Four years of teaching everyonetaught me how to coach anyone.
I’m Tobin. I spent four years running pickleball programs for the cities of Tustin and Irvine — thousands of hours, every age, every level, every kind of player. This practice is what I built with everything those years taught me.
The story
From city programs to a coaching lab.
When I found pickleball, I wanted everyone to have it. So I went where everyone was: city recreation programs. For four years I taught juniors, adults, seniors, and — the work I’m proudest of — players with developmental disabilities who went from never holding a paddle to playing full games and keeping score.
City programs are a wonderful thing and a blunt instrument. You teach the room, not the person. You watch a player plateau and you can’t do anything about it, because next week there’s a new room. Somewhere in year three I realized the players who needed me most — the stuck intermediate, the adaptive player, the family that wanted to improve together — needed something no class could give them: a diagnosis, a plan, and proof it was working.
So I rebuilt the practice around exactly that. Think of it as personal training for pickleball: one client, one program, one number we’re moving. The FpB Coaching Lab takes on 20 to 40 clients at a time. Everyone starts with a baseline assessment. Every program is designed to order. And everything is measured, because “I think you’re getting better” is not a sentence a professional should get paid to say.
How I coach
What you can expect from me.
Honesty over flattery.
Your assessment report says what I actually see. If a program isn't the right next step for you, I'll say that too.
Patience, always.
Four years of city programs and adaptive coaching burns the impatience out of you. There are no stupid questions on my court and no player who's “too far behind.”
Measurement over vibes.
We'll set milestones, track them, and re-assess. You'll never have to wonder whether the money is doing anything.
A small confession about the tools.
I use AI to help draft program structures — it's a good first-pass assistant. But every program that reaches a client was designed and approved by me, personally. The judgment is the job. I don't outsource it.
The Family part
Still Family Pickleball, underneath.
The lab is a new way of working, not a new set of values. This is still a Family Pickleball practice: all ages, all abilities, adaptive players at the center rather than the margins. The name was always a promise. It still is.
And it’s still a club, not a queue — a small crew that trains together, plays together on the courts I reserve, and keeps score together when we’re ready. You join the Lab, not a lesson.