When I wrote my last year-in-review post in early 2020, I started by mentioning my mini-camp series, which had occurred 7 times in 2019 and was to occur 9 times in 2020. How could I have known that the series would be sidelined by COVID-19 and how much my life would be re-shaped.
In this next section, I used to write how many days I taught tennis during the year and my longest stretch of consecutive days taught (260 and 55 days in 2019, respectively). In 2023, I worked 365 days of the year at my new business, Casas Thorpe (have you ever been called at 3am by a guest who got drunk and locked themselves out of your Airbnb in another country?). However, I still found time to coach 36 different players between private lessons and my two high school teams at Cate and Laguna Blanca across 225 days.
Speaking of those high school teams, much has unfolded in the time since the last review. On the Laguna side, we recovered from two COVID-impacted seasons to reach the CIF D5 Semifinals in 2022 and in 2023 we finished at .500 or better for the 12th consecutive season!
On the girls side, we went just that little bit farther and took the 2023 CIF D3 Championship Title during my 15th season coaching at Cate School. This accomplishment by a very deserving group of young women is something I have hoped for and worked toward for 29 seasons of coaching high school tennis.
I take great pride in what they have achieved. It even fulfills a bit of a missed goal from my own high school career, where in 2005 I captained Palm Springs High School to a perfect 17-0 regular season record, before we suffered a devastating first round loss in the CIF D2 Playoffs. The record for Cate Girls’ Tennis this season, including playoffs? 17-0. Loop closed.
In the 2019 review, I gave a big thanks to Mark Polowczak for his help with my mini-camp series, and here again I owe him some praise. He’s now back from getting his undergrad at Texas Christian University and back in the Thorpe Tennis fold as my assistant at both schools and he played a pivotal role in our CIF Championship win this year.
In my 2019 review, I mentioned some rare personal tennis exploits, having played on clay in Argentina and Colombia for the first time and partnering with my college doubles partner, Aron Ouye, for a run to the semifinals of the Santa Barbara Open.
In 2023, we linked up again for the first time since that tournament to compete in the San Diego City Championships. While we lost to what was essentially the Estonian national team (current D1 players that were ranked 250 and 350 in the world in juniors), we were surprisingly competitive.
After that tournament, I resolved to not go 4 more years between tournaments and even entered a singles tournament for the first time since the Leslie Allen Santa Barbara Open in 2014! At the San Diego Metropolitan Open I played in the 4.5’s division and won three matches before having to default due to schedule conflict with a Cate match.
A few weeks later, my Barbarians summer league teammate Alberto Hernandez and I captured the Santa Barbara City Championships for my first-ever men’s open tournament win.
Alberto and I plan to defend our title in 2024 and Aron and I have our eyes on the Men’s 35-and-over hardcourt nationals in Arizona in April. Maybe I’ll even get the chance to play a tournament or two with Mark this year…I certainly like our chances against any other high school coaching staff!
Outside of tennis, after years of having flights cancelled and then needing to focus on my work in Merida, I finally hit my 50th country visited. Hiking hut-to-hut in Slovenia was a spectacular experience!
Also during that trip, I had the opportunity to visit Sardinia for the first time and return to Rome and Venice for the first time since childhood.
I even managed to tack on a trip to Scotland with my mom, who’d been longing to revisit that part of the world for a few decades. Can confirm, the whiskey is top-shelf, but also really enjoyed the nature!
Closer to home, I managed to survey various Mexican coastlines with my girlfriend, Maria. We spent time in Baja California Sur, Oaxaca, and Jalisco on the west coast, and took a trip up the eastern seaboard from Bacalar to Playa del Carmen.
Finally, I began to wake up from my endurance exercise slumber. Having completed 23 200-mile bike races between 2011-2019, COVID (and then building my new business in Mexico) almost completely derailed that part of my life. I realized recently that riding a bike 4,000 miles per year and doing insane 210 mile/16,500 elevation gain days (Central Coast Double Century) was a part of my identity that most of my current students didn’t even know about!
In 2023, I got back to nature and strenuous, all-day efforts, culminating in a 46.5mi/36hr backpacking effort in the Cascades from Timberline Lodge to Cascade Locks in Oregon (day 1, day 2).
Just a few weeks earlier, I’d been bitten by the bug (literally and figuratively) in the Goat Rocks Wilderness of Washington, where I and a few family members hiked a 37mi/72hr route (day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4).
My uncle Keith got to revisit his 1985 PCT Thru-Hike and pass the torch to my cousin Phil, who will attempt the same hike in 2024. I’ve signed on to do support and hike a few sections of the PCT with Phil, so I suspect we’ll revisit this topic in the 2024 year-in-review!
While my work as owner/operator of Casas Thorpe Vacation Rentals has become my primary job over the last 3 years, it’s my sincere hope that my impact on the Santa Barbara tennis community through Thorpe Tennis will continue indefinitely. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to share what I’ve learned with others through the medium of tennis. I hope to see you all on the courts in 2024!
Thorpe Tennis 