Meet A City Of Dalton Employee: DPRD Tennis/Pickleball Director Michel Bates

Friday, February 27th, 2026

The City of Dalton is special because of the people who work hard every day to make it the best place to live, work, and play in Georgia. The City is proud of the people working to serve our residents. This article continues a series of profiles we'll be running from time to time to spotlight the special people who are making a difference in our city. 

Michel Bates is the Dalton Parks and Recreation Department's (DPRD) director of tennis and pickleball. In that role, she organizes youth and adult leagues and also teaches the sports to new players of all ages at clinics and camps. Bates is a Dalton native and grew up playing tennis on the same courts where she now teaches and coaches. After a standout prep career (earning a state title at Dalton High School and playing in the Junior Davis Cup, she earned a tennis scholarship from Auburn University. At Auburn, she was named All-SEC three times and also earned All-American honors (and twice was named an honorable mention All-American). She earned a degree in recreation administration at Auburn and with the exception of a brief tenure working in customer service for Shaw Industries, tennis has been the focus of Bates' professional career. She views her 19-year career with the DPRD as a chance to give back to the local tennis community which gave her a lot of opportunities. 

Here's a Q&A with Bates about her career and her work to advance both tennis and pickleball in Dalton. 

You're the director of not just tennis but also pickleball for the Parks and Rec Department. Did you ever imagine you'd be in charge of pickleball?

No! (laughing) You know, I've been here... in July, it’ll be 19 years. And, so, no because you know, then, I'd never even heard of pickleball! Nobody had ever heard of pickleball. But now it's the fastest growing thing in the world. And that (new pickleball complex) out there (at the John Davis Recreation Center) is going to be really nice.

Yes, the new facility (a 15-court complex with three covered courts, a picnic area, concessions, and other amenities which is set to open this spring) looks like it's going to be great! What's it going to have that's got you excited?

We're going to be able to offer a lot of different programs there. We'll have leagues and clinics, so, I mean, I'm excited. We're looking at, hopefully opening at the end of April or the first part of May, and we'll have a grand opening. I'm really excited about it, It's going to be really nice. I'll do my tennis camps and things like that here (at Lakeshore Park) and then we'll do the pickleball camps over there (at the new complex). I even had a couple of adults ask if we will do pickleball camps for adults. And I'm like, well, I guess we could!

With pickleball, the DPRD really jumped in on the trend when pickleball first started to grow nationally, converting some tennis courts into pickleball courts. Have you been surprised by how popular it is? And do you enjoy the game yourself?

Oh, I love the game. The first time I played, it was out at the old gym at John Davis, and it was a lot of fun. I could see where it could be rather addicting. And I think the draw is - and not so much now, the game is kind of trending where we have younger kids that are playing now, and I think it will eventually become a college sport and a high school sport, I think here sooner than later - but it's not as hard on your body as tennis is. There's just not as much court to cover. And, it's very social. That's what I have found that's been great for me here in this community: the friendships I've developed/ You know, I've developed a lot of friendships through tennis because I grew up here in Dalton, but there's a whole different group of friends and relationships that I've built through pickleball. And I think with that complex being built out there, that that's just going to bring more people, more different demographics and ages. So that's been the fun part. to watch the game grow.

You mentioned you grew up here in Dalton. You graduated from Dalton High School, did you play in high school?  

I did. I played all four years at Dalton High. You know, the accomplishments I had on the tennis court... I won the only state tennis title in the history of Dalton High School... they provided a lot of opportunities for me. And this (job at the DPRD) is one of them. Because I feel like I'm giving back to the community that was so good to me, growing up. 

Where'd you learn the sport? Did you play here with the Parks and Rec Department? 

Actually, I did. You know, my mom was great about clipping out newspaper articles and stuff, (and I found one from  when) one of my good friends, Tammy Mitchell, and I won the girls' doubles title at a GRPA (Georgia Recreation and Parks Association) event. So I grew up playing right here on these courts, right over there (at the Lakeshore Park complex). And, you know, I played at the country club some. I was literally in the swimming pool at the country club, and they said, "we're doing a tennis tournament. We need you. You're a good athlete. We need you to come play." And I was like, "okay." I was 11, 12 years old, and I didn't know a thing. And I ended up winning it, and then I was just in love with it after that.

You won a tennis tournament never having played before? They just handed you a racket and you went and played?

Yes, you know, I didn't know how to keep score right or know how to do anything. And I was hooked after that.

So you were probably heavily recruited out of high school, right?

Yes, I was. And I remember having a conversation with mom and daddy, and they said, you know, honey, you're gonna have to figure out where to go. One of my first recruiting letters was from Michigan State, and mom went ahead and threw it in the trash. She said, "you're not going to Michigan to play tennis. It's too cold." So I had to kind of narrow it down and I wanted to be... I wanted to play in the SEC. So, I almost went to Florida State, and I almost went to Georgia. But, no, I was happy at Auburn. Very happy.

You were at Auburn in the early 1980's, which had to be a pretty good time to be at Auburn. 

I was there at a great time. That was (the era of ) Charles Barkley, Bo Jackson, Rowdy Gaines, Frank Thomas...  Of course, Bo Jackson. Bo and I would have lunch whenever it was feasible. We'd try to have lunch every Thursday. And we still kind of keep up with each other through Facebook and that kind of thing. He's a great guy, Super guy. You know, he had a stuttering issue. But I could sit down and talk to him at lunch and he wouldn't stutter at all. But then, "Sports Illustrated" and all these reporters would come in for these big interviews, and bless his heart, he'd get through it. I mean, he was fine, but he kind of overcame that. My aunt who went to Auburn was a speech therapist, so they had kind of a connection there too.

That's one of the things that I think is getting lost in college sports, where superstar athletes used to really be part of the student body and part of the school. It seems like you don't have that as much anymore at the big schools.

Nope. And you know, I look at it this way: I went to Auburn, I went on a full scholarship. I mean, mom and dad didn't have to pay for a pencil. And I felt like that was my reward, my payment, so to speak. With the NIL and all that going on now, I felt like my reward and my payment was that I got a free education. You can't put a price tag on that.

And even more than NIL, now in major college sports, a lot of athletes seem to change schools two or three times in their careers. 

You know, we changed coaches at the end of my sophomore year, and what you had to do back then to transfer was (really tough). So, I was kind of on the bubble, but I loved the men's head coach, Hugh Thompson, and he just said, "just hang in there." So, I did look, but I just had made a commitment when I signed that, you know, I was going to be an Auburn Tiger. And it was a wonderful experience. I was on the five-year program, but it was a great experience.

So how did y'all do when you were at Auburn? How did your teams do?

We were competitive. We would qualify to go to the NCAA tournament, and I think it was my sophomore year, we won one round. So, I mean, we weren't like Stanford or a big powerhouse. But we were competitive and we competed well. And (my teammates), we all went down to Auburn for a football game this last fall. So that was kind of a reunion for us. And so, yeah, you can't put a price tag on the friendships and the relationships that you made.

What did you study at Auburn?

Recreation administration. Which now they call sports management. So that's what my degree is in. 

Did you sort of always know that you sort of wanted to make a career either in sports? 

You know, it's funny because I always knew that I had tennis to fall back on. It was kind of like having an ace in my back pocket, because I worked for Shaw for a while, and that's what kind of brought me back up here  (to Dalton) from Florida. And I taught tennis for a while, kind of got a little burned out on it, and then I worked for Shaw for, I don't know, 5 or 6 years. And then I kind of got tied behind a desk a little more than I wanted to be, and so I started teaching tennis again.

So what were the steps in your career after leaving Auburn? 

Well, I graduated from Auburn and then the country club in Birmingham where I did my internship, they hired me on. So I taught at the Vestavia Hills Country Club. I was there probably 2 or 3 years and then I took a job down with the Marriott Sawgrass Resort in Ponte Vedra, Florida. I was the director of tennis down there. So I've been kind of in a country club or a resort setting, and then, you know, where I am now (at DPRD). And I've been here for, you know, almost 19 years.

And you did have the interim period where you were working for Shaw for a while. What were you doing for them?

Customer service.

So eventually, as you made your jumps through your career, you ended up with the opportunity to come to work for your hometown Parks and Rec system, and teach tennis and coach here. What was appealing about that for you?

Well, I've just always loved Dalton, and I kind of always knew that my roots were here and that I would come back here. I think the Lord had a plan for me, and it worked out. I was able to come back and help take care of my parents. My daddy just recently died, and, you know... I was here, and I was present. And just the people, I've just always loved Dalton. I lived away for a while. I was gone from Dalton for, I don't know, 10 or 15 years, I guess. But, you know, I just love this community. And I felt like it was an opportunity for me to give back, because they were so supportive of me as a child with my tennis. Just with Mom and I traveling to the tournaments, and keeping up with state rankings and all that kind of stuff.  And now I'm coaching at the Dalton Academy, and it's a startup program. And I'm trying to tell all the kids that there are opportunities in tennis, because, look at me. Tennis is a sport you can play for the rest of your life and there are opportunities and doors that it opens for you. So I'm very, very fortunate to be back here in Dalton and doing something that I love.

And when you look at the sport in Dalton, there's a very large, very active community of tennis players of all ages here. What kind of talent do you see among the young people? 

You know, it seems like the talent in Dalton kind of goes in ebbs and flows. Right now, we're kind of at a little bit of a lull, which is not to say that we don't have some talent out there. We've had a couple of kids that have come through here recently that have gone on and played college tennis..

With you being here 19 years now, you have seen a lot of people go through their entire youth career and then move on either into college tennis or just into, you know, the rest of their lives. What kind of feeling of satisfaction is it for you to have had a hand in that?

It's great, because ironically enough, I've had kids that I taught when they were itty bitty that have actually come and been part of my staff and helped me with my summer camps. So, you're talking about seeing things go full circle, and it's just great when they'll call me and say, "hey, I'm in from college. Can we go to lunch?" And I love that. I love having the opportunity to take them to lunch. So, I've been very, very fortunate and very blessed to have this opportunity. The good Lord gave me an athletic ability, and my grandmother told me when I was a kid, she said, "you know what, honey? The good Lord's not gonna be happy with you if you don't utilize that talent." So I feel like I'm still giving back. Not playing so much, because I don't play that much anymore, but to teach these kids, I just think that was my calling.