Fiend at Court Unplugged
The group photo from the Halloween tennis social at the Wichita Falls Country Club suggests that tennis participation is enthusiastic and strong. According to data shared at the 2021 Tennis Industry Forum, participation in private club settings ticked up ever so slightly in 2021. The vast majority of new tennis participation in 2021 originated in public parks and schools. That fact is a scary Halloween story for Wichita Falls.
As detailed in the 2020 PAC report, the vast majority of the surge in new tennis participation that year came at public parks and courts that are co-located at schools. With the exception of a couple of slab courts at Belaire Park, Wichita Falls has no park courts. Additionally, the school district has a policy of locking up school courts, restricting access to official use.
This should be a frightening wake-up call for the former tennis hotbed of Wichita Falls. A decade from now the two high schools will have dreadfully weak tennis teams. The local kids are simply not being exposed to tennis early enough to develop the skills required to compete at a high level.
It is scary and profoundly sad.
- 2021 Tennis Industry Forum, September 14, 2021.
Back when I was involved in youth tennis, USTA Texas had Coordinators throughout the state to get youth involved. They also had a way to get funds to building and improving local courts. There’s got to be someone up there who should be working on that.