Advocating for Tennis and Pickleball Courts

Carolyn

Hi , this is Carolyn and I'm here with Erin and today we're going to discuss the epic battle of tennis versus pickleball courts , as well as other items , and we were really excited to have on two big time important people from USTA Southern . First is Paul Pittman . He is the chair of USTA Southern's Advocacy Task Force . He was the president of USTA South Carolina and inducted into the South Carolina Tennis Hall of Fame and has been on the Southern Board of Directors . He has captained 27 teams , three that won state titles . Next is Rainey Johns . She served on USTA Kentucky's Board of Directors for 12 years , including two as president , as now on the USTA Southern Board of Directors . She also serves on the National Parks Committee . She played both soccer and softball in college and she started playing tennis as an adult in a 2.0 league and she said she can't remember another time where she laughed so much because they were all clueless on the court . So Erin and I definitely understand that feeling , right , erin ?

Erin

Yes , 100% . I didn't know there was a 2.0 league , but I like it .

Carolyn

I do too . They both have won more awards than I can list because we try to keep our episode short , but we really appreciate them being here , so let's start off first with Rene . Why do you hate pickleball ?

Rainey

Well , thank you guys for having us . I want to say that we don't hate pickleball . It's not an issue of hating pickleball . It's more an issue of just protecting our courts . And that seems to be the biggest challenge that we're facing right now is that communities are faced with a lot of pressure from their citizens about wanting pickleball courts because it's growing so fast .

Rainey

It's important to note that tennis is also growing fast , so there are no facilities in a lot of communities , and so it seems like the natural inclination is well , let's just find a way to use the courts that are already there and do a purpose them , and on the surface , that might sound like a really good idea within a community , but it really is counterproductive to the growth of both sports and it tends to create a little bit of animosity between our pickleball folks and our tennis folks , and we don't want that .

Rainey

We want to get along . We really all want to get along . So the goal is to find ways that we're not giving up tennis courts because we need more . I mean , in terms of , all of us are involved in our tennis communities and we all know that there is not a overwhelming number of courts relative to the number of people who want to play , and so the goal is to find ways to not give up our real estate , our courts , for the benefit of pickleball . We want to encourage communities to build their own pickleball courts so they have a place to play and our tennis folks have a home .

Erin

That's a really good way of putting it Right . Yeah , that's a really good way of putting it . Everyone thinks it's this pitting the one sport against the other , but it really is . How can we because a lot of tennis players , me included , play both , but it's . How can we have enough courts for both sports ? And that's what we're talking about today .

Erin

So the next question Paul asked you what is the USTA Southern Task Force ? And the reason that I'm asking this is because I want people to continue listening , because I think league players think they just pay their membership dues or they just pay their league fees and they just go on and they pay , but the fact is , this all happens in the background . It's not just a matter of paying your membership fees . It's also supporting things that are happening , like this task force that continues to help tennis grow . We don't just pay our fees and walk on . Actually , most people do pay their fee and walk on a court and think that that's just the end of it , but the fact is is that all of us are doing so much work behind the scenes , like this task force . So can you explain what that is ?

Paul

I sure can , aaron . About eight months ago , usta Southern President Brett Schwartz asked five of us to form a task force , and the task force was to look at advocacy . The feeling was that there are a lot of areas where Southern tennis is under pressure , but we're not doing a good enough job of making our case . We're not doing a good enough job of saying why tennis can grow , should grow , and why we need to keep our courts in this case . So basically , what we're doing is putting online playbooks we call them playbooks which are online materials that can be used by people at the local level to engage in the fight over courts and to work with local governments , local schools , local business , people and the community to try and protect the courts we have and actually gain more courts . That's what we're all about as a task force .

Carolyn

Paul , can you also tell us why was tennis in pickleball your first advocacy target ?

Paul

Well , I think the reason for that is pretty simple and it's also , I think , obvious to most of us in the United States , because pickleball is growing tremendously 5.9 million new people in the last couple of years but tennis grew during that same time frame by 33 percent and there were more of us to begin with . Obviously , there is pressure on the existing courts and that pressure gets a lot worse when pickleball people who have a new sport , they're very , very enthusiastic about it . They are hitting the city councils and the parks and recreation departments with a real sense of urgency . Obviously , the simple , cheap solution for a lot of people is okay , let's repurpose the tennis courts and reconfigure them and make pickleball courts . Now let's paint lines on these tennis courts For pickleball . Obviously , those are short-term solutions and I think they're poor solutions . What we're looking for is the long-term solution and what USDA says that is and certainly we agree in Southern is more courts for both sports .

Erin

Yeah , I think what people don't understand is , I mean I think there is some , you know , a small war between tennis players and pickleball players , like if pickleball goes in and you know we've heard tons of stories about them just sort of taking over courts and restriping them in the middle of the night and you know kind of going rogue . But I don't think the fight should be pickleball versus tennis .

Erin

I think it should be how we support both , because there are a lot of people that picked it up , but I think and I love that you call these documents a playbook , because they really can learn from what USDA and local communities have done . It might sound like a war , but it really is a how can we work together ?

Paul

You are right on , Aaron .

Paul

I'm sure that a lot of these courts are there in the first place because tennis people for years have advocated for courts and tennis from the national level on down , has put money into local communities to help build courts . That doesn't mean we own them . It simply means that we have a real interest in them and in many places we're low on court space right now . So , yeah , we need to defend what we've got , but at the same time we've got to get past those things that are a little irritating about pickleball , I mean it's noisy .

Paul

Just yesterday , some pickleball players were playing at a facility near our courts and they walked across the back of our courts . They don't know tennis etiquette . We wouldn't expect them to . Nonetheless , the solution is very simple . The solution is we all put pressure on governments on parks and recs , to build more courts for all of us . These are growth areas in American recreation . They are popular with people . We need to keep up with the demand .

Rainey

Yeah , and I hope people will be proactive about it . Don't wait until somebody's trying to take over your tennis courts to make them into pickleball courts or dual use . You know , be proactive about your facilities . Make sure that your local folks know that you're there and that the courts are being used , or if they need to be resurfaced , like don't wait , oh , these courts are in bad condition , let's just make them into pickleball courts because nobody's using them . Maybe nobody's using them because they're in bad condition and so don't wait until they come for your courts . Be proactive about it and be an advocate for your tennis facilities and your tennis community .

Erin

So , rainie , can you talk about , since you're on the task force of five , can you talk about what the next maybe issue is or what the task force is doing next ?

Rainey

Yeah . So before we move on to that , I just want to say that the next part of the pickleball end of things is a five minute webinar , sort of a promo , to talk about what resources we've created and are available to communities as they go to their city councils or their parks and recreation departments . As you all have seen them . They're a great tool , but they don't do any good if nobody knows that they're there . And then , after that , the next issue we really want to talk about and make sure people are aware of , because I really feel like we don't tell our story really well . We're really good at telling it to each other versus telling it to the outside world the health benefits of tennis , both as social and physical benefits I mean the fact that you can add almost 10 years to your life by playing tennis . That seems like a big deal to me . The social benefits of it are pretty much unmatched , I think , in the sports world , and it's something you can play your entire life . So that's the next thing is figuring out how do we tell that story and make sure people outside of us know that that's a benefit . And then the next thing that we really want to do is look at ways to reach underserved populations within our section with the benefits of tennis that they may not normally have access to it , whether it's from facility standpoint , from a monetary standpoint , just making sure that tennis is accessible and we hear it a lot , making tennis look like America , and that doesn't just happen . There has to be a strategy behind it and we have to be passionate enough about it and creative enough about it to find ways to reach those populations .

Rainey

And then , on a third one hopefully sometime next year we'll get to it is JTT . I'm passionate about JTT , I love it . I just volunteered to captain my niece's middle school fall tennis team in a local league because they didn't have a captain , and so I was just like , ah , I can't stand not letting her have an opportunity to play . So I've been on the organizing side of things . Now I'm going to be on the captain side of things . So we had our first match yesterday , which was super fun , and so I've seen the benefits of junior team tennis and the way it can feed players into adult leagues as they get older , and so that's something that our task force is definitely very committed to and passionate about is the benefits of junior team tennis and making sure that communities know that it's there and how to offer it , and making that accessible to our younger population as we move forward .

Erin

So one of the things that I will say I'm sure you probably watched the men's final yesterday too , but when the check was being presented or the trophies were being presented , brian Hanline did say he talked a lot about the benefits , the health benefits . So I know there's a lot of people that actually watch the big events , the slams , but don't maybe play yet . But when they hear those statistics like you talked about adding 10 years to your life just to play a racket sport at least he said it on national TV , so I was kind of excited to hear that that's great .

Carolyn

And all the mental benefits of playing tennis . It really is mentally so helpful yeah .

Rainey

Well , and from a social standpoint , I really believe one of the reasons why you live longer if you play tennis is because you have people checking on you . If you're in a league or a clinic or whatever and you don't show up , somebody's going to call you and say are you OK ? What's going on ? So I think the social part of it is huge . And then having something to look forward to in a built-in network of friendships and relationships that you don't have to go looking for they're just sort of organic , and I think that's one of the reasons why it makes an impact on our lifespans , that's a great point

Memorable Moments on the Court

Rainey

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Carolyn

So , paul , let's start with you . Can you tell us your most memorable moment on the court ?

Paul

Well , caroline , I'm kind of an old guy and there have been literally hundreds of memorable moments . I know a lot of your listeners are league players , so I'll give you one . For my years working in the leagues I captained only one team . Over all those years that made it to Nationals , and the story I'm going to tell you is about the Southern Championship match that sent us to Nationals , because it's kind of an interesting approach to getting there . We are playing a tough team from another state . The match has come down 2-2 , so there's one team left on the court trying to settle everything . It's a doubles team . We are playing a very close third set tie break . We're at the key point . We get a match point . Okay , that's good , but the tension is extremely high . Our guys serve the opponent , dinks a ball , cross court very close to the net . Both of our guys start moving toward it at the same time . The guy close to the net goes cross court , stretches dives , does a face plant and at the same time , manages to tap the ball back over the net .

Paul

The guy coming in who was the server manages to trip over him , fall down sideways and land flat on his back . We've won the right to go to Nationals with both of our players flat on the ground . I thought that was a pretty interesting way to do it .

Carolyn

That's a great story , Rainie . How about ?

Rainey

you . Mine is not really a playing and a match story . I do have a few of those , but because I spent most of my career with Parks and Recreation Department and offering it and that's how I got involved in tennis , because I didn't grow up playing it , I started offering it as an organizer before I ever started playing . The first one I would say is we started offering junior team tennis and we had a very small playing population of kids . We had just gotten started . We went years going to the state tournament and never winning a game , not a match . We just didn't . We never won a game . And then a few years ago , about a year or two years before I retired , I stood on the court taking pictures of a team , a Woodford County team , who finished second in the state in their division . So to go from never winning a game and when we did win a game we went nuts back . In those days it was exciting .

Rainey

But to come to the point where we were able to have a program that sent a team to the state tournament and was competitive at the state tournament to the point of making the semifinals , and literally that came down to a match tie break . We were tied on games between both teams after all , the matches were played and so we had to play another tie break to determine the winner on that one . And you talk about a lot of anxiety and pressure , but also pride and excitement for our kids that they had come that far , because a lot of them had been playing with us for about 10 years when we got to that point . So that was very exciting and a proud moment for me .

Rainey

And then the second I would say is getting our courts rebuilt . In Woodford County I was able to to work on grants with both the Land and Water Conservation Fund and USTA , national , southern and state to get our tennis court . It's about a $650,000 project and I was able to walk on those courts in the fall of 21 completely rebuilt . They were raised , rebuilt from the ground up and we were able to add lights , and so that's something I'm pretty proud of and definitely a memorable moment for me .

Erin

I see why you were asked to be on the task force committee . Now you know how to get courts built .

Rainey

Well , I will , at least at one point and one time I did .

Erin

Oh , you know , that's all we need . That's all we need . We know you can do it . You're proofing , that's right , it is possible .

Rainey

It is possible , there is a lot of resources out there , and I think that's something else that we need to make sure we're letting people know is that there are resources to get these to these tennis courts resurfaced and and or rebuilt as we go through these pickleball challenges , that there are funds out there available .

Carolyn

Anything else from you guys , anything we missed or you want to say ?

Rainey

Just thank you for having us on .

Paul

I really want to commend our task force . It's done an exceptional job . It's doing an exceptional job . The other members of the task force are actually Madison Gale from Georgia , jay Boyd from Louisiana and Scott Novak from Alabama , and our super staff liaison is Tim McCullum from the USDA Southern staff . It's a great group of under work with and I think we're doing some good stuff .

Carolyn

We really appreciate Paul and Rainey coming on the podcast . We've included links to their playbooks both in our show notes and in the resource section of our website , which is secondsurfpodcastcom . Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the courts soon .