Welcome back to Jack's Journal! We are so back...

I'm making a comeback to your inbox

April 06, 2025

Hey y’all, Jack here.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I disappeared for a bit. Life got ramped up, my schedule turned into a juggling act, and something had to give. Unfortunately, that something was this newsletter. But guess what? I’m back, and it feels good to be back on my feet, putting my thoughts down again.

For those of you who are new here, welcome! I’m Jack Munro, a professional pickleball player on the APP Tour, currently ranked #2 in mixed doubles and men’s doubles, with over 15 APP medals to my name. When I’m not on the court, I’m running Longhorn Pickleball at UT Austin, where I’m also a student (yes, I’m somehow balancing all of this), and creating content for Instagram and YouTube, because apparently, I enjoy having zero free time.

Now, let’s get into it.

1. Recent Tournament Recaps

First up, APP Cayman Islands—which, by the way, was as awesome as it sounds! I mean, playing pickleball in the Cayman Islands? Someone explain how this is my life, I feel very blessed. Huge shoutout to the APP and Pickleball Cayman for putting together an incredible venue and creating a laid-back but competitive atmosphere. It felt less like a high-stakes tournament and more like a high-level backyard battle.

Results-wise:

The best part? The whole experience. I met players from all over, got to chirp some bronze medal matches from the sidelines, and even had my dad along for the ride. Safe to say, we had a blast!

Fast forward to APP Collegiate National Championships, where I got to compete with Longhorn Pickleball—aka, my pride and joy. Without getting too sentimental, I founded this club at UT, and watching it grow into a legit force in collegiate pickleball is unreal.

In the team event we took silver, which was huge. We even knocked out last year’s national champions, Utah Tech, along the way. Shoutout to my teammates Natalie Liu, Erin Johnson, and Eli Trumeter for absolutely showing up. The team format (two guys, two girls) made it even more fun and intense. Especially with the college pickleball sphere of higher energy and more chirping :)

On the individual side, where I got to play with people from other universities, I doubled down on gold:

*Me watching my partner carry me*

These matches were a grind. Pool play into a single-elimination bracket, one game to 15—which means no “let’s warm up and settle in” nonsense. You get behind? You’re done. Mentally, it was tough, but it really forced me to stay locked in every single point.

Next up? DUPR Collegiate Nationals in Atlanta next week. Longhorn Pickleball is coming, and we’re coming for gold.

2. The Bottleneck of Content Creation & Scaling My Brand

Okay, switching gears a bit—let’s talk about the chaos of trying to build a personal brand while being a full-time athlete, student, and club founder. I’m not complaining, just prefacing…

For the first year and a half of my pickleball journey, I was just grinding. Creating content, getting my name out there, handling everything myself. And it worked—sort of… But eventually, I hit a wall. Enter Zane Navratil, who has been a mentor for me in Austin. He hit me with the truth: “If someone can do something better than you, outsource it and pay them what they deserve.”

So the frugalness in me hated to hear this, especially not seeing an immediate ROI. But what I quickly learned was not the ROI financially, but the ROI on time. Since then I’ve been building a team—videographers, editors, graphic designers, and training partners—so I can focus on what I do best. I’ve been able to buy not time back and focus on my highest income (and sometimes happiness) producing activities because I can rely on my team to take care of what they are best at. But let’s be real, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing. The growing pains are real.

  • Sometimes, an editor’s version of a video doesn’t match how I saw it in my head.

  • Sometimes, I feel like my personality gets lost in content I didn’t edit myself.

  • Sometimes, I’m spending more money reinvesting into this than I’d like to admit.

But in the long run? It’s worth it. Because the goal is bigger than just me. Right now I’m in the HEAVY heavy growth phase of my career. I don’t have a family to feed or too many financial commitments, so nows the time to double down, get my hands dirty, and make mistakes to learn from them.

3. The YouTube Grind & Finding the Balance Between Instructional and Entertainment

This year, I went all in on YouTube (btw, go subscribe). So far, I’ve doubled my following and hit 5,000 subscribers. But here’s the struggle: I’m learning that my instructional content always performs better than entertainment content… but I personally enjoy making entertainment content way more.

For example, this video was some of the most fun I’ve ever had on a basketball court. I poured my heart and soul into coordinating the pros, impersonations, videographers, just for the video to not perform well

Compare that to this video. A simple instructional video that took an hour of scripting and some light edits, performing 4x better than my entertaining video above

So what do I do? I am finding the middle ground: making my instructional content entertaining. If I can bring the energy and fun of my entertaining videos into tutorials, I think I’ve found my lane.

Also, the reality is, I’m one of the first people trying to pioneer entertainment-driven pickleball content on YouTube. Instructional has been around forever. Entertainment? Not as much. So yeah, it’s a slow build, but I’m confident in the vision.

Also, if you like all-things-pickleball, make sure to show my channel some love :)

That’s a Wrap

There you have it; a little bit of competition, a little bit of content strategy, and a whole lot of pickleball. If you made it this far, you’re a real one. I’ll be putting out a new newsletter every week, so stay tuned for more updates, lessons, and whatever else life throws at me.

See y’all next week,
Jack Munro