How can pickleball help someone rebuild their life, rediscover purpose, and become the kind of coach who changes other people’s lives too?

In this episode, Thomas Yelloweyes shares his extraordinary story of trauma, foster care, loss, survival, and reinvention. Thomas opens up about growing up in the foster care system, facing deep instability and heartbreak from an early age, and later finding himself at another rock-bottom moment as an adult, living out of his car, searching for direction, and trying to figure out what came next. Then pickleball entered the picture, and everything began to change. 

Thomas talks about the first time he wandered onto a pickleball court, the older women who welcomed and cared for him, and how the sport gave him not only community but also a path forward. He shares how his background in corrective exercise, coaching, and movement analysis led him to create Night Train Pickleball and the Night Train Method, a five-tier system designed to help recreational players build confidence, strengthen fundamentals, and become resilient, tournament-ready competitors. 

This is a deeply moving and inspiring conversation about pickleball, trauma recovery, foster care, resilience, coaching, confidence, mental toughness, pickleball instruction, Night Train Pickleball, and the life lessons that remind us life is not done with us yet. 

Night Train Drilling Guide ebook: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/form/PcKAinvIZQjW8YRUQsHl

📘 Our book Life Lessons from Pickleball™ is now available on Amazon

Order the book here: https://a.co/d/0bHPFYve

A collection of short, true stories from players around the world about community, resilience, and joy through the game of pickleball.

A portion of proceeds supports Operation PaddleLift, through the Global Pickleball Federation, distributing paddles, balls and nets to underserved communities around the world.

Contact us:  [email protected]

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Music gifted to us by Ian Pedersen: @ianpedersen 

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