Theirs Is A Golden Touch. A Lesson For Us.

Yvonne and Jim Hackenberg, both 76, have a golden rule on the pickleball court. It has helped them win gold medals for 15 years in mixed doubles. By the way, how good a teammate are you?

By Ray Glier

Jim and Yvonne Hackenberg of Kalamazoo, Michigan, have the antidote to the turbulence that can suddenly make pickleball partners antagonists. The mutualism doesn’t come from 55 years of marriage. It doesn’t come from the slew of gold medals they have won.

They touch hands after every point. Abracadabra. Their alchemy, their winning chemistry, is touching skin.

Sometimes the logistics of the game make that simple gesture difficult. Yvonne will be at The Kitchen Line and Jim will be at the baseline and they have to chase each other down to touch hands.

We have watched enough sports to know that when things go wrong teammates don’t touch hands, they point fingers, or worse.

But, win or lose, the Hackenbergs, 99 percent of the time, touch hands, and then touch shoulders on the podium to accept gold medals. They have won 134 gold medals at the USA Pickleball Nationals, The U.S. Open, and The Huntsman World Senior Games (some of the gold comes from Jim’s singles play).

They are both 76 years old and have been playing together 15 years. They play at the 5.0 level, the highest non-professional skill classification.

“I think as soon as we found a sport we both fell in love with, yeah, it just blossomed after that,” Jim said.

You know by now, Geezer Jock delights in writing about the things that have nothing to do with skill and help athletes excel, those things being poise and resilience.

The big tip from the Hackenbergs, perhaps the most successful mixed doubles team in the history of the sport, is in bold toward the end of the story.

So read on two more minutes, please, to discover that tip.

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Teammates need to first remember:

Don’t be a bully. Don’t torment your teammate.

Yep, guys, I’m mostly looking at you.

If it weren’t for all those stinking line calls that cause ill will and testosterone, pickleball would replace golf as the most congenial outdoor sport on the planet.

Pickleball’s pace is lickety-split. Points are decided fast with the game’s most popular words “In” and “Out”. When there is disagreement between “In” and “Out” it is usually, most always, 99% of the time, men whose voices are raised the loudest.

Jim’s smile into the Zoom camera had a vibe of “guilty.” Yvonne didn’t have to say a word.

But as far as testiness toward each other, the Hackenbergs stay even-handed with their hands-on approach when they lose a point.

“It’s mental for me, a reminder about just keeping your emotions in check,” Jim said. “I’m more emotional so I've got to keep that in check.”

They used to be called “Fire and Ice” for their contrary approaches. Now you can call them “The Goldfish.” It is from the uproarious and well-done comedy series Ted Lasso where the American coach (Ted) tells his British soccer team to be “goldfish”, which have short memories. Don’t stew over a bad point...and don't blame your teammate.

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Jim said they do not do the hand touching thing in local tournaments, only in national tournaments where the matches are close and the environment is full of pressure.

There is a video out there on The Hackenberg Rule. Here is the link.

The human touch lowers the volume in that cauldron, but they are also familiar with each other’s strengths and weaknesses so there are no surprises when things go bad. Yvonne has a level, accurate backhand. Jim, who is angular and able to swivel his hips quickly, is responsible for chasing down lobs.

Many times there is a telepathy to their communication on the court because of their familiarity with each other’s games, but there is still plenty of the usual “yours” and “mine” communication between them.

The Hackenbergs add “ours” to the vernacular of yours and mine.

Their solidarity was put to the test in the USA Pickleball National Championships in Mesa, Az. in November. Against a formidable team of Mark Friedenberg and Deb Harrison in the gold medal match shot after shot was drilled at Yvonne. That is the way it is in mixed doubles. The woman has a bullseye.

Jim did not exhort his wife with “Do better!”

They played. And they lost, 11-13, 11-9, 11-8. The Hackenbergs had to settle for silver.

"it doesn't do me any good to let Yvonne know that, 'hey, they're really going after you. You got to step it up', because she already knows that," Jim said. "I mean, they were just drilling shots at her, but she was holding her own beautifully, and so there was nothing for me to say to her."

Jim’s profession was as a coach to business executives. He taught the well-known course “7 Habits of Highly Effective People." Habits 2 and 6 land square in the pickleball realm, he said.

Habit 2 is Begin With the End in Mind. At the end of the day, what do you want your results and relationship to be?

Habit 6 is the sum is greater than its parts, and finding solutions by working together.

When Jim has to coach his wife, or vice versa, they coach, they don’t boss. The best pitching coaches in my 45 years covering baseball go to the mound to counsel their scuffling pitcher, lay a hand on the hurler’s shoulder, and talk plainly about mechanics, or relaxing. The coach seldom scolds.

That is the big takeaway I mentioned earlier.

TONE.

“A lot of it is the tone that you use,” Yvonne said. "So you want to be cognizant of that when you communicate in any situation, in a life situation, any situation, you want that calm and just reassurance from your partner.”

Tone is big.

And so are the words. “Yours.” “Mine.” “Ours.” The Hackenberg Rule.

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