Peter Colvin of Douglas and doubles partner Mark Mark Kenworthy of Grand Rapids, who qualified for the U.S. Senior Pickleball Nationals Dec. 5-9 in Daytona Beach by winning the Northern Regionals Doubles Tournament. But they placed just ninth.
“It wasn’t the result we had hoped for,” said Colvin. “We played hard and had some good wins but lost to a couple very good doubles teams.
“Mark and I both thought we might have been able to beat them on a better day. It was pretty frustrating,” he went on.
However, Colvin channeled his frustrations the very next day as he competed for the Legends Age 65-69 National Singles Crown and took them out on his opponents.
Six matches later, he was crowned Skill Level 3.0 Pickleball National Champion.
“What a fun day it was,” said Colvin. “One I will always remember.
“Right before the first match, the rain stopped and it became pretty windy,” he went on. “I changed my strategy at the last minute to use the wind to my advantage.
“My days playing high school tennis on the courts at Caledonia High School, surrounded then by cornfields, were always windy,” Colvin remembered. “I learned how to use the wind to my advantage back then and it came in handy during the Singles Championship.
“I went into ‘the zone’ on the first point of the first match and stayed in it for the first five matches, winning them all, beating both the first- and second-seeded players in the process.
“With one more match to go, I thought to myself ‘Wow, one more win and I will be a national champion!’”
Not so fast. “When the final match started,” Colvin continued, “my aggressive opponent literally blew me off the court with his lethal forehand and I got behind quickly. I called a time out and spent the two minutes to think of how I could stop his attacks and turn the match around before it was too late.
“I took some deep breaths to calm down,” he recalled the process, “and closed my eyes to visualize my shot patterns, reminding myself to use the wind and to try to stay away from his forehand.
“It was a good time out. I came back on the court and my opponent never got another point.
“When I was a kid,” said the newly-crowned pickleball poobah, “practicing my tennis strokes against the big concrete wall, I used to hit the last shot as hard as I could and then put my arms up in the air (like Rocky Balboa) and dance around with nobody watching, saying out loud ‘Peter Colvin wins the national championship!’
“Some 60 years later, though no dancing was involved, I got to experience it for real.
“During the medal ceremony, when the tournament director was placing the gold medal around my neck, he quietly said to me ‘Peter, for the rest of your life, you will be a national champion.’ I got chills.”
“After the ceremony, when all the people had left the area, I sat on the podium and took a minute to quietly dedicate the title to my Mom and Dad in heaven, my wife Deb and our two sons, Chris and Cody, all pickleball addicts as well,” he said.
