Episode 11: Special Guest Marcus Woodhouse!

Welcome to One More Game Presented by Hoosier Pickleball. I’m your host Matt Brandenberger alongside my wife, Abby and our our producer, Adam Merino. Happy New Year to Everyone out there and thanks for joining us for this very special episode of One More Game as we have a guest in the studio– welcome Marcus Woodhouse all the way up from Lawrance, Indiana…Thanks so much for joining us Marcus! Great to have you here!

So this being of first official podcast of the new year, one of our goals is to bring you our listeners more interview and pickleball stories and as we brainstormed ideas for guests, Marcus, you immediately popped into both of our minds. We have a lot we are excited to talk with you about– and in fact this will be a two part episode… so let’s just start off by having you tell everyone a little bit about yourself…

(Marcus gives general biographical info)

Ok- so pickleball is obviously a big part of your life…What is your Pickleball “Conversion Story”… Who first mentioned pb to you, and why do you think you said yes to playing the first time?

What was the draw for you to start playing pb and what held your attention?

Let’s talk accomplishments… Most recently you were a double gold medalist down in Pictona. … What are you most proud of–tournament victories or otherwise?

What kinds of things have you done, training you have done, to get so good? You just won gold in (4.0?) mixed and gold in 5.0 doubles in Pictona

You were president of the Indy pb club for a while, how long and tell us more about that, what were your responsibilities? (Abby’s story meeting Marcus the first time)

How many tournaments per year do you like to play in, do you want to play more?

What are some of your favorite things about pb?

Marcus, I’d love to talk through parts of your childhood. You’ve mentioned before that you are adopted, and as an adoptive mom, I do enjoy hearing stories like yours, the good, the bad and the ugly. Bc life in general is not easy, and you’ve experienced some tough stuff, can you share your story, however much you are comfortable with?

• How have you come to be at peace with your story?

• Everyone, no matter what they’ve been through, needs to come to terms with what the Lord has handed them. We have three daughters whom we adopted at birth and they may or may not need to work through that in some capacity. Matt and I just want to be there for them as they process it. And everyone processes it differently. Do you have any words of wisdom in that area for either our daughters or us?

• What is your contact like with your birth family members?

• How is your relationship with your adoptive family?

• Are you involved in an adoption community in any capacity? I feel like for us as our girls get older we are less and less involved– not sure if that’s good or bad but I guess its just something we don’t focus on as much- it’s a beautiful thing and we love it but it’s just a part of our story and not something we feel like we need to focus on a ton.

Thank you so much for sharing that. I think that’s such an encouraging story of working through hard stuff.

Ok… well we have a lot more that we’d like to talk with you about, Marcus but we’re going to save that for next week in Part 2–but before we wrap up this episode, we usually like to play a little game with guests… so this week I have a little something I’m going to call Know Your Pros.. Marcus, how closely do you follow pro PB?...

Game- Know Your Pros:

Zane Navratil: accountant (MC: civil engineer, accountant, insurance salesman, or spin doctor)

Ben Johns: Materials Science and Engineering (MC: Mass-Commuication-Systems, Materials Science and Engineering, or Exercise Science and Marketing)

Callie Jo Smith: exercise science/nutrition (Give name and he has to match CJS and LW)

Leigh Waters: lawyer

This Pro knows four languages - French, English, Spanish, Serbia (Jay Deliviers)

Tyson McGuffin: head tennis pro (no Abby the answer is not model)

Corrine Carr: PhD and prof of finance (Give names and he has to match)

AJ Koller: civil engineering

Lindsey Newman: sociology degree (Give names and he has to match)

Simone: Mass Comm/Journalism