Navratil is colorful on the court and off
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The latest Professional Pickleball Players Association’s rankings list Zane Navratil 42nd in singles, 27th in mixed doubles and 29th in men’s doubles.
But he is better known than most of the players above him.
That’s because Navratil is charismatic, outspoken, and, especially, all over the pickleball space.
He hosts a podcast, “The PicklePod,” that has over 77,000 subscribers. His YouTube channel, “Zane Navratil Pickleball,” has 50,000 subscribers. It consists of weekly tips and drills, often delivered with good humor. He’s produced an astonishing 980 videos.
“I think the best advice for a 3.5 player would be to record a match and see where their errors are coming from, what their strengths are,” Navratil tells me from his home in Austin. “Only after you know what you need to work on and you’ve properly identified that can you actually start taking actionable steps towards improving.”
Navratil endorses and is seen in ads for a paddle, court shoes, a ball machine. He partners with Har-Tru for pickleball court equipment and clinics. He’s an investor in 35 Capital, a private equity firm that has investments in, among other things, paddle companies. He’s an investor and ambassador for AIM7, an app that provides pickleball metrics on wearable mobile devices.
“I think professional pickleball is still a somewhat speculative investment, and I'm trying to make sure that it's here to stay,” he says.
Navratil is respected by his peers. He was elected in July as President of the United Pickleball Association’s Pro Player Committee (the UPA is the joint governing body of the Professional Pickleball Association and Major League Pickleball).
Navratil’s name recognition is also in part due to the fact that he’s credited with creating a shot that became famous, the chainsaw serve. The shot was the subject of countless online articles and discussions. The chainsaw created so much spin it was declared illegal in 2022. Not nearly as much has been written about Navratil’s background and off-court life.
“I’m extremely regimented,” he says. “I have a very detailed morning routine. I wake up at 5:30, take my two dogs, Murray and Arlo, outside. After that I immediately journal, followed by emails, followed by work and other to-do list items. At 8 a.m. I ride my bike to The Lab in Austin [a pickleball training facility], where we play until 10:30 or 11. I come home and take a shower and eat lunch and then do a little bit more work until about 3 p.m. Then I hit the gym for an hour and recover for about half an hour afterwards. After that, I will wrap up any other work that comes up or any other obligations, have dinner with my wife, Jenny, and then chill in the evening. I learned from Jocko Willink [a former Navy Seal, podcaster and author], discipline equals freedom.”
Growing up in Racine, WI, Navratil was a shy kid in middle school. “I got bullied a little bit, but nothing out of the ordinary,” he says. “I kind of figured out how to use humor and self-deprecation to avoid the embarrassment of bullying. I became a little bit of a clown in high school. I loved stirring the pot and getting into little amounts of trouble, but nothing that amounted to some sort of detention or suspension.”
Navratil was a terrific tennis player in high school and an Academic All-American at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater. His height, 5’9”, didn’t hurt on the court because he’s quick and anticipates opponents’ shots. He graduated with a cumulative 4.0 grade point average. After graduating he worked as a certified public accountant at Deloitte & Touché. “It was about as good as a starting job out of college as one could get,” he says.
Navratil began playing pickleball in high school. “I thought it was a sport for old people,” he says. “I didn’t really have an interest in playing until my father dragged me to the Caesar Chavez Center [in Racine] one day. When I got there, it was all old people and I thought it was about the stupidest sport ever. I got out there and wiped the floor with a couple of the weaker players and pretty quickly started playing with the better players there. When I was winning, I didn’t even like the sport. It was only when I got to the advanced court there against some of the better players where they started to punish my bad speed-ups, and I started to realize that I needed to play the dink game and I started to understand why players dinked. I was mostly just pissed off that I was losing to these 70 and 80-year-old when I was a two-time state tennis champion.”
Navratil became obsessed with pickleball while working at Deloitte. He’d wake up at 4:45 a.m. to drill at a YMCA. He gave pickleball lessons for $40 an hour and gave students an extra half hour free. “I still struggled to get lessons,” he says. “I realized that I made the right decision when I started approaching clubs about doing clinics and I started getting more lessons that I could handle.”
He was soon making $1000 a day from the club clinics. “I realized that this was far more than I could make in a corporate job,” he says.
He had a breakout tournament in 2020 when he and Jeff Warnick beat top-seeded Ben Johns and Matt Wright. Navratil also took bronze in singles, his first PPA medal. “So I quit my job in 2020, and there were no doubts that I made the correct decision by September 2020.
“My dad was all for it and my mom was a little bit more hesitant, but she certainly has come around,” Navratil says. “I was definitely not cut out to be an accountant, but I do have a very analytical and numbers-oriented brain, which I think works very well for the more technical side of pickleball.”
Part of Navratil’s popularity is due to his outspoken nature. He’s not sure where he gets that from. “I do enjoy having conversations with people that disagree with me on something,” he says. “I do think that giving updates and opinions on what’s going on in the pickleball world can help bring people towards the professional game and grow pickleball as a whole.”
Navratil’s long, busy days end with him chilling with his wife of 14 months. He met Jenny Schmidt in middle school but they didn’t date until their senior year after he asked her to be his homecoming date in an unconventional way. “I got mostly naked on top of her car and put a homecoming sign in front of my important parts. I was waiting in the [high school] parking lot for her to come out for lunch and she saw me on top of her car. She said yes, we had a great time, and we became boyfriend and girlfriend on October 4th, 2013, one week later.
Jenny was a competitive dancer in high school and later a member of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks dance team. She danced as her talent in the 2021 Miss Wisconsin pageant, which she won.
“She’s very athletic, but has no hand eye coordination to speak of, so pickleball just isn’t her thing,” Navratil says. “But honestly, that is exactly how I would like to be supported. I don’t want to come home to somebody that wants to ask me all of the details of my tournament today. I want to come home to somebody that cares more about me personally and someone with whom we can discuss things other than pickleball.”
They listen to his favorite music. “This might be somewhat surprising, but I enjoy classical music,” he says.
He likes trying new foods. “Since I’m able to travel around the country I get to try a lot of new things. I generally try to eat healthy, but this is one area where I am not super regimented.”
Regarding his favorite TV shows: “I’m a horrible person to binge watch a TV show with because when I am not actively doing something, I zone out. Also, when we watch shows at night, I almost immediately fall asleep because I am an early riser. So if a show can keep me awake, it’s certainly a good show. I like “Breaking Bad” and “Game of Thrones.” I also like stupid comedy movies like “Stepbrothers” and “Blades of Glory.” Every Christmas I watch “Home Alone” because that is my all-time favorite.
On the serious side, Navratil works with the Austin based non-profit, “Stop Alzheimer’s Now.” He likes that SAN gives 100 percent of its gross revenues to Alzheimer’s research. “Over the past two and a half years that I’ve been working with them, I’ve been able to help them raise nearly a quarter million dollars, which helps to fund multiple programs,” he says.
Asked what he envisions himself doing 10 years from now, he says, “Fortunately, I have several different avenues that I could take after pickleball, including coaching, being a general manager of a major league pickleball team, focusing on the product development side of 35 Capital, coaching amateurs and more clinics, focusing on the YouTube content or doing commentary.
“I’ll continue playing professionally as long as I am good enough to do so, having fun and supporting my family.”
Thoughts of the week, not all pickleball
· NBC’s play-by-player Mike Tirico and analyst Cris Collinsworth failed miserably to properly address the issue of Eagles defensive lineman Jalen Carter spitting on Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott in the NFL‘s season opener last Thursday night. Collinsworth’s strongest comment was, “You just can’t believe what you just saw.” Tirico was even less critical and that’s not surprising, given his milquetoast style. Collinsworth needed to say what everyone (except diehard Eagles’ fans) was thinking, “That’s disgusting, unacceptable and Carter deserves a suspension and big fine.” Instead, we got crickets. It was insulting to viewers. I think Collinsworth and Tirico are afraid to criticize the powerful (and greedy) NFL, forgetting that their first obligation is to be honest with viewers.
· Speaking of disgusting spitting incidents, two days after Carter expectorated on Prescott, University of Florida defensive lineman Brendan Bett spat in the face mask of a South Florida offensive lineman with two minutes left and UF up, 16-15. Like Carter, Bett was penalized and ejected from the game. The 15-yard penalty played a huge part in USF winning the game, 18-16, on a chip shot field goal as time expired. If you think Bett wasn’t copying Carter or got the idea from him, I have some land in Secaucus I’d like to sell you.
· The funniest thing I’ve seen online in a while was a Facebook post saying that 73-year old Bill Belichik’s 24-year-old girlfriend was entering the transfer portal after his disastrous college coaching debut. Belichick’s North Carolina Tar Heels were schooled, 48-14, by TCU. In 511 NFL games, the most points a Belichick coached team gave up was 47. But I don’t think we should overreact. TCU is good, was favored and I think Belichick is too great of a coach to not fix this (UNC won its next game, 20-3, over a weak Charlotte team this past Saturday).
· College and pro teams began wearing black uniforms several years ago in another money grab and to appeal to younger fans (and street gangs started wearing black caps). On Saturday, Michigan State wore black and white jerseys, which they have occasionally worn since 2023, instead of the green and white the Spartans have worn since only 1947. I’ve bought a few caps and T-shirts for my favorite teams but refuse to buy any merch that’s not in a team’s traditional colors. Call me old school. That’s not only fine with me, I’ll wear it as a badge of honor.
· I think the two greatest American actors today are Bryan Cranston and Adam Driver. They are brilliant in every role they play, they play good guys and bad guys and do drama and comedy with equal aplomb.
· I am surprised by how many pickleball players don’t wear safety glasses. Mine look dorky as hell but I’ll throw vanity out the window rather than risk an eye injury.
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