By Noor Abdullah, Staff Writer
Mills students have long been awaiting the completion of the new sports fields, none more than the girl’s tennis team. Starting on June 1, 2021, there has been non-stop construction going on just behind our school. The construction crew has been working hard to replace our old large grass fields, often flooded, with a brand new field, as well as the old, cracked tennis courts with seven brand new courts.
Principal Pamela Duszynski shared her excitement for the new courts. “The new courts will be level, which is a big plus when playing tennis. No more cracks, completely resurfaced. I think that players will just have a better overall feel, you’re perched right there and have better views. I think the quality of the court will be the biggest plus.”
The construction of the new fields came as a result of a $385 million general obligation bond approved by local voters in March of 2020 to improve facilities across the San Mateo Union High School District. For Mills, this means new tennis courts, a turf baseball field, and a turf multi-use softball/soccer field, all of them surrounded by floodlights.
There seems to be some different reports for the original planned completions of the courts with The City of Millbrae posting that the fields were planned to be completed by June 2022. This would mean that these fields would have already passed their completion date, yet Principal Duszynski has reassured us that the construction is on track and the plan was always for the fields to be completed by the end of the 2022 fall semester. This year and a half long process has led to two fall sport seasons with no tennis courts at Mills, meaning the girls’ tennis team has had to manage with no home courts for this duration.
Tennis isn’t a sport that can be played on any turf field, nor can it be played on a single tennis court, considering there are 19 members of the team. An average week of playing for the girl’s tennis team consists of practice on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and games on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Due to the fact that our tennis courts are not complete, the team has been sharing tennis courts with other school teams for the past two seasons. We hold most of our practices and “home” games at San Mateo High School, where their tennis team generously shares their eight courts with us. This sometimes feels like we are crowding their space as a single tennis court is meant to host games with two to four people so two whole teams sharing eight courts is more than the usual occupancy rates.
This causes daily inconveniences for the team, mainly with organizing rides to make sure every player can make it to the after school practices and games, five days a week. This is also irritating for the parents who drive the students to San Mateo and back.
According to one of the parents of the athlete, “This process takes about 45 minutes of my day, which is a lot. I can’t wait until the new courts are opened, they can just walk over after school and I wouldn’t have to worry about it.”
On many occasions, San Mateo High School’s courts were all in use, causing our team practices to be canceled. On game days, when San Mateo’s courts weren’t available, our team had to play “home” games at Burlingame High School and Capuchino High School. Mia Khan (10) has pointed out that “we have had three “home” games at Capuchino, our rival school. It’s like we’re playing on cursed courts.”
It seems that this second season of not having home courts, real home games, home field advantage, or conveniently close fields for games and practices both during the season and after has had a negative effect on the girl’s tennis team’s performance this season as last year we were second in our division, this year we are currently fourth.
Although this period of construction has caused some trouble, the general feeling amongst the team has been excitement as we all look forward to the new fields that students of Mills and residents of Millbrae will enjoy for many years to come.
Principal Duszynski has invited all Mills athletes and students to a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new fields on December 1st, with the intention to open up the facilities right when we come back from winter break.
“This is something that’s here for our students. The wait’s been hard but it will be worth it.”
