Weyauwega’s free Thursday pickleball league turns park courts into a hub

Weyauwega’s Thursday-night pickleball has already turned a once-quiet court into a weekly stop. The free league at Maasch Community Park runs from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. every Thursday, and in its first two weeks it grew from four players to eight, a sharp early sign that the town had more demand than the empty courts suggested.

The push started with Martine Purdy, who is in her 60s and had never played pickleball before she noticed the new courts at Maasch Community Park sitting unused after they were added in 2024. Purdy went looking for partners on Facebook, then connected with Trisha Miller, a local teacher with pickleball experience. Before the league launched, the two worked with the city to secure permission and confirm liability coverage, turning an idea into a sanctioned weekly gathering.

The format has made it easy for people to show up without much planning. The league is free, players bring their own paddles, and the group supplies balls. That low barrier has helped pull in players from Weyauwega, Waupaca and New London, giving the court a wider reach than a typical neighborhood pickup run. The league has also stayed deliberately flexible, with no weekly commitment required, which fits a sport that rewards repetition but does not punish newcomers.

That flexibility matters in a city that says it wants to keep adding recreational options for residents and guests. Weyauwega’s broader pitch is to preserve its heritage while actively implementing new community activities, and pickleball has slotted neatly into that plan. Maasch Community Park already carries local history, since the land was donated in June 1972 by Dr. Lloyd P. Maasch and the park was later renamed for him on its 50th anniversary. Now the court is becoming part of the park’s next chapter, one that could include tournaments or internal playoffs if participation keeps climbing. The Weyauwega Chamber of Commerce already lists pickleball at Maasch Community Park among the park’s activities, a small but telling sign that the league is no longer just a side project. It is becoming part of how the town uses the park, and possibly a model for more programming to come.