Bishop England plans to build tennis courts on its Daniel Island campus

Tennis anyone?

At Bishop England High School, the question is more like, “Tennis, anywhere?”

That’s because Bishop England, home to one of the top tennis programs in the Palmetto State with 10 boys’ state titles under its belt and 19 girls’ titles, doesn’t have a tennis facility. The school moved from its Calhoun Street campus in downtown Charleston to Daniel Island in time for the 1998 academic year and since then, the BE tennis teams have held court at the Family Circle Tennis Center, the Daniel Island Country Club, Snee Farm Country Club, LTP, Creekside, the Mount Pleasant Tennis Complex on Whipple Road, and the Farmfield tennis facility in West Ashley.

Hopefully, with the proposed Monsignor John L. Manning Tennis Center, the eighth location will be enough -- and end the Bishops’ nomadic ways.

The school has proposed a five-court, lighted facility that will be located adjacent to Father Kelly Field, the school’s baseball facility. The tennis complex will also be used for the school’s physical education classes.

“It’s just so hard to find a play and to practice,” Bishop England athletic director Paul Runey said. “We have to be able to block off six or seven courts a day for two to three hours at a time. That’s getting tougher and tougher to do. A few years ago, Charleston was named the top tennis town in the country, and that was for a reason. Today, you have so many people playing tennis and there aren’t enough courts. That’s the problem.

Runey said the school, which is beginning a $400,000 fund-raising project, hopes to have the courts in place in time for the 2016-17 academic year. But Runey pointed out the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston, which oversees the school, has a policy that a project such as this must have 100 percent funding pledged with 50 percent of the pledges in the bank.

That, ultimately, will dictate when the Bishops can have homecourt advantage.

The fund raising committee reported the project is 25 percent “of the way there.”

There are many ways to contribute, including a sponsorship package that begins at $500 and tops out at $35,000. The $35,000 is what it costs to be a court sponsor, with naming rights.

Runey said three of the five courts have been accounted for with a combined $105,000. Runey said the only sports facilities that were included in the school’s masterplan were the football stadium, named after Jack Cantey and the basketball court, named after the Rev. Joseph L. O’Brien, both BE icons. The school has added a track and field facility, baseball and softball diamonds and sundry practice fields in its nearly two decades on Daniel Island.

Kristen Fleming Arnold, who coaches both the boys’ and girls’ teams, said there is no place like home.

“It means everything to the program,” she said of the proposed courts. “We have the Fall BE Invitational, and it would be nice to have our own courts to host our own tournament. It would help with the logistics of the program.”

For more information, contact Runey at pruney@behs.com, Fleming at kristen@eastcoastap.com or Alumni Relations Director Kelly Duffy at kduffy@behs.com.

Daniel Island Publishing

225 Seven Farms Drive
Unit 108
Daniel Island, SC 29492 

Office Number: 843-856-1999
Fax Number: 843-856-8555

 

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