A Palisades varsity player practicing when the girls still had a court. Photo: STEVE GALLUZZO
The 2028 Olympics are coming to Los Angeles and women will be competing. The U.S. Open features the top women players in the world. But for the Palisades High School Girls Tennis Team, there’s no place for them.
There’s no place for these female athletes to practice or play – and more than half of them lost everything, their homes, their school, their clothes and their tennis rackets in the Palisades Fire.
In 2025 helping women play should be a priority for the City.
Coach Bud Kling has been looking for courts since June. The junior varsity team used to practice on the two courts on the Palisades High School campus, that area of the campus was destroyed. The varsity practiced at the City-owned Palisades Recreation Center on the lower courts.
Courts 7 & 8 are said to have traces of arsenic, but eight months after the fire, it still has not been remediated, even though people walk by the courts every time they enter George Wolfberg Park. Why?
Courts 5 & 6 were destroyed when the Department of Water and Power took over the Rec Center and used those courts to store heavy equipment. When DWP moved out of the Rec Center at the end of June, they said they’d repair the courts. Two months later, they still have not been repaired.
Palisades Rec Center Courts 1, 2, 3 and 4 have never had any issues and residents have been playing on them for the past six weeks. Why can’t the Palisades Girls Varsity team practice on those courts? The park manager Jasmine Dowlatshahi told Coach Bud Kling that her superiors said no one should be on the courts, but never gave a reason why. And yet, everyone but the team seems to be using them.
Coach Bud Kling has run one of the most successful female athletic programs in CIF – LA City Section history, with 29 CIF-LA City Team Championships. Even though he lost his home in the Palisades Fire and is also displaced, he started looking for practice space in June.
The City and LAUSD promised they support girls sports and there wouldn’t be a problem.
After pleading by Kling, Rustic Canyon Rec Center offered a few courts for the JV girls and Mark Twain Middle School gave the varsity team a place to practice for two weeks, with LAUSD’s promise they would extend. But yesterday, Kling was told his team would no longer have that facility, because one of the faculty didn’t want high school kids on that campus.
The easy fix is to let the girls’ varsity team practice at the Palisades Rec Center – unless the City wants to make more excuses why girls can’t play.
I hope we can do the right thing here! This is one of the easiest problems since the fires, and if we can’t solve this, I have no words. Find them a court right now!
It’s unfortunate but the Palisades is again being neglected by the City of LA. This time it’s our kids. It’s criminal that the kids sports are nothing more than an afterthought for LAUSD. But then, LAUSD would just as soon still have the kids doing online learning. Are you telling me the football field could not have been immediately cleaned or replaced? Why is Friday Night Lights not happening for the kids to be able to congregate and have something normal? Wouldn’t home football games be a great community event right now? Instead they’re busing the kids all over So Cal for games and playing a couple at Santa Monica College and calling them “Home” games. I wish I were more optimistic that something is going to change but it never seems to.
I hope you ask all these questions at tonight PAB meeting. DWP has dropped the ball no pun intended)
in their promise to swiftly repair the tennis courts that were generously loaned to them… remember when DWP reps spoke at PAB meeting saying Palisadians would get “concierge service” from DWP! Where is that service?
Hi Bud,
It was great seeing you at the Hall of Fame Induction last April. Once again, my condolescenses for the loss of your home. Every swimmer that I knew and happened to contact lost their home or childhood home they lived in. The tragic effect of this will carry on for a long time. And Pali sports teams have been disrupted greatly. Sorry about the lack of facilities for Pali tennis. I don’t have an answer. The question I have is how far can the team travel to find available courts? Anything in the Valley? Maybe Taft High in Woodland Hills. At least for some that live in Topanga. Regards, Dave Anderson
Has anyone asked Traci Park to step in?
Irene,
Her office has been working to try and get DWP to repair the courts, like DWP promised, but hasn’t done.
Sue