In mid-August, a poll was conducted by the Legacy Park Board of Directors and placed in the Town Herald, the local newsletter. Residents were asked to choose what team they would be interested in joining: Beach Volleyball, Kickball, Wiffleball, or Ultimate Frisbee.  The Board collected the results, and before you could say “waste of money,” Legacy Park constructed a sand volleyball court in front of the baseball diamond.

What the new court doesn’t account for is the lack of popularity of Beach Volleyball. To find out the number of students who would benefit, I took my own poll. I asked 50 North Cobb students who were also Legacy Park residents whether they knew anyone who played Beach Volleyball, and whether they’d be interested in learning how to play. 76% answered they knew no one. A mere 16% answered they would be interested in learning how to play; the other 68% of the students couldn’t care less.

Looking at my results, who voted for Legacy’s Beach Volleyball court? I asked for the results of the poll, but the Board of Directors said they did not log the information.

One answer may be written into the rules of neighborhood. The covenants of Legacy Park state, “The neighborhood must maintain all amenities. If any are damaged or removed, they must be replaced.” At the inception of the neighborhood a Beach Volleyball court existed, but it flooded and was removed with the understanding that it would later be rebuilt. Is this a case of the covenants coming back to bite the Board? If so, did the citizens get any choice in sport at all?

Looking at the logistics, a Beach Volleyball court was the most expensive poll choice. Kickball, Wiffleball, and Ultimate Frisbee could be played on either the already existing baseball diamond or the Town Green. Someone must be paying the Board extensively in free Volleyball clinics, otherwise the court doesn’t make sense.

Citizens of Legacy Park can attest to the throngs of woodland creatures who they share the neighborhood with, the most well known being deer. The court is the perfect place for the deer and other wild animals to relieve themselves, and will soon become a bacteria-filled pit used only by deer and cats. Unless the Board is offering the job of scooping out the court like one would with a cat’s litter box, I can envision the Health Department having major problems with the new installment. The court itself cannot be covered, so what happens during heavy rain? Legacy Park will be pouring money into the pit every time a storm strikes.

As if the idea weren’t already a failing one, the location itself doesn’t make any sense either. Legacy Park now owns the equivalent of a large sandbox, destructing the land in front of the baseball diamond. The neighborhood can supply plenty of better places to build a volleyball court where it could be larger and more accessible, including the picnic cove, near the pool, or at the end of the Town Green.

In the end, I can’t see the court getting used enough to be worth the time and money invested. Our current Board of Directors seems to be forced into an arrangement that won’t pay off for anyone.

To read Emmett Schindler’s defense of Legacy Park’s decision, click here.