Life Lessons from Pickleball™
Meet Shelley and Sher, the dynamic duo, who found more than just a sport on the Pickleball court - they discovered how Pickleball was weaving its magic, creating connections, boosting confidence, and sprinkling their lives with amazing joy. Inspired by their own personal transformation and the contagious enthusiasm of their fellow players, they knew this was more than a game. Join them on their weekly podcast as they serve up engaging conversations with people from all walks of life, and all around the world reaching across the net to uncover the valuable Life Lessons from Pickleball™.
Life Lessons from Pickleball™
E32: Tracy and Cass: Transforming Pickleball with Ruley - The Official Pickleball E-Referee™
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Meet Tracy Thomas and Cass Toroian who are about to transform your pickleball experience, turning confusion into clarity with their groundbreaking app, "The Official Pickleball E-Referee™. These two dynamic women have combined their love for the sport with impressive backgrounds to create a tool that's set to change how we approach the pickleball rules.
https://pickleball-e-referee.com
Music gifted to us by Ian Pedersen: @ianpedersen
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Life Lessons From Pickleball App
Speaker 1Hi, I'm Shelly Maurer and I'm Cher Emrick. Welcome to Life.
Speaker 2Lessons from Pickleball where we engage with pickleball players from around the world about life on and off the court.
Speaker 1Thanks for joining us. Hey, welcome everyone to Life. Lessons from Pickleball. We are really delighted to have two guests with us today Tracy Thomas and Cass Torian. Hey, cass and Tracy, the two of you have a new game-changing app for pickleball. But before we hear about that, we wanted to share a little bit about you two.
Speaker 2Tracy, you are an empty nester and owner of a luxury travel agency. You've been playing pickleball for about six years, but you are a self-proclaimed pickleball addict for about the last year now.
Speaker 1And Cass, you have a strong background in finance bless your heart and technology bless your heart. And you are a lifetime competitive tennis player and you started playing pickleball just a few months ago. So how did the two of you meet and how were you introduced to pickleball, each of you?
Speaker 3We were introduced through a mutual friend, a little less, a little fewer than two years ago. And Cass plays golf and tennis and I don't play either of those. I'm not an athlete, I never have been, but I did. I've never been an athlete in my mind, but I did. About six years ago, when I was getting divorced, my girlfriends were, you know, trying to keep my spirits up and they introduced me. They were all tennis and paddle players, so they started playing pickleball and said trace, come play pickleball. So that's when I was first introduced um to the game. And then when I met sandra, she, um, I didn't play her sports. But I said, hey, if you play tennis, you can play pickleball, so why don't you come play pickleball with me? And that's how she was introduced to pickleball that's true.
Speaker 4And then I want to just say one thing. She says she not. She used to run marathons, okay, and she blew her knee out and had to have knee surgery. So you know, she, I could never do that, no way I could run a marathon.
Speaker 1So that's funny that you identify as not being an athlete, but you run marathons.
Speaker 3I don't think marathon runners would appreciate being considered non-athletes. Non-athletes yeah, maybe it's just the sports thing. I've never done anything that wasn't individual. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 1But now you are and are you each playing in tournaments or anything like that?
Speaker 4no, not yet. So you know, the first time I went out and played with her it was in one of these like open play sessions and I knew that I could. I've played a couple times before. You know I knew I could. Um, once, I kind of just got used to the way the ball bounced. Again, you know that I would be able to do just fine.
Speaker 4But I was more intrigued by kind of what I saw going on during the open play sessions that you know I kind of just went with the flow because I know I didn't know the rules very well, but certainly I know the tennis rules very well, and so what I observed was folks not having a lot of people didn't have their handle on the rules good enough to where there appeared to be some discord on some of the courts and I thought, wow, you know, I've never seen that before and I get some of the rules are not quite as intuitive as maybe other racket sports. So when we left I said I might have to bring the rule book with me next time because you know, to me it would be horrible to have a disagreement like that over the rules. And I said, does that happen a lot? She said, yeah, you know, it does happen quite a bit, especially in the open play when there's newer players quite a bit, especially in the open play when there's newer players.
Speaker 4So I was literally going to go just print them out and decided to just do a quick check and see if there was an app out there and surprise, there wasn't. So I said, hey, you know there's no app. Do you think maybe people would like that? And she said yeah, and so I basically messaged some folks I know that are into AI. I knew enough about the AI that I knew we could take the official rules by the USA Pickleball and the pro associations and we could machine learn them into this app. So that's what we did.
Speaker 1OMG, so tell us about the app, go ahead. After all that what's it called?
Speaker 3So the app is currently the official Pickleball eReferee is the name of the app at the moment yeah. We should be launching this week. Yeah, Awesome.
Speaker 4We've been doing a lot of beta testing on it to make sure you know that it has no kinks in it, right?
Speaker 3Because one of the things that we know is very important is that it's accurate and that it's quick.
Speaker 4Right.
Speaker 3You know, because if it's used as we initially intended to be, you'll need it. You know you need to get the answer quickly because we're thinking that you know to settle on court disputes. You know to settle on court disputes. We also are developing it a little bit of as a training tool for newer players, so I think that we're going to integrate some features that'll make it so. There are like modules or lessons and maybe self-assessments or quizzes so that you can test your knowledge as you're learning the game, because I think part of um, what can be intimidating for someone who's a non-sports player like myself?
Speaker 4we're just getting back into it after a long time right, but just not.
Speaker 3You know, just being new to the game, it's intimidating sometimes to go, you know, to just being new to the game. It's intimidating sometimes to go, you know, to just walk onto a court and you know you don't know the process. You know you see rackets hanging there and how does that work. Or paddles excuse me hanging on the fence and how does that work. And you know there's some etiquette things and um, I think this is a great tool to help people maybe gain some confidence, so at least that they feel that you know they have a good understanding of the rules and they don't have to completely depend on you know, everyone who's there already playing to teach them.
Speaker 2Yeah Well, you know you said it's an AI learning tool. Can you explain to me kind of what that means and like how you envision people using it?
Speaker 4sure what that means and like how you envision people using it. So how it works is you just download it onto your iphone or your android device and then what you do is you can select whether or not you're playing singles or doubles and whether you're playing as an amateur or professional, and then, once you have it set to what your game is at that moment, then it literally just has a little chat prompt where you type in the scenario right there, right, so my doubles partner just hit me in the back and the ball bounced off my back and went over the net and the opponent hit it back. Is the point still playable or is that a fault, right? Anything you want to ask.
Revolutionizing Pickleball With eReferee Technology
Speaker 4It's been trained on these, plus, we've tried. It will learn more as more people use it and it will keep progressing. But that's the basics of it. It's literally you can kind of call it a chat gpt for pickleball um, and it also will have, probably two or three weeks from now, we're finishing up the iWatch component of it so that you'll be able to just not even have it with you on the court or go pick it up. It'll work on your iWatch phone and you can just talk into it and it's really fast. Within like two seconds you have the answer.
Speaker 1Wow.
Speaker 2So will you be able to talk into your phone too, if you don't have an Apple Watch? Yes, or just to type it Okay.
Speaker 3The voice to text function. Basically, yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think this is brilliant. I think, this is brilliant. I think this is absolutely brilliant and I can't help but think everyone who plays pickleball is going to want this, and I'm not saying it for the marketing perspective.
Speaker 1I'm saying it as a personal pickleball player and in fact here's an example. Yesterday I was watching a video of Anna Lee Waters playing singles and one of her serves hit the net and went in to where it was supposed to go. But they did a replay and when we play and that happens. We call it good and we play it. So I would want to ask the app is that just a professional rule or is that something we all should be replaying when it so? That's fantastic right?
Speaker 4yeah, it knows the difference between the.
Speaker 3There are slight differences between the professional rules and and not that's why we have that option in there yeah, because some tournaments they might run on um the professional rules and we're hoping that we can market this to clubs and tournaments as well to use as a resource. You know, because for you know, tournaments that don't have actual, you know, referees or line judges would be a good tool to you know, maybe help with you know any kind of rule issues at a tournament.
Speaker 1And now, cass, you have a technology background. Is that what inspired? This idea?
Speaker 4Well, I won't know that I have such a deep technology background other than I've kind of always been a little bit of a tech nerd. But I did go back. Before I sold my last company, I went back to school and learned how to do coding because I had some ideas actually to develop software more in the financial technology area. And then when this kind of came up, I was like, Whoa, this is really, I think, a good idea and we need to hop on it. And for me it was a way to get back to like getting involved with sports again. And once I was finished with tennis in college, I kind of hung that my racket up to be a grown up, and so I'm thrilled being able to have the opportunity. But I mean, I don't, you know, I've got developers that are all over the place that have helped actually build it the way we want it. We have graphic designers that helped, you know, make, make it look pretty and and all of that. So it's been a learning process for us you know?
Speaker 1And how long ago did you start this, did you say?
Speaker 4I would say we started. We hired the developers sometime in June.
Speaker 1Just in June of this year this is 2024? Yep.
Speaker 4Oh yeah, oh yeah, we move fast, yeah. And it's actually been fully functional and working for a while, I would say since early September we started testing it on the actual phones.
Speaker 1Yeah, yep, it's um testing it on the actual phones.
Speaker 4yeah, yep, so you had all those rules that had to be input into this app, right, yeah, wow, but it happens now through. You know files like you have pdf files and things like that. It's amazing what, what these um ai systems and machine learning can do now. It really is unbelievable.
Speaker 3The last couple of weeks actually, have just been trying to get through the vetting process on the Apple Store, because they are very particular and every time we submit they bump it back for something seemingly really minor and then so you just submit it again and wait for approval. So that was. No one really warned us about that.
Speaker 4We didn't know that it would take like 10 times. Everybody says, don't worry, it might take 10 times.
Speaker 1Oh no, I'm worried, I'm not going to be happy with that Right now.
Speaker 3So every week we're like oh come on yeah, so.
Speaker 1And now have you passed the bar.
Speaker 4No, we're going to submit it one more time this week and then I think we'll be fine. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Okay, good, yeah, yeah, that's.
Speaker 4Well.
Speaker 2I'm excited because I I signed up to be a tester, so oh good. Yeah, but that's really great. You said you had tutorials on there, because a lot of rules I didn't even know to ask about, right.
Speaker 3So like when my serve hits the net and bounces in, I didn't know that wasn't good or ask if that happened. That's what I was saying to her as we were developing it. I said, you know, because our developers don't have a pickleball background.
Speaker 3So, they would have to ask us meaning me, because I'm the pickleball expert of the two of us you know about the rules and I was like wait a minute. So some people aren't even really going to understand what to ask. So that's when we decided we're going to have to put some prompts in there, so we have some sample questions. But I do think that you know, down the line, it's going to be good to have, you know, some tutorials and, like I said, self-assessments and little quizzes and stuff.
Speaker 3And we're really eager to get feedback on it. You know, have people tell us what they like, what they don't like, offer constructive criticism, what they might like to see. I think we'll get a lot of ideas from our users as to how to develop it further.
Speaker 4Yeah, that's what our hope is.
Speaker 1Oh you will. You'll get a lot of great feedback. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3Pickleballers aren't shy, that's for sure.
Speaker 1But a lot of enthusiasm Right.
Speaker 4What's been interesting is the folks that we've talked to that have played pickleball for a long time. Their immediate reaction is well, I don't see any value in that, because I already know all the rules in your back pocket, just in case you need to pull it out because who wants to, you know, not keep this a friendly and positive sport, you know, and so why not just have it, just in case you need it, you know.
Speaker 1And for those people who already know the rules, there may be playing with people who don't, and so when they say oh, I don't think that's the rule, then you can pull out the referee and say, yeah, actually it is, or oops, and argue over what rule number or not.
Speaker 4And I think too for women, especially if they're playing, you know, in mixed doubles. We see it on Facebook all the time, on some of the chats on Facebook where women feel like they can't. They just want to keep the peace, right, they just want to keep the peace, so they don't, they don't say you know, they're afraid to. Just so I think it will empower as well, was out.
Speaker 2I was already off the court, so does that count? Because it didn't hit me when I was standing in the court. It hit me when I was, so you know. Just there's a lot of questions like that. Who hit you, though, was?
Speaker 4it? Your partner hit you, or was it the other side?
Speaker 2The other side. So the ball was coming over and the ball was out and it hit me, but I was not on the court, so I didn't know.
Speaker 3The way I understand it, it's a live ball until it bounces. Okay, so even if I'm off the court, yeah.
Speaker 2But that'd be nice to say Ask a question right, and have you referee? Tell me.
Speaker 4Right.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 4That's it, yeah.
Speaker 1Awesome. See, we've already shown its value Just in this conversation alone. Thank you. So what a journey you've been on, the two of you. I, I can't believe how fast it's gone for you, but I can't imagine that it's always felt like it's been fast. So we usually ask people you know, what do you when you both are playing pickleball? So we, we definitely want to know have you come up with some life lessons that you learned while you were playing pickleball that you're wanting to use in your life? Or life lessons you learned in your life that you want to use on the court, or lessons that you've learned in this whole process of creating this new eReferee technology?
The Joy of Pickleball Passion
Speaker 3Well, I can answer that pretty easily Because, as Cassandra mentioned, I was a runner. I started in my mid-30s. I was very heavy, I was on many medications and I kind of had an epiphany I have to get in shape. I'm on half a dozen medications at the age of 35. What's going to happen when I'm 55? You know.
Speaker 3So I looked up the Couch to 5K program online and this was before you know apps on our phones and everything and I printed the little sheet out and I took it with me to the gym and ran on the treadmill. I did the program as it was laid out and before I knew it I was able to run a 5k and I signed up for a race and ran the race and then it just sort of snowballed from there for me. So when I tore my meniscus about, I had run for over 10 years it was probably 12 or 13 years. I was a runner and I tore my meniscus and you know they told me I would probably get back to running and I just never could really get back, at least not to the level that I was running previously. So you know, I tried some other things. You know walking, rowing, you know all the different things at the gym and nothing was really doing it for me until I was introduced to pickleball and it was just the first thing that I've had a passion for since.
Speaker 3Running it's my stress relief. It's, you know, kind of like a reset button for me. You know when, when I used to run and I would be really stressed out or upset or in a bad mood, I just go out and go for a run. Now I feel like I can go play pickleball and that kind of resets me a little bit. So for me it's. I hope to be able to do it for the next 20, 30 years, you know.
Speaker 3So that's, you know, for me at age 53, I feel like it's just been sort of reinforced for me that I could still set a goal and achieve it I might have to modify it, and you know I'm not going to be the marathon runner that I was 15 years ago, but I can still do something to feel good about myself.
Speaker 1So that's lovely, Really lovely. How about you Cass?
Speaker 4Well, you know, it's interesting because I'm such a newbie at it still right but because I played tennis for so long, I mean. But because I played tennis for so long, I mean I love bracket sports, right. So for me it's been a pleasure to get involved with in something that's more social, because I was only ever a singles player in tennis and so, you know, at this age of my life I like that aspect. I think it also kind of helped me. You know, the last several years I play more golf than anything else, which can be very frustrating, as you know, I'm sure, and you know I, it's nice to get on the court and feel like I'm good at something again. But also I guess I've realized that I haven't lost those instincts either. Like Tracy and I were playing in some social thing a couple months ago and when we finished she said God, I didn't realize how aggressive you were.
Speaker 1And I said what are you talking about?
Speaker 4What do you mean? And she's like you know you hit so aggressively. I'm like no, I said I'm just trying to win, that's all I mean, that's all it is. To win, that's all I mean, that's all it is. And you know. So I guess it's helped me kind of get back a little bit of my, that feeling that I want to be really good at something again. Because you know, after I sold my business, I think I needed something to kind of reset myself. Think I needed something to kind of reset myself. So my plan is to hopefully I've got terrible Achilles tendonitis Unfortunately that's not from pickleball, I just have had it. I've got horrible feet, so make sure you all stretch so you don't get it. But I'm hoping I can get to the point where I can start to play some tournaments. Actually Cool, that's my goal with it.
Speaker 1Very cool.
Speaker 4Yeah, think you know my observation being early on that it's a different because it's such a new sport and there's so many new folks that really may have never been involved in sports like this before. The sportsmanship and the etiquette I think that I learned playing tennis. I'm hoping that I can help contribute something positively in that way to this sport too. There's nothing wrong with it being a different kind of racket sport and you know, the young people are getting involved and I think that's amazing. But I do think that there needs to be, you know, over time, more focus on that sportsmanship.
Speaker 1Yeah, no matter whether you're playing at your local court or you know professionally, you know just kind of being a good citizen in it. I like that, expand that, support it and and I think your app is definitely like you said, it's definitely it's the, it's the level playing field. It it's neutral, it doesn't bring in any attitude about no, that's the rule and I love that.
Speaker 4Yeah, that's what we're hoping forest, you know, formats for the average person to take the time to go out and really look at it and know it, and so across the board, that's kind of the underlying message with every project that I'm involved in.
Speaker 1What was the business that you sold?
Speaker 4It was a money management firm. Cool, yeah, yeah, I did that for 25-ish years.
Speaker 1Wow yeah, it was stressful, yes, so now you're de-stressing, with Hickorball.
Speaker 4Let's go start a startup company, right? That's so not stressful, right?
Speaker 3Just a different kind of stress, I think.
Speaker 4Let's hope somebody will actually use the app. Right? Oh, we will. Oh, thank you yeah.
Speaker 1We're already on board for that.
Speaker 4Yeah. So we just we hope that people will spread the word about it, you know, and help us to really make a community out of this. We feel like she's got kids that are under the age of 30 and gotten some feedback from them, and I think the younger generation is a little bit different than us. I think socialization because of COVID they're a little bit more apprehensive to get involved in something that they don't know that much about. So you know, having you know, we're going to really build this out with the, like Tracy mentioned, the feeling that they can know enough to know and go out on the court and not feel intimidated or that they look foolish.
Speaker 1Right, yes.
Speaker 4Good, good.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, those tutorials is a brilliant idea.
Speaker 4That's what we're hoping.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 4But we wanted to launch it first as the rules only because we want to make sure that that part is working really well and we get the feedback, because that's the core of it, right, right. So, um, and the cool thing is is that with the machine learning, it will continue to update and improve and then anytime there are new rules or at, or rule changes, you know, at at the uh, usa, you USA pickleball level or professionally, we'll know that and we'll make sure it's updated. So that's the other reason why to have the app too is because we'll be letting you know when there's changes.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, notification, new rule oh, good idea.
Speaker 2Now people, they just called my ball out their choice.
Speaker 1That's what we want.
Speaker 2We want cameras on these apps, so that it tells us if the ball was in there and another to let us know who just served, because remembering that is pretty difficult.
Speaker 4Oh my God, that's so funny.
Speaker 1Right. So how can people find this app once you launch it?
Speaker 4Sure Well, right now you can go to the website, which is just the official is the Pickleball eReferee website. Is there a dash in eReferee, so it's Pickleball e-referee pickleball-e-refereecomcom okay, we'll put that on the screen, and, and then you can sign up and we'll notify you as soon as it launches, and then once, once it's there, you just go into the. I think you may even be able to go into Apple and pre-register for it right in the App Store. Yeah, so or Google Play, or Google Play. Sorry, yeah.
Speaker 4Or Google Play, okay, wow, and then we'll be adding all kinds of more features to it over time and doing contests and rules, quizzes and things like that, and then we've got some other apps in the work for in the future.
Speaker 1Oh my goodness, we'll have you back about those, huh.
Speaker 4We love it.
Speaker 3Oh my God, we got to take one step at a time. We're coming up with new, with new ideas, and it just has sort of snowballed, so that's been really exciting too.
Speaker 2Make sure you leave time to play pickleball.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's right. You're absolutely right. I do. She's not as good at that, but I put it on the calendar.
Speaker 1We need the e-calendar e-referee Right. Well, tracy and Cass, we are real excited about what you have developed and can't wait to use it and to answer those two questions that Shelly and I just came up with that are in real time questions for us, and love that you're being so creative and helping us as a community to have that ease and grace as we're playing this wonderful game, and we wish you all the best, thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 1Thank you, we appreciate you and thank you everybody. Oh my gosh, we will definitely put the information on how to get this app on YouTube and on our podcast page, and I think it's going to be a game changer for all of us. Thank you all and we look forward to a new conversation next week. Bye-bye.
Speaker 2If you love our podcast, we'd be so grateful if you'd take a few seconds to follow or subscribe to Life Lessons from Pickleball. This ensures you'll never miss an episode and helps us continue these wonderful conversations.
Speaker 1On Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you listen. Go to the show page and tap the follow button in the top right corner, and on YouTube, click the subscribe button under any of the episodes. Thanks so much. Hope to see you on the court.