Deteriorating Canton High School tennis courts in need of some love

~ Meanwhile, proposed Brown/Billone Tennis Center delayed ~

The tennis court beside the playground at Canton High School has a crack splitting the service box, going from one end of the court to the other. This crack forms a perpendicular angle with another crack that runs up and down the sideline of the same court.

This crack splits the service box in one of the courts.

Like many of the cracks found all over the five tennis courts at CHS, multiple adult-sized fingers can fit in these crevices. Even the court that may be in the best shape has a large crack that travels underneath the net, from one side of the court to the other. This is the only court without a significant crack that isn’t situated on the baseline or along one of the sidelines or another major part of the court.

The cracks may alter the path of a ball and change the competitive flow of a game, but they may also create some safety hazards that could render the courts unplayable within a couple of years, according to CHS athletic director Danny Erickson.

In their current state, even with the cracks, Erickson said he “never felt that the courts were unplayable or unsafe.” Both the CHS boys’ and girls’ tennis teams will play this season as scheduled at the CHS courts.

Erickson, however, said he is hoping to raise awareness within the community that the courts, built more than 20 years ago, are deteriorating. But, with the school system and the town both facing budget problems, there is no immediate plan to fix the courts, which the Citizen reported last March could cost upwards of $154,000.

“Through no criticism of the powers that be that make the decisions on where the money goes, it’s hard to spend that kind of money in tough financial times,” Erickson said.

Instead, over the last five years Erickson has resorted to “band-aid jobs” that keep the courts “playable,” but he said the courts are reaching a point where even this won’t be an option.

“Each winter our cracks get quite a bit bigger, the courts get more uneven,” Erickson said. “We’re getting to the point where we won’t be able to choose an intermediate or minor fix; we’ll have to pick a very expensive total fix.”

Sheila Conneely, head coach of the girls’ tennis team, said that in the Hockomock League, only Stoughton’s courts were in worse shape.

“I know I will stress the importance of playing with more caution, especially on the courts where sloping and cracks are an issue,” Conneely wrote in an e-mail to the Citizen.

Both Erickson and Superintendent of Schools Dr. John D’Auria emphasized that while the courts are on CHS property and are used by CHS tennis teams, this is a “town-wide” issue. The courts are also used by the Recreation Department and by the general public.

“It’s really not just a Canton High School athletic department tennis team issue,” Erickson said. “It’s a community resource; it’s an asset the community has and we need to make sure we’re taking care of them.”

“My goal is not to point fingers financially,” Erickson stressed. “That’s not it at all.”

Last Friday, concerned parent Maura Nannery, mother of Micaela, a Hockomock League all-star player for the girls’ tennis team, met with Erickson and Conneely to discuss forming a committee to address the situation.

“We are looking for all interested community members and will start with parents of CHS players to form this group to start brainstorming fundraising ideas and researching the possibilities of grants,” Nannery wrote in an e-mail.

One possible solution for the problem has been indefinitely put on hold. Last April it was reported in the Citizen that a year-round tennis facility called the Brown/Billone Tennis Center (BBTC) would be opening at the corner of North and Pine streets by this spring. In the article, managing partner Dave Brown acknowledged the poor condition of the CHS courts and said the BBTC would be open to helping raise some of the necessary funds for reconstructing the courts or working out an agreement where the tennis teams could play part of their season at the new facility when the CHS courts were being repaired.

In an e-mail sent to the Citizen, Brown said the “current banking climate” has made it difficult to secure funding for the project. Brown said they are “currently working on getting the entire project funded privately.”

When funding is secured, the plan now is to build all eight courts — four inside a steel structure and four more under an inflated bubble structure — at the same time. While Brown could not predict when the BBTC would be opening, he did say they are “still 100-percent committed to getting the club built in Canton.”

As for the CHS courts, a plan for the Board of Selectmen and School Department to share the cost of fixing the courts fell through last year.

Plans to fix the tennis courts are often left unfunded in favor of more pressing needs for the community — such as the current joint-proposal from the BOS and the School Department to create a traffic circle in front of the Luce Elementary School (pending Zoning Board approval, according to D’Auria.)

“This proposal had a higher priority for both groups,” D’Auria explained. “The tennis courts are a very high priority as well, but the safety concerns, while present, were not quite as high as they are related to the Luce traffic situation. We are obviously in very tight financial times, and it is very difficult to meet all our priorities.”

So for now, the CHS courts remain in poor shape.

“The push for new tennis courts is not about aesthetics,” Conneely said. “It’s about safety.”

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