Counting the courts: Tennis renovations completed as team grows
When Cedar Shoals used the Special Purpose Local Options Sales Tax for the school’s renovation, three new tennis courts were built by the track and baseball field. However, the varsity and junior varsity tennis teams rarely use them, instead using the nearby Clarke County Tennis Center at Southeast Clarke Park for practices and matches.
The new tennis courts are an improvement from the old cracked ones. However, with the growing size of the tennis team, three courts are not enough to efficiently run practices. Meanwhile, the tennis center features six courts. A typical tennis match, of 2-6 sets, can last up to an hour. An average tennis meet lasts around two hours. If the tennis team played on the courts at Cedar it would take even longer.
Senior singles one player Spencer Waldroup remains grateful but also points out issues that the courts have.
“They are better in the sense that they are newer and fresher, but they’re worse in the sense that we have so many players. We can’t all play on just three courts,” Waldroup said.
Even though Cedar replaced the old courts with new ones, they aren’t being maintained as well as the tennis center. Junior doubles two player Karisma Muhammad prefers the courts at the tennis center.
“They (the courts) get taken care of more often, and the quality is much better,” Muhammad said.
Long before the season, Athletic Director L’Dreco Thomas knew that the tennis program needed new courts.
“We had a tennis court, but it wasn’t functional. So it was a no-brainer that we needed an upgrade,” Thomas said.
For freshman doubles two player Judah Caplan, investing in the tennis program is a big deal for the team. Still, Caplan is frustrated that the tennis team doesn’t play at Cedar Shoals.
“I was excited when I first heard about the new courts. It felt like a big step forward for the tennis program and showed that the school was investing in us,” Caplan said. “Playing matches at Cedar would’ve brought more school spirit and convenience. It feels a bit disappointing that our ‘home’ matches don’t actually happen on campus.”
The tennis center is four miles from Cedar Shoals, presenting an inconvenience for travel time. Caplan says transportation to practices and games disrupts his day.
“It is definitely inconvenient having to travel off campus for every practice and match. It takes time out of our day and makes everything feel more complicated,” Caplan said.
Muhammad has also noticed complications with transportation.
“The bus is late, delaying players from getting to practices. They have to either carpool or have someone come pick them up to get to practices on time,” Muhammad said.
Thomas was grateful that the tennis team received as much funding as they did for renovations. He maintains there is only so much money to go around and many areas that the school needed to get renovated.
“We wrote down the fact that we would like our courts renovated, and found out later that they had other plans for that particular spot (where the old courts were) and that they were going to actually give us more than what we thought we were going to get in the beginning. So, we got more than what we bargained for,” Thomas said.
The money for the renovation of the school is already budgeted, so any further upgrades would need approval. At the moment, the future of any other expansions are yet to be determined.
“Once the renovation project is completed, we’ll evaluate and see where we are. We’ll make sure that we got everything that we asked for, and we’ll make that determination then. Right now, we’re happy to have three beautiful courts. It’s something that we didn’t have,” Thomas said.
