1982-83 Star-Studded Squash Squad Inducted Into The Haverford School Hall Of Fame
More than three hundred people jammed the Neil Buckley Pavilion at The Haverford School on the evening of February 25th, when the school's Hall Of Fame inducted the 1982-83 squash team. This was only the second squash-related Haverford School induction ceremony (the previous honoree being Ralph E. Howe, class of '59, who was elected into the USSRA Hall Of Fame in the inaugural class of 2003 after a career in which he was U. S. National and North American Open champion in both singles and doubles) and the first time that a TEAM in any sport was given this level of recognition by the prominent suburban-Philadelphia school.

The squad, coached by the legendary George Haines, went undefeated in Inter-AC competition that year and even pounded (eight matches to one) a Dartmouth team that was ranked sixth in the college standings. Amazingly, no fewer than NINE of the 10 team members went on to captain highly-ranked college teams, and it can be safely said that that varsity left a legacy that profoundly influenced both college squash during the second half of the 1980's and the amateur and professional game throughout the 1990's and extending even up to the present time.

The No. 1 position that year was split between Morris Clothier '83, who co-captained Franklin & Marshall to the No. 2 intercollegiate team ranking in 1986-87 and who went on to record his ninth U. S. National Doubles title last spring, a record for a right-wall player, and Russ Ball '84, who starred on four national-champion teams at Harvard and reached the final of the U. S. National Singles his senior year. Behind them were Chris Spahr '83 and Beau Buford '84, Clothier's F & M teammates and later multi-titled doubles players in their own rights; Spahr's younger brother Terry '84, who starred at the University of Pennsylvania and later won both the Atlantic Coast and Woodruff-Nee championships in the early-1990's; George Krall '83, Bruce Hauptfuhrer '83, Alex Cuthbert '83 and Dan Hutchinson '85, who would subsequently serve as team captains at Yale, Trinity, Dartmouth and Harvard respectively; and Robert Hobbs '85.

In addition to the 1982-83 squash team, the Haverford School Hall Of Fame class of '06 consists of five athletic stars (and one coach) in other sports, whose induction (in some cases posthumously) this past Saturday evening brings to 43 the number of members in the four years since the Hall began.