Winamac’s pickleball players say they need more courts to accommodate demand, but some park board members still don’t want to give up on tennis. A couple years ago, the park board agreed to re-stripe the Town Park’s remaining tennis court for both tennis and pickleball.
But during Thursday’s meeting, Pat Larkin and a group of pickleball players said they’re willing to cover the cost of converting it to pickleball full-time. “Our group is more than willing to help with anything that’s needed done,” Larkin said. “There’s a lot of seniors that play. There isn’t a lot of other things in the park for the seniors to do. I have two pages of signatures from people from Friday night that have signed, willing that everybody wants these permanent nets.”
But Park Board Member Chris Schramm said that while he likes having pickleball and likes the number of people it brings to the park, he isn’t comfortable taking a sport away. “We have 50 acres of ground that we cover, and we can’t offer one tennis court part-time?” Schramm asked. “You guys are still able to play on the whole thing, right? It’s just the disadvantage of taking a net from your building that we had you put down there and put it out there, right? I mean, you can still use the whole court, right? You just want something permanent.”
But the pickleball players said switching out the nets can be difficult, especially for older players and those who don’t have access to the group’s equipment.
Schramm said he’s seen a few people playing tennis, and Board Member Brad Zellers said the town’s gotten a couple of phone calls about the tennis facilities. In contrast, the pickleball group said it has at least 25 to 30 players almost every night. But Zellers argued that there could have been more tennis players, had the tennis net been installed sooner.
As a solution, Park Board President Jon Chapman, himself a pickleball player, suggested allowing the tennis court to be converted exclusively to pickleball, but making the basketball court in the middle of the park available for tennis, as well as basketball. Some board members were ready to let the pickleball group proceed, but others wanted more time to research Chapman’s proposal.
In the end, Park Manager Dave DeLorenzo agreed to remove the tennis net for the weekend and reinstall it next week. That will give board members a chance to see how much tennis actually gets played there, before they make a decision.
