Ep. 308 - Don't Argue the Call - the Definitive Conversation on "Out" Ball Disputes

Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy. The podcast dedicated to your Pickleball improvement.

It's the only podcast dedicated to your mind. My name is Tony Roy. I'm the host of this

weekly podcast. It's a pleasure to be with you. This week's podcast, I am going to go

over with you the definitive guide to how to deal with out ball disputes. You're not

going to want to miss this episode of the podcast. It's got a lot of stuff in here to help

you process dealing with out ball disputes, but not just out ball disputes, life disputes,

because pickleball, mental journey translates to lifelong mental journey. It's good stuff.

And then in the riff, I'm going to give you a behind the scenes update on what's going

on with our new course here at Tony Roy Pickleball, which is my new home for all the coaching

and the work that I'm doing in pickleball. As we dive into the podcast, we have several

camps coming up. The Boston camp is either sold out or almost sold out. I'm not sure. I think

there's one player who may have a spot reserved on that one. So that one may be sold out by now.

Chicago is starting to move. We again, a lot of increase about Chicago. So if you're in the midwest,

interested in joining us for a camp, Chicago, October, let's do it. The Dallas camp is starting

to get filled up. So if you're interested in that Dallas camp, definitely check that one out.

And then we have several camps here in my home base here in Tampa, which is beautiful all time

a year. It's a little hot right now, but it's still beautiful. But certainly in the, when the

camps are scheduled, the temperature down here is going to be, we always say that's a reasonably

living Florida. So if you're interested in pickleball camp, make sure you check those out.

All right. Let's talk about out balls and out balls, specifically out ball disputes. How do you

deal with that when there's an out ball dispute? And let's go ahead and set the stage. Let's make

it spicy. Let's make it interesting. Score is 10, 9, 2. Your team is serving, of course, at 10,

9, 2. You got a volley. You hit the volley. Chris, you love it. Everything's great. It's right there.

It's right on the line. It's either, you know, a hair's breath in or a hair's breath out and your

opponent calls it out. What do you do in that situation? How do you deal with it? What's the right

what's the right approach? Again, you hit the ball. You think it, it's in or might be in, but let's

even go. You think it's in. You're 100% sure that ball is in. Your opponent calls it out. Very close

to the line. Though not something at six inches in. What do you do? So let's go through several

different ways of approaching this. And I think by the end, I think you'll agree with the premise that

we're, we're going to land on here. Let's start here. Who created the situation? Okay. So you're,

you're, you and your opponents. And I'm assuming most of the time, most of the time you're playing

with friends, right? That's, that's who your opponents are. So you now have a situation.

You hit the ball. They've called it out. You don't like it. Who created the situation?

The answer is you did. You did because you hit the ball. Very close to the line. One way or the

other inside or out could be in could be out. Right? So if you created the situation,

why not take some agency? Right? Why not take some ownership over that situation? And when you think

about it, you know, when you, when you think about it a little bit more broadly, right? You really

put your friends in a tough spot. Right? You hit the ball so close to the line that you're putting

them in an impossible situation to make a call. And unless you think they're affirmatively cheating

you, they're probably making the call actually not probably unless you believe they're firmly cheating

you, they are making the call the best way that they can. Right? They are actually doing the,

the best that they can in the situation that who created that you created. So let's start from

that premise, right? We created the situation. Maybe we shouldn't get all bent out of shape

because we don't like the call at the end of the day. Another thing to think about here is

where's this conversation going? Right? Your opponent says out. What's your next play? What's your

next move? Are you sure? Or you can say, I saw it in or okay, and then what happens next? Let's

play, let's play through it, right? They're just gameplay it a little bit. What are they supposed to

say? No, I saw it out. And then what are you going to say? No, I saw it in. Right? You're just going

to keep going with you and escalate. Even if you don't escalate, what's happened already? The minute

you challenge them, what happened to the temperature on the court, to the enjoyable time you were having

with your friends out on the pickleball court, how's that? How's that going for you? Right? So just

think about what happens when you initiate that conversation, what's already happened, and where

you going with it? Right? How far are you going to go with it? Are you going to back down? Are you

going to make them back down? Is somebody going to have to back down on this court or else we're going

to have, I don't know, fist to cuffs words? I'm not sure. So where are you going with the conversation?

Next question is, is there enough writing on this? Like is it sufficiently important

to win this particular point? And in this case, this particular game, to

create this unpleasantness on the court, to take a stand, is this the hill that we're dying on

this hill right here, right now? In a situation, going back to what we talked about earlier,

that we created a situation where we put our friends in a tough spot, is this the moment?

Is this important enough to us to like spend that capital of ours and potentially burn a

relationship? Potentially, it's definitely damage a relationship, even if it's a small damage,

there's damage. Is it that important? Is it enough writing on it?

The next one is, are you 100% sure you're right? I know you think you are. I get it, right?

Are you 100% sure you're right? Would you bet your life on it? I'm going to bet you wouldn't

bet your life on it. Actually, I was doing some clipping earlier today, some video clipping,

and I'm going to post a little short about this, serve. I actually cropped it in. It was called

out by opponents, right? It was like right there on the line. To me, it's a toss up. I wouldn't bet,

either in or out. I wouldn't bet my life on it being in. I wouldn't bet my life on it being out.

I don't know. And I cropped into it with the video tools that I have. I cropped into it. I looked

at it. I mean, the ball's, if it's in, it's in by a smidge. If it's out, it's out by a smidge.

And I wouldn't bet a dollar on that call. And so when you have these situations again that you

created, that conversation, I go on anywhere except negativity, are you even 100% sure that you're

right? It's a tough one, right? And if we're going to be rule specific, right? Because I can hear

some of the thinking already out there, I think I can hear thinking. Some of you may respond to

this by saying, well, those are the rules. The rules are the rules and if it's in, it's in,

it's out. It's out, right? All right. If we want to play by the rules, who's call is it?

What do the rules say about that? Who gets to make the call there? You're opponent. Not you,

they're call. And remember, going back to the, if you will, the original sin or the root cause,

the situation was created by us. The rules say it's their decision what the call is. So,

you know, so that's another strike against the against arguing. And then the last one I'll tell you

is what let's flip it around. Okay. They're serving at 1092. You're at the baseline. They hit the

ball. You call it out. How do you feel when they create a problem for you when they come at you

because they don't like your call? How does that make you feel as a pickable player and just as a

human being? Probably not great, right? Challenging your veracity, challenging your call,

challenging the situation that they could challenge you in a situation that you had,

nothing to do with, but you weren't the initial, initial perpetrator. You weren't the initial

cause or of the situation. They were, they hit the darn ball right there next to the line.

So, what do you do? Right? How do you feel? I'm guessing not good. So, when you think about the

litany of ways you can come at this, right? I think the answer is pretty apparent, I think,

which is when you have an outball dispute, when you have an outball,

any kind of disagreement about an out call situation, you got to move on. You just got to move on.

Then nothing happened, you know? You hit the ball. They call it out. Don't even hesitate. Don't

pause. Don't look at them a second time. Don't do anything like that. Don't elevate the

temperature in the room because you will elevate the temperature. If there's any indication that

you have a problem with the call, you just say, oh, man, I missed it. Toss in the ball. They're served,

carry on with life. Do not get bogged down with these calls. It's just a not a good investment of

time, energy, friend capital, all the factors are against challenging perceived injustices in

the out-call world. And I would submit to you, that's, to me, it's the same in tournament or

in competitive play and in rec play. So, tournaments, tournaments, league play, things like that.

Now, if you have a referee in a tournament, I have no problem with an appeal. I have no

problem with an appeal, because an tournament play, that's what the referees are for. You make the

appeal. The referees can't overrule it. Oftentimes, the cantaloupe is looking at the Nambali's

online. You just move on. There's no money in getting bogged down in a conversation about that.

In fact, if you watch any pro matches, they don't really get into it with each other. They just

use their challenge, right? They're not even sure. They're professionals. There's referees on the

court who aren't even sure. I can tell you sitting in the commentating booth, we'll watch it on the

screen as they're replaying it and they're zooming in on it, cropping in on it and showing it bigger

and bigger and bigger. Me and my fellow commentator will be like, I don't know, what'd you use?

They'll say it and I'll say it and I'll say it and they'll say, we can't tell either.

Why are we expecting more from our friends on Wednesday morning or on a Tuesday evening game

for them to have this eagle eye and if they didn't see it perfectly, then what,

their cheaters or something? You got to move past that. I'm going to tell you this way of thinking

about it. Is it worth the cost? Is this significant enough for me? Where's the conversation going

to go? Game playing that? Are you 100% sure that you're right about it? Flipping it around,

how would you feel? All those different techniques that we use or questions that we asked,

regarding outpoles, guess where you can use that too? In life. When you have a disagreement,

when you have an uncomfortable situation, when you have something that you're going to make an

issue of in your personal life, outside of pickleball, why not use the same filters, the same screens

to get to whether it's something that you should, in fact, or not should, but that you want to

articulate that you want to bring forward. It's just a really helpful way of reducing

unnecessary conflict in situations when it's not warranted. I'll call disputes on a pickleball

court. The dispute is never, ever, ever warranted under any circumstances, even in competitive play.

You make the appeal. That's not a dispute. Just make the appeal and you're done. No disputes on

that. Hopefully that helps you navigate outpoles and keep the temperature down the court. Just

remember why you're there. You let it play pickleball. See your friends and hopefully have a good time.

All right. Let's dive into the rift. I want to give you an update on what's going on behind the

scenes here at Tony work pickleball, what we're up to. I want to let you know that right now

been working a tail off on the most comprehensive course in pickleball. This is the course that's

going to have everything that you need, both step by step, as well as on your own if you want to

DIY it, basically you want to kind of navigate yourself. It's going to have the answers to your

questions because it's not just going to have like in this situation do this and this is

a situation do that, right? It's going to have this is how the situations are built. This is how

the framework of the game works given those situations so that you learn how to navigate the game

on your own. You become your own basically pilot, your own master inside the sport of pickleball

as opposed to just trying to remember what what did Tony say in this lesson or what had happened

but what did I read over here? What did I see over there? So if you you know most of many of you are

not most of you already know that I've developed a lot of pickleball curriculum in the past,

developed the most comprehensive camp and online curriculum courses that are out there in the past.

I can tell you that this one is even more thorough and more it's updated and it's just structured.

It has the benefit of my additional years of coaching so this program is going to be really powerful

and I already kind of alluded this a little bit about how it works basically is going to train you

but here's an initial premise that I think is really important to understand about the way that I

think about coaching but also the way that I would submit to you that you may want to consider

thinking about for your development as a player and so the the the whole course starts from the premise

that you are a capable intelligent adult human being. Okay. What that means is that you can learn how

to navigate pickleball yourself. Yes, I can guide you and the TRP coaching team can guide

but you're the one on the court. You're the one making decisions in real time. You're the one

deciding shots and strategies. You're the one picking the shots that you want to focus on and

things like that. That's going to be you and you're going to be empowered enough to do that

because the job of the course the way I see it is to transfer my pickleball knowledge and the

pickleball knowledge of the coaching team to you and this course course is kind of do that for sure.

I'm super excited to unveil the course that will be unveiled in September to the general public.

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A lot of good content on there for you. This is really important to me. I want to give a big

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pickable. You are the players who make this coaching, all the coaching including this podcast possible

and it means a lot to me personally that you've shown faith in the project and in what we're doing

and it without you again it wouldn't be possible and really appreciate it. I look forward to seeing

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month or so and for everybody else I'll see you next week on the next regular episode of Pickable Therapy.