Expand Our Program!

In Park City, Utah, there is one tennis team and it only accepts tennis players from 9th-12th grade. Park City is a small town, but there should be another tennis team because there are kids younger than 9th grade that are playing tennis competitively and are serious about tennis. Another tennis team will integrate these types of kids.

Even though kids are able to sign up and participate in tournaments and have other tennis practices without being a part of a team, tennis teams are very important and beneficial to a player. Tennis teams are important because they bring many different kids together that share the same interest. Not only do they allow kids to practice with a lot of other people, it also allows a family bond to grow throughout the kids. The kids in the team will cheer each other on which makes the kids feel supported and gives them a sense of confidence. They are also great exposure because a lot of the time the tennis teams and their players appear in the local newspapers.

For these reasons, there should be another tennis team with younger players (players lower than 9th grade). There are many young, amazing, and passionate players in Park City that are very serious about tennis and will strive with the exposure and family bond that is created in a team. Brooklyn Thompson, an aspiring tennis player that is in eighth grade was asked about her opinion on how there is not a tennis team for players in middle school and/or elementary school, “Even though I only have one more year until I can go into the tennis team, I wish I could’ve gone into a tennis team years ago.” Thompson was asked why she wanted to go into a tennis team earlier and she responded with, “Because I can do more tournaments in different places since the team travels to Southern Utah and a few surrounding states. I can play with a lot of different people and I could possibly be in the newspaper which is cool.”

Heather Nicholas, the tennis coach of the High School Tennis Team was asked why there isn’t another team for younger tennis players, “I would love for there to be another tennis team for elementary and junior high. The biggest issue in Park City is court availability. Plus, it's a fairly expensive sport due to the fact that we have to play indoor tennis 60% of the year!"

We can’t build more courts because we don’t have the space, we are still able to use the public courts that are at City Park and Willow Creek. The only problem with this is that the courts are public, so it would be a gamble every time we had practice because if the courts aren’t empty, then we can’t just kick people off. This means that clinic could randomly be cancelled at any time so the kids wouldn’t get the full amount of practice. We need to figure out a good solution to this issue because tennis teams are very necessary to these upcoming tennis stars.

 

 

These are the courts at the PC Marc that the tennis team currently plays on.