USA Team Withdraws from Pan Am Federation Cup

by Rob Dinerman

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... but make difficult decision to go to Melbourne

New York. Oct 3, 2001 © 2001 Rob Dinerman for Squashtalk.com

In the wake of the terrible tragedy of September 11th, the U. S. Open, which had been scheduled for later that week in Boston, was postponed and the Canadian and American teams withdrew from the Pan American Federation Cup games, which are still scheduled to occur in early October in El Salvador, South America.

The U.S. Team still plans to participate in the World Team Championships on October 21-29 in Melbourne, Australia, though that decision was only reached after much consideration and in the wake of at least one formal team meeting late last month, during which the various options, risks and ramifications were exhaustively examined, with each team member urged to both make an individual decision and contribute to what would become an important team decision.

The original plan had been to have the bottom four finishers of the eight-player Men's Team Trials(which were conducted at the Westchester Squash And Fitness Center in Mamaroneck, NY in early August) represent the U.S. in South America and the top four finishers go to the more important world event in Melbourne.

Given the extremely brief time gap and extensive travel distance between the two competitions, Men's Head Coach Paul Assaiante wisely decided that anyone attending the first tourney was extremely likely to risk "leaving his legs in South America" and be unable to put forth an optimal performance in Melbourne, where it is extremely important for the team to improve on its 17th place finish the last time this event was held in '99. A team has to win the 17-24 bracket to be allowed into the 9-16 pool the next time (in an arrangement similar to what happens in Davis Cup play in tennis), and Assaiante, still unhappy over that one lost positional slot that consigned the Americans to the lower 17-24 bracket from '99, was determined to avoid a repeat this time around.

There is no women's world team competition this year, so from the start it was known that the four women comprising this year's American team-Dana Betts, Louisa Hall, Margaret Elias and Blair Clark---were only going to be competing in the Pan Am Games. One of the greatest practical concerns that arose in the discussions among team members from both the men's and women's teams was the real possibility that, as a consequence of some significant political or military action that might be taken either by or against the United States while the players were in these considerably distant foreign lands, they might be stranded there for some indeterminate amount of time (as happened for a full week after the September 11th plane crashes), and unable to return home.

A combined three of the eight total team members of the U. S. Pan American squads (Hall, Elias and Pete Karlen) are college underclassmen (all, as it happens, at Harvard) and this fact, as well as their consequent relative youth, had an important bearing on the decision-making process. Pan Am men's player-coach Mark Lewis also has an important work commitment as the head pro at a club in Boston, and the other men's team members, Beau River and Dave McNeely, joined in the overall thinking that prevailed. In the end, and with the Team Canada decision three days earlier serving as a probably at least somewhat influential precedent, it was the consensus of the eight players involved, as well as Sharon Bradey, Karen Schmidt-Fellner and Brenda Grossnickle, the women's coach, manager and Head of the USSRA Women's Squash Committee respectively and their men's team counterparts Lewis, Assaiante and Mark Talbott, to recommend to the Executive Committee that the teams be withdrawn.

The men's team entry to Australia was probably more critical (given the global nature and prestige of this competition and the aforementioned desire to improve America's pool position for the future) and definitely more complicated. Particularly in the spotlight were the team's best player, reigning S. L. Green U.S. National champion Damian Walker, who consolidated this supremacy in August, when he dominated the team trials without the loss of a single game, and Coach Assaiante, whose situation was further complicated by the disc surgery he had to undergo on September 27th, and the month-long bed rest the recuperation from such a substantial procedure usually necessitates. In fact plane travel, even for relatively short distances, in the near wake of this operation is frowned upon in the best of circumstances, and the nonstop flight from New York to Melbourne consumes 24 hours, with the current extensive and physically draining security precautions at the airport exerting even more of a toll. Assaiante's and Walker's enormous business commitments-- Paul's as Head Coach of the three-time defending Intercollegiate Champion Trinity College team and to the enhanced responsibilities he recently acquired when he was promoted last spring to the position of Director of Athletic Development, Damian's as head squash professional at the Field Club of Greenwich, where he runs a series of camps, clinics, lessons and leagues year round, with the activity especially frenzied in the autumn---make them especially vulnerable should the team be prevented from making its scheduled late-October return. It made for a formidable balancing act, given their stature and the crucial off- and on-court roles respectively each will play in any success the American team can attain.

While the other three team members--- youngsters Preston Quick and Tim Wyant (both of whom will in fact be going out before the rest to play in the Singles competition) and veteran and Harvard Club of NY head pro Richard Chin--- were able to make the needed arrangements and decided pretty early on that they would be able to go, both Walker and Assaiante had to spend more time wrestling with the issues confronting them. The commitment and boldness of Assaiante's damn-the-torpedoes decision to go to Melbourne even in the face if his medical exigency may have had a motivating influence on Walker, who after a brief period of wavering and soul-searching, concluded just in the past few days(as of this October 2nd writing)that he owed it to the situation to go to Melbourne and lead the American team from the No. 1 position that both his career-long and especially recent performances have earned him.

If anything, the gravity of the recent world events and the issues it has unexpectedly posed have served to unify the U. S. squad, whose members have been consistently practicing with each other even as the scenario was fitfully evolving over the past few weeks. The composition of this team was fairly arrived at after a stiff winnowing process and the four-day team trials, and morale and the quality of the practices has been high. This U. S. team is good and is now also good to go, and hopes are strong for a solid performance in Melbourne that will position Team USA for even better results in the future.

Squashtalk will be providing updates of the individual and team results throughout the competition. (at www.squashtalk.com/melbourne2001)

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