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The future of Natchez area tennis is in the high schools, Wahlborg said. Building the teams is Spence’s job as he is now going into the schools to teach kids in 4th, 5th, 6th grades about tennis to grow the sport.

Currently Cathedral, ACCS and Natchez High School all share the tennis courts at Duncan Park. Nothing will change for the schools unless he thinks of something to improve or help the teams, he said.

Success is measured by the kind of problems you run into, he said. Running out of room because so many people are using the courts is an example he gave of a great problem to have.

“We want to fill this facility. That is going to be our goal,” Wahlborg said. “We want to have people who can not get a tennis court. That is going to be new for some people here.”

He said the only challenge he can foresee is bringing more people into the world of tennis and pickle ball. He said this is done by getting the words tennis and pickleball used in daily conversations around Natchez like football, baseball and basketball do. Tennis and pickleball are lifetime sports, he said.

Officially, he is not on the job yet, but Wahlborg was standing on a tennis court looking at damage caused by a tree. Strong winds blew the tree down on Thursday morning. By Friday morning, the biggest portion of the trunk was already removed from the fairway rough across the road.

“That is our new land scape design,” Wahlborg said. “What we are going to do is take trees and fall them over. I’m just kidding. It doesn’t look like it hurt the court that bad. I think we are going to get it taken care of very quickly.”

A tree limb removal truck removed branches that were caught on the fence Friday morning, which Wahlborg said, did not damage the fence posts in the ground. Those would have been the most expensive piece to replace, he said.

“That is our new land scape design,” Wahlborg said. “What we are going to do is take trees and fall them over. I’m just kidding. It doesn’t look like it hurt the court that bad. I think we are going to get it taken care of very quickly.”

A tree limb removal truck removed branches that were caught on the fence Friday morning, which Wahlborg said did not damage the fence posts in the ground. Those would have been the most expensive piece to replace, he said.