Acton,
MA. Dec
31, 2007 -
Ahh, New Year's Eve. Everyone seems
to have plans: whether sitting with the family on the couch
watching the ageless Dick Clark and the seems-to-be-everywhere
Ryan Seacrest, host the ball dropping in Times Square, or
attending the "remember
this night forever" party of the year. The Penn women's squash
team has the ultimate midnight bash plans. They will be celebrating
the start of 2008 somewhere over the equator on their way
to Cape Town, South Africa. Who can top that?
Head coach Jack
Wyant is expecting a calm ringing in of the New Year. "Hopefully we will all be sleeping," he said. "We
have a full day once we arrive. We will be somewhere over
Africa at the time. I estimate that we will be over the equator,
as we land around six in the morning in Cape Town."
Co-captain Lauralynn
Drury is hoping for
at least a small celebration. "That should be awesome, she said of being in
the air at midnight. "I think it will be fun. Hopefully we
won't all be sleeping. I'm sure we'll celebrate it when we
land at 6:15."
Celebrating when they land would actually
make perfect sense, as Cape Town is six hours ahead of Philadelphia
time.
According to NCAA rules, college athletic
teams are allowed one international trip every four years.
The team, Wyant, and their associate athletic director, Mary
DiStanislao, chose South Africa for a variety of reasons.
"It's a great squash nation, with great history and tradition.
Many world class players have come from South Africa," Wyant
said. "Second, it is a place that no one on our team has
been, so it is a once of a lifetime opportunity for us. Squash
has become so global, that many junior players have been
to Europe for tournaments. The third reason is for recruiting.
If the right kid comes along, we'd like to bring them to
Penn. The fourth reason is that it is warm."
The team was "over the moon," as
Wyant put it, when the decision became official.
"It will be great to be able to play squash and train there," Drury
said." Squash wise it will be great to get a lot of practice
in that will definitely come in handy later in the year.
Personally, it will be awesome to be able to spend so much
time with my friends."
The team will play four matches
during the course of the 10-day trip. Wyant expects them
to compete against A and B level men and A level women at
a few different squash clubs. The team will also have almost
daily practices, giving them the chance to get experience
on hotter courts. Wyant is hoping they will have a chance
to meet and train with WISPA World No. 30 Tenille
Swartz.
At just 20 years old, Swartz is the top female in South Africa,
a title she has held since 2005.
As one of the goals of the
trip is to learn about South Africa, the team will go on
many excursions including a trip to Table Mountain, the West
Coast Ostrich Farm and a game reserve. The entire trip was
put together by Trevor Davies, who lives in South Africa
and is an avid squash player who runs a sports travel agency.
One of the most educational parts of the trip will be when
the team takes a guided tour through the prison that housed
Nelson Mandela for 20 years.
Look for updates from the team
on SquashTalk.com throughout the course of their trip. Kirsten
Carlson will be chatting with the team via web, and we will
post segments of those chats, along with photos from the
day on the website.
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