The Taft tennis team plays daily on broken, cracked, and rundown tennis courts. The Taft Tribune reached out to the athletic director, Mark Drucker, about his thoughts and the possibility of updating the courts. When discussing his ideas he said, “Coaches should make sure that the athletes are students first and that they are stressing education over athletics. As a public school trying to compete with all the private ‘charter schools,’ the most significant change that we need to see is in our facilities. The changes in courts and the scoreboards are going to take place in springtime. The baseball team needs new scoreboards, and the tennis team needs new courts, and the football team needs to be more active and become what our school wants to see. Our gymnasium is one of the better-looking ‘gymnasiums in the area’ so I think we don’t need to see any change there, but when parents come around and look at school they mostly look at our facilities and our facilities have to improve.”

Mr. Drucker was also asked about the struggles of the tennis team and their concerns about the upkeep of their courts. He said, “the tennis courts need to be redone and that is all part of the presentation that the parents need to see.” He also noted that “the district knows about it and it’s a matter of money and time.”

Tennis team member, Nathalie Imamoto, said, “we have a good team, but the only problem […] is that we have a lot of players and so little space” she understands that the coach needs to train everyone equally and that the JV players need to get on the court, but the priority needs to go to the varsity players because the varsity players are the ones that will be competing against other schools”.

Of course, everyone on the team has a different opinion. Some people are comfortable with the way that the courts are, while some people are not. I am not satisfied with the condition of the courts currently and I think the poor condition is dangerous and affects our performance. The team hopes that in springtime, they can have a better-looking tennis area. Here is to hoping!