Throughout the year we may recognize a player, club or community of the month, or we may give a simple Facebook shout out. They are all deserving. But once a year, we pull together all the nominations and feedback, to finally determine who is most deserving to be called the Pickleball Rocks Player of the Year. It’s certainly not an easy task.
Past winners include:
Enrique Ruiz, Jim and Yvonne Hackenberg, Jennifer Lucore and Alex Hamner, Daniel Moore and Scott Moore, and Kyle Yates.
You’ll notice all our past winners are definitely great players, but you will also immediately recognize they all are very giving of their time and talents to “help pickleball grow”, which of course is the foundation of our Pickleball Rocks mission.
2017 Pickleball Players of the Year:
SIMONE JARDIM and ASPEN KERN
In 2017 Simone played in 28 total events and medaled in 28 total events, bringing home 24 Gold medals and 4 Silvers. This included an impressive 5 golds in 5 US Open events and 2 golds and a silver at our pickleball’s National Championships in Casa Grande.
Pretty much the perfect pickleball playing year.
Simone is a true champion in every sense of the word.
Congratulations to 2017 Pickleball Player of the Year: Simone Jardim
Once again, a guy stood out in all the nominations. Few people rivaled Aspen’s playing record in 2017. 23 events, 19 medals of which 14 were gold. He had a great year on the courts indeed, but from all the feedback received at our offices, Aspen was truly special off the courts in 2017.
Aspen touched pickleball with two great feel-good projects in 2017.
Project number 2 was another big success for the sport of pickleball.
Aspen threw an event, which many people do. But this event was unique in that it was not a tournament, yet people showed up in droves. TSAC (Third Shot’s A Charm) was held in Kansas City Missouri and was billed as a three day party where you register online, then just show up for open play. No tournament, no pressure. Just three days of play till you drop with players of every age, every level, on any court you want to play on. Add in a big dose of food and fun stuff and you have TSAC. It sold out in short order and from our understanding, the 2018 event is already sold out too. What a great way to bring pickleball players together and of course “help pickleball grow”.
What a great way to start the year, being inspired by these two, great examples. So we’ll published here with great pics. Thankyou Rodney for your forum and landscaping them and this sport for us all.