Pickleball courts open at Maroney Park, creating new opportunities

The Daily Sentinel
By NICOLE BRADFORD Staff Writer
Feb 17, 2023 Updated Feb 20, 2023

The fast-growing sport of pickleball gained even more ground Friday with the opening of 12 new courts at Maroney Park.

“Certainly our next goal is to host tournaments, bringing people into our town from around the state,” Mayor Jimmy Mize told a crowd of more than 100 that gathered for the ribbon-cutting. “And pickleball will be part of the annual Corporate Challenge.”

Hosted by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, the Corporate Challenge takes place in May and typically involves businesses and organizations competing in events such as kickball, washers and trivia.

An anonymous donor covered the $67,500 cost of converting the park’s deteriorated and largely unusable tennis courts into 12 pickleball courts with permanent nets. The work was completed in just over two months.

Described as a mix of ping pong and badminton, pickleball is played on a court about a third the size of a tennis court.

Susie Patterson plays on one of 12 new pickleball courts at Maroney Park, where a grand opening was held on Friday.
Josh Edwards/The Daily Sentinel

Paddles and balls are relatively inexpensive and can be rented from the C.L. Simon Recreation Center, which hosts indoor pickleball from 9 a.m. to noon every weekday.

Local enthusiasts have been playing for about two years at the rec center and on evenings and weekends at Banita Creek Park, where a flat multipurpose area has been repainted for pickleball.

The Sports & Fitness Industry Association for the past two years has ranked pickleball as the fastest growing sport in the nation, a fact that isn’t lost on Nacogdoches’ tourism arm.

With a growing number of local players and the addition of 12 permanent courts, the staff at Visit Nacogdoches are planning both print advertising and social media content targeting pickleball enthusiasts, says the CVB’s creative content director Ashley Morgan.

“We feel this will help provide something to do for visitors on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays when a lot of things aren’t open,” she said.

Local player Joe Aguilar said he takes recreation facilities into account when he and wife, Mary, who also enjoys pickleball, travel to other cities.

“We always look for pickleball courts wherever we go,” he said, noting that Nacogdoches can now compete for its share of out-of-town visitors who love the game. “For a town this size, this is beyond expectations.”

Already in the works is the Pine Top Pickleball Tournament, a mixed doubles tournament planned for Oct. 7-8 that will benefit the Christian Women’s and Christian Men’s Job Corps.

Updated information on the tournament and other events will be posted on the Facebook page titled Nacogdoches Pickleball.