scene on the court
Spotlight on Sportsmanship
By Craig Laughlin
A . K . A . “ THE PICKLEBALL CURMUDGEON ”
‘ IT ’ S YOUR CALL , BUT IT WAS IN ’
Nothing in pickleball creates more hard feelings than line calls , and much of the heartburn might be avoided if we could all let go of our certitude and take guideline # 3 of the USA Pickleball Sportsmanship Guide to heart . It reads : Practice good sportsmanship when making line calls : a ) Respect your opponents ’ right to make all calls on their end of the court . b ) Call your own shot “ out ” if you see that it is out . c ) If you question an opponent ’ s call , do so respectfully and do not argue . d ) If you defer a line call to your opponents , accept their call graciously . e ) Do not call a ball “ out ” unless you see it clearly and are certain it is out . f ) Promptly correct any wrong call your partner may make . g ) Resolve any uncertainty in favor of your opponents .
In a recent game , when an opponent hit a shot near the outside of the sideline , I saw a space between the ball and the line so I called it out . My
opponent , who was looking down the line , said , “ It ’ s your call , but it was in .” Twice I gave her the ball , saying , “ I saw it out , but if you saw it in , go ahead and serve .” Both times she tossed the ball back and repeated , “ It ’ s your call , but it was in .” She wasn ’ t going to be happy unless I agreed she was right , so I went ahead and served .
Similarly , a recent post and reply on Facebook ’ s Pickleball Forum said , “ How annoying is it when you serve an ace down the middle and your opponent calls it out ?” And “ It happens all the time , and they are so sure it ’ s out !”
In both cases , players were upset because their opponents ( who they conceded were entitled to make the call ) saw things differently than they did . What they failed to concede was that , because of parallax , their opponents were in a better position to make the call and just might have been right . Parallax is defined as : “ The effect whereby the position [ e . g ., on the line or outside of the line ] of an object [ e . g ., the ball ] appears to differ when viewed from different positions .”
In the first instance , the ball probably overlapped the line from my opponent ’ s viewpoint , obscuring the space I was able to see . In the second instance , a served ball on the far side of the centerline from the receiver ’ s perspective is behind the line , making it easy for the receiver to see a space if there is one . From the server ’ s perspective , however , the line is behind the ball , making it difficult or impossible to see a space , even when one exists . Servers who are certain their opponents are constantly making bad calls on their “ aces ” do not understand parallax .
This is not to say that players with the superior point of view will always make the right call . They won ’ t . According to the Innocence Project , of 358 people convicted and sentenced to death but subsequently exonerated through DNA evidence , 254 ( 71 %) were convicted through eyewitness misidentification — meaning that in at least 254 cases , people were so sure of what they saw they were willing to send a man to his death , but they were wrong .
Much as the perceptions of these eyewitnesses were likely distorted by their subconscious biases , pickleball players ( with far less at stake ) can be influenced by their subconscious biases as well . But if we were to all start calling balls “ out ” only when we see a space between the line and the ball , the inherent bias to see things in our own favor would be overridden . If all players were to scrupulously give their opponents such benefit of the doubt , we might see a paradigm shift in which close line calls are graciously accepted without the heartburn .
If you think it ’ s worth a try , start paying good sportsmanship forward and see what happens . Good behavior is in your court . •