While you may (rightly) associate the early days of U.S. padel with places like Houston and Miami, one of the first-ever courts built here in the States was actually in Chattanooga, TN, of all places — and sadly, I just learned it was recently torn down.
As it was explained to me by the former Director of Racquets at the private all girls’ school on whose grounds the court was constructed, in the early 1990s a well-heeled, globe-trotting group of racquet-sports enthusiasts with deep ties to the Coca-Cola Company discovered padel while on an international trip together.
Not surprisingly, they instantly became obsessed with the sport, and began planning trips to Europe and South America purely so they could play, before eventually deciding to just build their own court under the Veterans Memorial Bridge in their hometown of Chattanooga.
The court, known as the “Katherine Jackson Johnston ‘25 Paddle Court” (notice the spelling — and what that means for the proper pronunciation of the sport), was officially dedicated in 1996, just two years after the first two padel courts in the entire U.S. were built at The Houstonian Club in Houston, TX.
(The ‘25 ostensibly refers to the year she graduated from the Girls Preparatory School, on whose property the court technically sat).
The End of the Beginning
While there’s little to no record of what happened on or with the court over the next 25 plus years, it obviously fell into serious disrepair (due in large part to drainage issues from the bridge above it) and was eventually all but abandoned.
However, in recent years there had been a fair bit of interest and discussion around potentially restoring the court as well as a smattering of people (perhaps illicitly) attempting to play on it.
Evan Brown (who has started padel clubs around the U.S. including Mink Padel and Olympus Padel among others) and I were even able to take a video tour of the court about this time last year thanks to Alison Engel, the former Director of Racquets at the Girls Preparatory School I mentioned earlier.
Unfortunately, the next time I spoke with her wasn’t until a few days ago, when she called to tell me that with very little notice (or approval from the original group behind the court) it had recently been torn down, effectively destroying one of the greatest physical pieces of U.S. padel history we had.
The Next Generation
As bummed as I was to hear this news, the conversation ended on a high note when she further told me that a new project known as Arena Club will soon be bringing two indoor padel courts to Chattanooga, along with a dozen pickleball courts, a rooftop plunge pool, a fitness center, and various upscale social and dining amenities.
What’s more, thanks to Brit Ivy chiming in on a recent LinkedIn post of mine about the largest U.S. metro areas that still don’t have padel yet, I learned that the tiny town of Gray, TN (population ~1,200) now has two outdoor padel courts at a club known as Vitesse Padel, which bills itself as, “the only place to play padel between Richmond and Nashville.”
While this admittedly may seem a strange place to find padel courts, they are situated directly next to the Vitesse Soccer Academy, an elite junior training center for the sport that has been run by former Dutch professional soccer player Michael Louter since 2006.
And given that even The New York Times has taken note of how many pro soccer players have fallen head-over-heels for padel it starts to make a lot more sense why there are now courts in such a seemingly obscure place.
It also gives me hope that U.S. padel will be able to reestablish its deep roots in Eastern Tennessee and thrive there for years to come.
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