T-R PHOTO BY NOAH ROHLFING - Dr. Theron Schutte, the superintendent of the Marshalltown Community School District, stands at the entrance of the new Marshalltown Court Complex during a recent Marshalltown High School boys tennis meet. The 12-court tennis complex will be welcoming three United States Tennis Association tournaments to Marshalltown this summer.

There was no ominous voice whispering riddles in the wind for Marshalltown High School boys’ tennis coach James Christensen to hear.

But the city has indeed built it, and tennis will come.

With the ribbon cutting on the Marshalltown Court Complex last October arrived a slew of opportunities for the city to host numerous events while enhancing Marshalltown High School’s extracurricular activities and the city’s recreational venues.

Christensen said Marshalltown’s state-of-the-art, 12-court tennis center and accompanying trio of pickleball courts wasn’t necessarily a magical concoction brought to life like in the Iowa-infamous baseball movie “Field of Dreams”, but the product of a timeline that included diminishing facilities, repurposed venues and dedicated decision-makers simply connecting the dots and finding a way to pull together the funds.

Total construction costs on the Marshalltown Court Complex was approximately $2.3 million, but the city’s bond approval and grants from the Martha-Ellen Tye Foundation and the United States Tennis Association (USTA) will start yielding a return this summer thanks to three USTA tournaments already scheduled for the impressive new venue.

“Dr. (Theron) Schutte did mention that we should put in a bid for the USTA Adult District Championships, so we did,” Christensen said. “We put in for it and I don’t think I was surprised that we got it. Our facility is pretty great. They (the USTA) came for the opening ceremony, and in mid-January we got the letter that our bid was approved.”

Schutte, Marshalltown’s Superintendent of Schools, had direct contact with USTA regional representative John Terpkosh throughout the process of raising the money and planning construction on the Marshalltown Court Complex due to a number of factors. The USTA makes available construction grants for such projects, but the governing body also was interested in watching closely the project after a nearby company — Garling Construction Inc. of Belle Plaine — was commissioned to do the job, the first such tennis complex that Garling had ever undertaken. FEH Design and vice president Kevin Eipperle, an MHS graduate, took care of the blueprints and the outcome was to everyone’s liking.

“It really turned out to be a wonderful collaboration between city, school district and the Martha-Ellen Tye Foundation,” said Dr. Schutte. “It’s great to see the synergy and energy that both got us to the point of being able to construct it and now people being able to use it.

“People are very proud of the finished product.”

Finished? We’ve only just begun.

On June 12-13, the USTA Adult League District Tennis Championships will be welcomed by Marshalltown, its sparkling new facility and a community eager to benefit in any number of ways from regional events of the like.

Andrew Potter, the Tourism Director of the Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce, couldn’t overstate the impact this and future events will have on the city.

“The school district and the city have done the bulk of the work but we’re happy to see they’re able to land this USTA meet the first summer they’re even open,” said Potter. “It’s a tribute to coach Christensen and the school district, and credit to the city for helping to make this happen.

“The economic impact is huge. We have tournaments going on throughout the year at our varied sports complexes and for the bigger ones we notify hotels and restaurants and give them a heads-up. This is a huge thing to help hotels and restaurants and retailers, and we love to have this stuff. We’ll help promote it and try to support them in any way we can.”

The USTA Adult District Tennis Championships, according to Christensen, will welcome players from throughout the Missouri Valley section of the USTA (Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma). He said the level of tennis is “legit” and will be something the likes of which Marshalltown hasn’t before seen.

Once that event was secured, two more tournaments were approved for this summer. On June 29-30, the USTA Level 6 Junior Tournament — the Marshalltown Open — will bring in the best junior players from across the Midwest, and the July 20 USTA Level 7 Junior Tournament — the Bobcat Tennis Academy Open — will welcome a slightly lower level of high-school aged players and younger in what Christensen said would be an introduction to tournament competition for a vast portion of entrants.

“I always say, working at Marshalltown High School or working in Marshalltown in general, ‘just come to our town and you’ll probably like what you see,'” Christensen said. “This will be kind of an outreach program to central Iowa to bring people to Marshalltown to see what we have to offer.”

The Marshalltown YMCA/YWCA will have hosted the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union’s state swimming and diving championships for 19 years when the current contract expires in 2022. The Iowa High School Athletic Association brought its boys’ state swimming championships to Marshalltown for 13 years before departing for the University of Iowa in 2017, and at least half of the state baseball tournament was conducted at the MHS diamond from 1975-2004.

Girls and boys state golf tournaments have been welcomed by Elmwood Country Club and the American Legion Memorial Golf Course regularly for the last decade and a half, and Marshalltown’s new venue is almost perfect for a district or state tennis tournament. The almost part is a lack of indoor courts to complement the outdoor complex in the event of rain.

Even still, the Marshalltown Court Complex is already working to return on the investment.

“I think this complex just adds to our inventory of sports complexes, and for a town our size to have that many — the Y, MCC (Marshalltown Community College), the school district and the Coliseum, baseball and softball, soccer, football — for a town our size we have a lot of different venues that can support tournaments,” said Potter. “The new courts are awesome not only for drawing people into town, but it’s a benefit for the community members.”