![]() ![]() “It was a very productive meeting, and we are encouraged with your commitment to the future of Pickleball at the Central Park Rec Center as well as the Central Park community,” Guney wrote.Īs part of his understanding from the meeting, Guney wrote that the city was going to look into adding Friday mornings for pickleball at the gym and using the staff to help set up the nets prior to each day’s play. He got recreation center officials to attend a meeting with him to discuss the future of pickleball in the Central Park gym.Īfter the meeting, Guney sent Martinez an email to thank him for the meeting and to say how happy he was with its results. Guney, meanwhile, continued to lobby for greater access.Īnd on March 9 he thought he had a breakthrough. using portable nets and the throw-down rubber boundary markers. ![]() The city had allowed the pickleballers to play Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. “It will be at least 5 years before the floor requires additional work, so that would be the soonest we could add permanent lines,” he wrote Guney. Martinez wrote back that permanent pickleball lines weren’t an option in that gym due to the recent refinishing and sealing of the gym floor. “The players, many of whom are older, constantly face the risk of tripping and falling because the strips do not stay in place and constantly have to be straightened out and adjusted.” They don't stay in place, and the ends of these pieces curl up,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, these rubber pieces are seriously inappropriate for playing the game because of serious safety concerns. It’s not ideal, Guney pointed out in an email he wrote to city officials in January. They were granted access only if they used the throw-down L-shaped, and dash-shaped rubber mats - 3 inches wide by 12 inches long - to mark the edges and key spots of the courts. Martinez suggested that the pickleball players play elsewhere at one of the other recreation centers that the city already has lined for pickleball.īut the pickleballers wanted to use their local Central Park gym, and a compromise of sorts had been reached. The city refinished the gym’s wood floors in 2020, and added two additional coats of lacquer on it last year. “We avoid putting down taped lines because the tape eventually must be removed because it deteriorates, and it damages the floor when it’s removed,” Martinez wrote. Martinez also rejected the idea of marking the pickleball court with temporary taped lines that can be removed when the floor is used for other sports. “The reasoning for not painting these lines is that the primary use of the gym is for basketball and volleyball - and that adding extra lines would create confusion and potential errors for those participants,” Martinez wrote Guney. The spacious floor would have room to accommodate six pickleball courts oriented sideways from the basketball court.īut adding permanent pickleball lines to the gym floor would be too disorienting, contends John Martinez, the deputy manager of the parks and recreation department. The Central Park gym has permanent red lines for basketball and white lines for volleyball. They’ve been lobbying Denver parks and recreation officials to put permanent pickleball lines on the wooden floor of a multi-purpose gymnasium that is currently focused on providing space for volleyball and basketball players. ![]() Guney, a retired civil engineer who once worked for Vlasic Pickles, has been the point person among an active and restless group of players. Whatever it is, it speaks to a problem of a sport that’s growing so fast that it’s putting a strain on communities to find new places for ever-growing numbers of pickleballers. The city’s parks and recreation department calls what Guney did felony criminal mischief. The biggest pickleball story in Denver these days is happening in a court of law.Īrslan Guney, a 71-year-old pickleball evangelist, who is known as “The Mayor of Pickleball” among the group of players at Denver’s Central Park Recreation Center, landed in jail recently in a case that has spawned national headlines and highlighted the sometimes all-too-common tension created by the increasing popularity of the sport. ![]()
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