Hello Team Pickleball Enthusiasts,

Your APPL Core team is in high gear working to prepare for your 2023 season with the objective of making it  the best season ever.  We’ve made a lot of changes so please keep an eye out for emails from us directly or messages we send through our Pickleballscores (Tenniscores) mail engine.  In this note to you, I want to update you on our core team of volunteers who have spent (and still are) countless hours to improve your APPL experience.  I’ll mention some key dates, explain a few details and cover a couple administrative items.

APPL Organization Restructured and Staff Added: At the close of our fiscal year we felt that in order to improve communication internally and externally, as well as generally improve our operational effectiveness, we needed to strengthen our regional structure.  We now have a Regional Director heading up each region.  They are Priscilla Scott: Southern Region, Brian Shipman: Casa Grande Region, Missy Myers: East Valley Region and Carol Barron: West Valley Region.  I’m sure many of you recognize the names as they have been heavily involved with APPL since the start of each region.

Along with providing regional leadership, we are delighted that additional volunteers stepped forward to serve as League Coordinators and in other capacities .

In the Southern Region we welcome: Pam McCallum: Mixed Division League Coordinator, Scot Ritchie: Men’s Division League Coordinator, and Elise Souter: Women’s Division League Coordinator.  Also in the Southern Region, we welcome Melissa Wilson as our new Regional Administrative Support. 

In the East Valley Region we welcome: Deb Albert: Women’s Division League Coordinator and Andy Stowe: Mixed Division League Coordinator.  Gregg Garthright remains the East Valley’s Men’s Division League Coordinator.  With the merging of our EVIL league into APPL, Deb and Andy’s experience with both leagues will definitely help make the transition a smooth one.  We also welcome Geno Kochert as our new Venue Relationships Manager. 

In the West Valley Region we welcome the following League Coordinators: Carol Acker and Sandy Schaefer: Women’s Division, Tom Bottorf: Men’s Division.  Tom will also serve as our Venue Relationship Manager for the West Valley Region.  A Mixed Division League Coordinator will be announced soon and Sandy Scanlon will serve as League Coordinator for all the 65+ age defined league divisions. 

Our Casa Grande Region remains relatively unchanged under the leadership of Brian Shipman. Janett Kline remains as the Casa Grande Regional Administrative Support and our outstanding Community Administrator volunteers are as follows: Jim Reynolds: Robson Ranch, Kurt Bauer: Dave White, Gerry Bertrand: Mission Royale (MD/MX), Debbie John: Mission Royale (WD), Jay Schwartz: Sun City Anthem, Elaine Gonzales: Encanterra. Brian is currently seeking a Community Administrator for Palm Creek.

As you well know the league coordinator roll is the face of APPL to the players.  Without the support of these outstanding volunteers the league couldn’t function.  We appreciate the hard work everyone contributes to make the league a great experience for all.

Key Dates: Our calendar is now defined.  The following Key Dates will be posted shortly.

  • Returning team pre-registration: 9/15/22
  • All team registration: 9/30/22
  • Team registration closes: 11/13/22
  • Player registration Opens: 10/15/22
  • Player registration Closes: 2/18/23
  • Schedules Published: 12/5/22
  • Matches Start: 1/2/23
  • Regular Season Ends: 3/25/23
  • State Championships: 3/31/23 – 4/3/23 (tentative)

Fees:  Player registration fees will remain $20 per player per team for the season.  Casa Grande Region players fees will remain $30 which includes the court fee paid to the city for the use of Dave White Park.  Court fees for all other regions will vary depending on the team’s home court venue.

Rules Posted:  Our 2023 season rules have been posted. Some of the rules have been updated.  Please take some time and become familiar with them.  If you have any questions please be sure to contact your League Coordinator.

Ratings Sources:  There is a lot going on in the pickleball world of ratings.  The most common question we are getting is related to whether APPL is “accepting” DUPR as a rating source.  The brief answer is we are not using DUPR ratings this season because we feel it is a bit too new and not completely worked out. We believe they are still making improvements and most likely it will be on our “approved rating source” list next season.  Having said that though, one can certainly use DUPR in support of a ratings appeal.  It is still data and helps support an objective decision.

We hope you are looking forward to the 2023 APPL season as much as we are.  The growth of the league over the past few years has been phenomenal and couldn’t have happened without tremendous volunteer support.  Although I felt it appropriate to highlight our current APPL Core team in this note, as it contains several new volunteers, I would be remiss if I didn’t shout out a special thanks to the largest APPL volunteer group of close to 500 people; the team Captains and Co-captains.  Your willingness to provide leadership does not go unnoticed.  Thank you all from our entire Team APPL.

Have a safe and enjoyable remaining summer!

Greg