In a circuit whose top echelon almost always can be
counted on to be populated by the same mostly Ivy League and
northeastern-corridor intercollegiate programs from one year to the next,
and indeed from one era to the next, one of the most noteworthy developments has been the ascent of the Denison University men's team, which didn't even
exist less than a decade ago, into the top-ten rankings, a status it has occupied
for each of the past five seasons. Under the guidance of coach Jon Bridge,
an alumnus himself of the class of 1982 who returned to his alma mater 12 years
ago, this small liberal arts school in Granville, Ohio, a sophisticated yet
charming 200-year-old town some 30 miles east of Columbus, has steadily
forged its way past many of its much larger and more established
counterparts and into the fringes of the top tier of the college game.

Javier Castilla Photo © Vaugn Winchell 2002

The four Castellini Courts, named to honor major benefactor and former
trustee and parent Bob Castellini, opened in 1994, and Denison entered the
NISRA in 1995-96, ranked only 33rd in the preseason polls but finishing that
inaugural season at No. 21. From there the program jumped to 13th place,
then 8th, then 10th. By 1999-2000, a Denison squad led by senior No. 1 Arif Paul,
who as a teenager had been the top junior player in his native India, had
emerged as the 7th-ranked team, following which the team finished 8th two
years ago and 9th last season, earning this spot with an exciting 5-4
decision in the final of the Hoehn Cup (for teams seeded Nos. 9-16) over a
University of Pennsylvania squad that had defeated Denison by a substantial
six matches to three margin just six weeks earlier.

Paul became the first Denison representative to earn first-team
all-American honors and he has been succeeded both as team No. 1 and as a
first-team all-American by Javier Castilla, a native of Colombia, whose
just-completed sophomore season saw him reach the quarter-finals of the
Individual Intercollegiate championships (where he lost to compatriot and
eventual winner Bernardo Samper of Trinity) and vault into the No. 6
position in the intercollegiate rankings. Castilla's serendipitous presence at
Denison stemmed from his attendance two summers ago at a Princeton squash camp, where he met fellow teacher and (at the time)rising junior Gaurav Mittal, who put a face on a Denison program in which Castilla already had an interest, and who persuaded him to apply to the admissions staff, which admitted him in time for the winter term.

Just as fortuitous as Castilla's talented presence on the rolling hills of Denison's appealing campus are those of a trio of India natives, though, surprisingly, theirs is far more environmental in origin. For reasons that are not completely apparent, there is an enormous number of children of Bombay citizens who attend Denison, and this somewhat unexplainable though undeniable phenomenon has serviced the squash program particularly well in view of how popular squash is in India. Word of mouth may well be playing a role as well, as are in all likelihood the efforts of Coach Bridge, whose low-key manner belies the respectful reputation he has acquired as a determined and successful recruiter.

Whatever the genesis of this backdrop, Bombay residents Abhijit Kukreja,
class of '03, and senior Gaurav Mittal filled the Nos. 2 and 4 positions
respectively, and their compatriot Ankur Gupta '05 played on last year's
varsity as well. In fact, nearly half of the 11 players comprising the
2001-2002 program were foreign-born, with Castilla and the three Indians
accompanied in the starting line-up by Sachin Obaid of Saudi Arabia, a
sophomore last year who played near the bottom of the starting nine. In this
softball era of college squash, no men's team can expect to compete among
the top ten without a healthy element of players from overseas, but what is
surprising is that a school of Denison's relatively small 2,000-student body
size and mid-Ohio location would be able to attract so many team members
from foreign countries.

Complementing this group were Americans Desmond Vindici and Andrew
Demetriou, both from Birmingham, MI, who filled the Nos. 3 and 5 positions
respectively, Pittsburgh resident Nick Johnson, sophomore Sahel Anwar, a U.
S. citizen of Pakistani extraction, and senior captain Conor O'Malley, who
concluded his varsity career in glorious fashion by providing the Hoehn
Cup-clinching win over his Penn opponent.

The two evenly-matched teams had entered the backstretch of their grueling meet with Denison holding a hard-earned four matches to three advantage, but Castilla was encountering major difficulty from Penn's freshman star Richard Repetto (who did indeed wind up winning that match) and O'Malley dropped the opening game of his match before winning a series of huge points that enabled him to win the second and third stanzas, both by 9-8 tallies, saving several game-points in the process, before closing the fourth game out 9-6 to seal the deal.

Remarkably, O'Malley said afterwards that he was never nervous at any
time during this airtight and deciding match, and certainly the experience
he evinced and the panic-free manner in which he played was as much a testimony as the victory itself to the character of the Denison program, which is
molded both by the exigencies of the schedule and the philosophy of Coach
Bridge. In order to play the top teams without exceeding the budgetary
constraints of what despite its several years of squash successes is still
officially a club program, the Denison varsity has to play multiple team
matches in each of the several trips east it makes per season. It played
Dartmouth and Navy in a mid-November visit to Annapolis, then crammed six
meets into a four-day early January trip to Connecticut that saw contests
with Connecticut College, Williams and Trinity at the latter's home courts
in Hartford followed by meets against Wesleyan, Penn and Yale in New Haven.
The only time that a top-tier team has made the trip to Granville was
when Dave Talbott, an Ohio native himself who has always acted with the
NISRA's best interests at heart, led his Eli squad out there two years ago,
an experience that will be repeated during the forthcoming season. The
unusually demanding nature of Denison's schedule is a marked contrast to the
relatively leisurely pace followed by most college teams, who normally play
one match on Wednesdays and another on Saturdays, with plenty of rest and
preparation time in between competitions. But Coach Bridge is convinced that
paradoxically it has strengthened the resolve of his team members, who have
bonded and become more close-knit in their shared adversity than many of
their opponents.

The "underdog" mentality of a heretofore unheralded program has doubtless
contributed to this dynamic as well, as has the premium Coach Bridge places
on a team-first commitment from his players and his emphasis on the
importance of physical conditioning. In this latter regard, it is fortunate
that the mid-1990's construction of the four international courts were part
of a 70,000 square foot addition to Denison's athletic complex which
included a 200-meter indoor track, a weight training room with Hammer Strength
equipment and a fitness facility. Castilla has become one of a number of
Denison players who win many of their matches by out-lasting rather than
overwhelming their opponents, and the two- and five-mile runs that are
frequently a part of team practices have abetted the success of this
approach.

Mittal and O'Connor are the only members of the 2001-2002 team who
graduated this past spring, and their departure will be at least partly
offset by the return this fall of Awicsh Jayaswal, a former second-team
all-American who as a freshman several years back defeated Dartmouth
all-American Beau River, who spent all of last year working on a project in
his native India. Jayaswal is expected to compete for the No. 2 position
behind Castilla, and the addition of his potent racquet should leave the
Denison program well positioned to duplicate and possibly even expand upon
the major mark they have been making for the past several years on the NISRA
college scene.

PREDICTED FINISH: NISRA: Fourth