Polson gets public Pickleball courts in O'Malley Park

Polson Mayor Heather Knutson never played the game of pickleball before the unveiling of the new tennis courts Fridayafternoon at O’Mally Park in Polson.

The new courts are in response to the growing demand for Pickleball and the city’s attempt to cater more to the senior demographic in parks and recreation.

“I think people have been talking about Pickleball for a while now and we’ve been working on getting the public courts here for months,” Knutson said.

Knutson, a Polson graduate that played volleyball, basketball and softball as a Lady Pirate, ran into Pirates’ tennis coach Bob Hislop at the grocery store and stressed to him the urgency to make this plan come to fruition.

“I ran into Bob at the grocery story during the Senior Olympics and said ‘if we are going to do this, we are going to have to do this now,’” Knutson said. “He quickly donated his time and council and has so much more support for the community as well.’”

During the ceremony, Knutson admits it was the first time she ever played Pickleball.

“This was literally the first time I ever played,” Knutson admitted. “Honestly, it was intimidating. I didn’t know what the ball was going to do and it took a little bit of time to get used to but I can surely see how a person can get addicted to this sport.”

For Hislop and his wife Donna, who are experts at resurfacing tennis courts, they decided to donate their time to help surface the old basketball courts into Pickleball courts.

“My wife and I worked on the courts for about 13 hours,” Hislop said. “Walter donated another 20 and we had two guys painting. That is the biggest thing for Walter and I is there is a lot of dry time painting and you have to wait for the lining on the last part of it.”

Walter Eggebrecht, who helped make the courts come to fruition, got involved through Pat Nowlin.

“I got involved when my boss (Nowlin) mentioned to me that they were wanting to do Pickleball courts in city parks,” Eggebrecht said. “I started cleaning up the area and painting the course itself. When I was asked I said ‘OK’ and I jumped right in to help. I spent a day and a half cleaning up the parking lot waste stuff. I spread out and moved to different areas and levels of the parking lot. All I did was clean up the parking lot and assisted him in painting for three days. It got a good clean up around it.”

The cost for the courts was about $3,500 per court and some of the funding came from private donations.

“It’s been pretty amazing to see how many people came out and it shows that people will come out in any type of weather,” Nowlin commented on the number of people that showed up despite rainy conditions. “This was the largest amount of participation at the Senior Olympics. We’ve noticed the demand and have been pushing for over a year now to get some public courts in the city.”

Nowlin said he felt the initiative will help target a senior demographic to the public parks.

“The older group of people bring with them a lot of community involvement,” Nowlin said. “They are used to taking care of things and I don’t anticipate littering or vandalism will be an issue with this group. It’s great because they can also teach this sport in middle school and grade school. It’s a great sport for both the older generation and the younger generation to learn together. A grandfather can teach his grandson the sport. There aren’t many other sports that you can do that with besides golf.”

Last year the city of Polson hosted the Montana State Senior Olympics and Pickleball had the most participants of any of the sports that were offered by the Senior Olympics. This year, during a qualifying year for the senior Olympics, the new courts will host a portion of the competition.