CAPE CHARLES, Va. β The Northampton High School tennis team is facing an unusual obstacle this spring season: nowhere to practice. Due to the ongoing construction for the new school campus in Eastvile, the tennis courts are not available for use at this time. The existence of tennis courts in the county, both the Town of Cape Charles and the wealthy Bay Creek Resort, is an option, but nothing formal has come to fruition.
The situation has shone a harsh light on the scarcity of usable tennis courts on Virginia’s rural Eastern Shore, where the nearest alternative courts can be a county β or more β away.
Northampton boasts the only girls’ tennis team on the Shore. There are 18 girls on the team, and they have to travel, sometimes 3 or 4 hours, for matches. Since there are currently no plans to replace the courts at the school, every match will be away. With no court available, the girls are forced to practice in the gymnasium, which is hardly optimal for practicing tennis.
Cape Charles is home to one of the few public tennis courts on the lower Shore, located within the town’s park system. For a high school team looking for a place to drill serves and work on footwork, it seems like a natural fit.
But town officials have tentatively offered to accommodate the team’s request; however, if and when that will happen is still up in the air.
Bay Creek: A ‘Local Partner’ That So Far Keeps the Gates Closed
The other option in Cape Charles is Bay Creek, the upscale golf and marina resort community that boasts well-maintained tennis courts on its private grounds. Bay Creek has long marketed itself as a community partner and has pointed to local sponsorships and events as evidence of its investment in the Shore.
But when it comes to the Northampton High School tennis team, that partnership apparently has limits. The NH High School Athletic Director has reached out, but the resort has so far not opened its courts to the student athletes, raising questions about what “local partner” really means when a public school team is left without a place to practice.
The Rural Reality of the Eastern Shore
The predicament facing the Northampton tennis team is, in many ways, a story about geography. The Eastern Shore of Virginia β a narrow peninsula sandwiched between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean β is one of the most rural and geographically isolated regions in the Commonwealth. With a population spread thin across small towns and farm communities, amenities like tennis courts are few and far between.
Unlike in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, or even the more populated corridors of the western Shore of Maryland, there is no cluster of recreational centers to fall back on.
What exists, exists sparsely β and when the entities that control those few courts say no, the options disappear almost entirely.
For a sport that requires consistent court time to develop any real skill, the consequences are more than inconvenient. Coaches say the lack of practice space puts Northampton’s players at a competitive disadvantage before they ever step across the net against teams from better-resourced districts.
Whether the town, the county, or members of the private sector will reverse course remains to be seen. But with the spring season underway and matches already on the calendar, the clock is ticking for Northampton’s tennis players β who, for now, are still searching for a place to call home on the court.
About the Author
I am not at all surprised that Bay Creek is unwilling to allow the girls of the local community to use their facilities.
Not at all.
Sad
Not only do they not have a place to practice.. they donβt have uniforms either β¦