By Cathy Blood
Editor-in-Chief, GreenwichPickleball.com
Greenwich, CT
April 24, 2022
Contact me

It seems there is, or was, a plan to restrict reservations of the Loughlin Ave Tennis Courts to “Pickleball Only” beginning May 1, 2022.

Would tennis still be allowed when the courts weren’t reserved? Not sure.

Signs went up on March 18 saying “Pickleball Only” at the Loughlin Avenue Tennis/Picklball courts with no explanation.

Did Greenwich Parks and Recreation intend to restrict the courts to Pickleball only from March 18 on? Seems radical.

Then the signs disappeared.

The early signage may have been a fumble or bumble in implementing something in the works at Parks and Rec.

Below is a link to a letter to the editor, (submitted to the Greenwich Free Press, Editor, Leslie Yager) on this change.

Much is explained in this letter, but there are still questions about what is happening or planned at Loughlin Park.

There were 142 signatures to the letter to oppose the plan to restrict reservations. Many of the signers reside in the neighborhood around Loughlin Park, but others are tennis players throughout town. Many are pickle/tennis players.

The letter also objects to the lack public input on this unannounced change, and rightly so.

FYI, the “Greenwich Pickleball” mentioned in the letter is NOT us!

We are strictly a news & information source for players about opportunities to play Pickleball in & near Greenwich. We support the development of the sport in Greenwich but are not affiliated with the town.

We report on what we see and hear and we are often as out of the loop as anyone else. There is no cabal as far as we know. Although, TBH, Pickleballers are pretty enthusiastic and obsessive.

The letter to the editor writers are referring to the official Parks and Recreation Pickleball Committee which was created in December of 2021 to help Parks & Rec assess the needs of resident Pickleball players.

There are four community members and three Parks and Recreation members of this committee. The community members provide feedback to the town. Greenwichpickleball.com is not part of that committee.

Please reach out to us here, at GreenwichPickleball.com. We’re happy to talk issues, get tips and report accurately on Pickleball news in our community, kerfuffles included.

If you have the inside track on Loughlin Ave Tennis/Pickle reservations, please contact me directly so we can add accuracy to this story.

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Cathy Blood is the Editor-in-Chief of GreenwichPickleball.com (a passion project) and is a recent Pickleball convert. She’s the Partner in charge of Marketing at Speritas Capital Partners, and she owns NEST New Media, a digital content strategy business where she helps businesses tell their story and write about their industry with an engaging, authoritative and ‘converting’ voice.

To be sure you’re ‘in the loop’ on how to support Pickleball in Greenwich, and to ensure we are NOT robbing Peter to pay Paul, subscribe to ‘Opa!’ the GreenwichPickleball.com email newsletter.

Local News Coverage of Pickleball:

Greenwich Free Press on the Budget Hearing | By Leslie Yager, Founder & Editor.
Pickleball appears in a brief paragraph below bump outs, under its own heading. If you’ve never attended a Greenwich public budget hearing, this article gives you a great idea of all the competing interests / passionate residents in our town.

Greenwich Patch on Pickleball in the Budget Hearing | By Richard Kaufman, Patch Staff reporter.
This is a great summary of the Pickleball discussion at the 3/28 budget hearing, and Patch provides a link to GreenwichPickleball.com at the bottom of the article (thanks Patch!)

You can also watch the entire 4 hour video of the March 28, 2022 BET public budget hearing meeting on Youtube.

There has been some coverage on Pickleball in the Greenwich Time, but it is behind the pay firewall.