I have played tennis my whole life, spending countless hours playing at the Ellis tennis courts, Neveln tennis courts, Paulson tennis courts, and at the YMCA throughout my childhood. Since November, I usually spend three days a week (around four hours a week) practicing at the YMCA here in Austin. I can attest to the fact that it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to schedule times to use the one tennis court at the YMCA. This is because of the community members that play tennis in Austin on the Ellis girls team, the boys (boys team uses the YMCA indoor court for captains practice, when it is raining or too cold for practice outdoors, and to start practice when the nets are not set up at Paulson or Neveln tennis courts) and girls (the girls team has consistently had close to 40 participants over the past few years) teams at Austin High School, the countless adults that play tennis, and also the adults that use the tennis courts to play pickle ball. To accommodate all the people that want to play tennis at the indoor court at the YMCA, the YMCA has done a lottery the past few years due to the high demand for court time, showing that there is a need in the community for indoor tennis courts.

The Vision 2020 Community Rec Center did not originally have plans to put in any indoor tennis courts. As a community member and student who has supported the YMCA my whole life, this is troubling to hear that the YMCA portion was proposed to not include even one indoor tennis court. All other existing amenities at the YMCA were proposed to be moved to the new Community Rec Center, including space for gymnastics, except for an indoor tennis court. Indoor tennis courts were mentioned in the 2013 Vision 2020 Community Rec Center Feasibility Study/Survey (the survey in its entirety can be found on Vision 2020’s website and then clicking on Resources, where you will find the link to it), and a number or percentage of people contacted for the survey who said they would support indoor tennis courts was never provided or made public in the survey or at the Vision 2020 forum on Tuesday, March 15.

If the Community Rec Center does not include any indoor courts, tennis players will not have a place to play tennis during the half of the year that snow is on the ground and the nets are not up at the Paulson and Neveln courts. If students, families and other community members want to play tennis during the winter months, we will be forced to drive to Owatonna or Rochester and bring our money to those cities and communities instead of staying in Austin, like it has since the current YMCA opened.

The bottom line is that there are people who play tennis in Austin and would support indoor tennis courts. People of all ages can play tennis, making it a great family activity. All you need is a racket, a ball and another person. I hope that Vision 2020 does end up adding indoor tennis courts to the proposal for the Community Rec Center. Adding indoor tennis courts to the Community Rec Center will serve even more members of the community in this great project.

Vision 2020 Resources page, which has a link to the survey: www.vision2020austin.com/resources/

– Kaitlyn Schammel,

Austin