The Indiana Wesleyan University students received an email earlier this month with plans for new on-campus pickleball courts located near the tennis courts.
Student body president Grace Huizingh said that construction on the courts will begin this June.
“This project started last year with the Student Government Association (SGA) 2023-24 administration, probably in September of last academic year,” Huizingh said. “We heard a lot of students go to Matter Park to play pickleball, so we felt like it would be a cool need to bring on campus and a way to grow our community here too.”
IWU student Brian Parache said he and his friends often play pickleball at Matter Park.
“Sometimes, if you have to wait to play until after you’re done with all your classes and your homework, a lot of times the courts are taken up by the leagues,” Parache said.
Marion league pickleball player Roger Younce said Marion leagues have grown every year since their start after 2020. He said that even though they love having IWU students at Matter Park, they appreciate that the students will have their own space.
“There’s a lot of times that you have to wait a long time, and people in the community have to wait a long time to play on the courts,” Younce said. “This’ll kind of help give some organization and kind of break up so there’s a couple of options for places for people to play.”
Parache said he feels excited about the new courts on campus since people do not need cars to drive there.
“If it’s mostly IWU students that are playing, I think it’ll be fun to be able to meet people at the school and make friends and make relationships there with more times available,” Parache said.
Huizingth said she thinks next year SGA and the intramural planning team will discuss how players of pickleball intramurals might use the new courts. Intramural pickleball player Kyrah Maas said the new courts could allow more people to play in future intramurals.
“I think it’ll be fun for people to go play even outside of intramurals too.”
The expected completion date for these new courts is scheduled for sometime in August.
