As the new dedicated pickleball courts at Cooks Hill Courts in Centralia were celebrated with a grand opening on Saturday, Director Curtis Medved hopes the place will become a facility known for its role in creating community.
“You don’t need a partner. You don’t need a paddle. You don’t even need a ball,” Medved told The Chronicle. “Just come out here and you will make friends and mix in with people, and that's what neighborhood community facility means.”
Cooks Hill Courts held its official grand opening for the dedicated and covered pickleball courts starting at 1 p.m. Saturday afternoon with a youth clinic and finished with five hours of open play.
The facility, a subsidiary LLC of Cooks Hill Community Church, is located next to the church, but, as Medved said, it is meant to be a “neighborhood community facility.”
The new pickleball courts offer memberships, but the main goal is to be available and affordable to all who would like to spend an afternoon playing pickleball. While the facility is officially owned by the nearby church, it is not religiously affiliated and welcomes everyone.
“The affordability side is one piece, and for people to be able to come in off the street with no connection to the church and limited funds can still afford to try us out,” Medved said.
Memberships allow residents and community members to participate in local leagues and tournaments for free or discounted prices and get priority scheduling. For casual players, a simple drop-in fee is all it takes to stop by, borrow a paddle and play a few games.
The atmosphere Medved and others hope to achieve hinges in part on open court hours. In pursuit of a feel similar to pickup basketball courts or other communal activities, the facility isn’t currently accepting court rentals.
“While we understand wanting your own court to do your own thing, that's what a neighborhood community facility means,” Medved said. “We can fit six or seven or even eight people on this court and have a good communal time, as opposed to a private party of four.”
A peek at the facility’s public schedule posted on the Cooks Hill Courts website shows hours and hours of available open court time broken up by specific activities on certain days. For example, Monday featured “Live Ball,” which is described as a sort of king of the court event.
Medved is a certified pickleball instructor and previously directed a club in Olympia. He first came to know one of the church leaders, Lead Pastor Emily Faley, through a “small pickleball world.”
He said it was the culture of the sport that he, Emily and the church loved. That created common ground that ultimately led to him becoming director of the facility.
It’s that same culture and belief in community that led to the construction of the facility.
Medved was a little hesitant to jump into the history of the facility, being relatively new, but he added that the church has had a connection to pickleball for a long time with both Faley and Executive and Childcare Director Nicoe King, and likely many more, being pickleball players. That passion appears to have translated into the new dedicated covered court with high ceilings, lighting and roll-down sides to keep it well sheltered in the winter.
Medved refers to the development of the Cooks Hill Courts as “a unicorn,” describing special circumstances that came together, including the dedication of the local church to develop the project.
“There was pickleball played on that same surface years ago, and there was no structure over the top,” Medved said. “The two church leaders are pickleball players, and have pulled this off, and are now giving it to the community.”
Despite the more recent grand opening, the courts officially opened at the end of July after a July 21 Facebook post from Cooks Hill Courts announcing the facility was ready for open play. A “soft launch weekend” schedule showed hours of open play and times for lessons.
However, the vision for the courts apparently started long before that time. While Medved was not directly involved in the development of the facility, he’s heard often that the site of the courts was used for bonfires and pickleball by community members before an idea surfaced to develop the new facility just a few years ago.
Other Facebook posts showed the facility receiving the finishing touches in the spring, with the roof of the structure being installed in early May and court surfacing, netting and the rest not long after.
To book a time to try out the new pickleball courts or simply to find more information about the dedicated pickleball facility, visit https://www.cookshillcourts.com/.
