's until I met mark Peifer he's a
Certified Feferee from the USAPA and he's going to tell us what that rule is, stay tuned.
Hey everybody this is CJ Johnson. As I told you I'm here with
Mark and we're going to talk pickleball rules today. I mean who doesn't love a
rule or two right? So Mark is a Certified Referee but I don't know if everybody
knows what that means so why don't you tell us Mark what is a Certified Referee
and how did you get into this? Certified Referees there's about 140 of us around
the country from different states around the Union. Most well most referees
are volunteer referees that raise their hand and want to become referee for
their local tournaments. They're like I said about a hundred and forty of us
who've gone through a certain process to become certified. And that allows us to
referee at some of the major tournaments like the Nationals in Indian Wells like
Huntsman games, like Fall Brawl some of the major tournaments.Tournament
of Champions and those kinds of things. So there's a certain classification of
referees have decided to go learn the rules and detailed format and go through
a process that allows them to to referee and those kinds of tournaments. Awesome
and how did you get into this were you just a player and liked rules or how did
you fall into this? I started off as a player and quickly realized that the people that
I was playing with didn't know the rules. Like maybe I didn't know they didn't
know and we were making up rules as we went along and finally I
said you know what I'm very uncomfortable. I'm one of those people
that if I'm going to play a sport I want to know it inside and out
and I didn't want anybody to take advantage of the fact that I didn't know
the rules. So it really became kind of self
motivation and sometimes preservation on the court and knowing the rules better
than somebody else. So that's really why I went into the process to becoming a
referee. And then become certified I did that because I thought as I got older
there was going to be a time when I wasn't going to be able to play at the
highest levels of the game but I could be a pretty good referee at the highest
levels of the game. And that's really kind of a motivation why I do it. And I
said tell you I learned so much from Mark today and now you're going to learn
something too. I'm going to let him tell you about the most
misunderstood rule in all of pickleball. As I became certified, even before I became
certified people seem to really have trouble with
a rule about what is the rule when a ball bounces and somebody calls out and
what happens if they call out before the ball bounces.
So my recommendation, strongest recommendation for all the players out
there is to go take a look at page 33 there's a rule 6 D 12 that explains the
differentiation between an out call that is made before the ball bounces on the
court and what happens after the ball has bounced and then is called out.
That is the most misunderstood rule and it's probably the one that as a roaming
the courts as a Certified Ref I get called over to rule on more than
anything else. So that's the one I would focus on.
Ok and where is that again in the rule book? Ot's on page 33 it's rule 6 D 12
and it's in the rule book for USAPA pickleball You can get this online you
can get it in hard copy or you can actually download a pdf version. If you've
got any questions put them down in the comments below and I betcha I might be
able to get in touch with Mark and we may be able to get you an answer or two.
CJ I've got one other thing I need a pass on. As a player if you want to go take another look at a rule that
might be able to save you points or prevent you from losing a point or
finding a point from your opponent that they may not realize they have just
given to you. Go study rule 4.b on the positioning of players. Who is the even
player who's the odd number player and how do you determine whether
somebody's in the correct position at the serve or return a serve. That's the
best player tip I can give all of you. And that's an awesome player tip because
who doesn't want more points I'll tell you what I'm going to put a link
in the show notes down below to the rule book but now if somebody is out there
and they want to get a referee training because I have to tell you if you haven't
been through this you really should. Not only did we
learn a lot we had a ton of fun. He makes it, he makes it a lot of fun and so much
less intimidating in being out there. If somebody wants to bring this to
their community how how do they go about doing that Mark? Well first I have to
give credit to Bob Patten he is my training partner we co teach this. Bob
and I have two jobs that are relatively new in USAPA Bob is actually the referee
training coordinator by title for the states of Hawaii and California. And I'm
the Certified Referee a training coordinator for the
states of California and Hawaii. And every state has a Bob Patten and a Mark Peifer
that's assigned to them. And those are the folks that you, any player that would
like to have a session like we had here in Reno Nevada today, that's who they
need to get in contact with. So how do you do that? How do you find out who that
referee training coordinator is and that answer lies with your local ambassador.
And the local ambassador may or may not be aware of the referee training
coordinator so all they have to do is work their way up the line and
eventually get to, more than likely their district ambassador and they're
they'll find an answer who are the people that are the referee training
coordinator and certified referee training coordinator for their state. Okay that's
awesome! So here's the place to start. I'm going
put down in the show notes as well and I'm going put a link to the USAPA site which
will have your ambassadors. So start with your ambassadors and just know if they
don't know the answer there definitely is somebody out there who can help you.
Probably get ahold of CJ and she'll find me and then look in the works. That'll
work, that'll work. Go do it it is so much fun! If you got value from this video
make sure you give it a little thumbs up and share it with your pickleball
playing friends because together we can
Train Smart, Live Bold, Age Well