(updated 28-nov-09 10:15 )  

Part One of a continuing series    

 [also read; 1. readers' followup , 2. online followup posting , 3. Jack Halford's letter , 4. US Squash's internal response]

I was watching a season-opening round robin college squash event at the wonderful Harvard Barnaby Courts on Saturday,and was chatting with a knowledgeable (and member of the Jesters) squash aquaintance. The conversation spurred me to get going on an opinion series on the state of squash in the US, which I have been working on for some time.

The college round robin last Saturday was upbeat in many dimensions. First and foremost, the Boston College women's team (with a full complement of nine players) was making a cheerful appearance against the Bates women. The mere presences of the BC nine is a long story and a testament to perseverence and dedication by Helen Whelan (sister of UVA's Mary) and her teammates. Also a few teams which had appeared on the verge of some sort of collapse last year, namely MIT and Conn College, showed up alive and well, motivated, and on the move.

THE SYMPTOMS

But the fact remains that of the approximately 250 college seniors, beginning their last season of play on the organized college circuit, for maybe as many as 70-80% of them, this will be their last appearance on the organized squash scene for some time, maybe forever. Where do they all go? Especially the women, who vanish abruptly in large numbers from the squash scene on their graduation?

And beyond the graduating squash players, why has the participation in adult tournaments across the USA been on a downward spiral, and adult membership in the USSRA as well?

Squash, of course is an individual sport, a highly individual one, so the responsibility rests to some extent on the players themselves. But I put much of the blame on the administrators of the game, who, instead of confronting the problem are hiding it, and are focused on the wrong things.

What the squash administrators in the US are doing is "following the [short term] money", a tactical approach which is the easy way out in any endeavor, but in terms of a long term winning strategy, is rarely the right road through the woods.

Specifically, the squash administrators are focused on serving the people who are donating the money, namely the parents of junior players and a concentrated group of affluent patrons of the game concentrated heavily in Greenwich, CT, Philadelphia and Brooklyn NY. And the administrators are focused on showing that their short term performance is good, so they present statistics showing that the overall "number of members" in the association has grown --- camouflaging the fact that it is the junior members and heavily subsidized prep school and college squash "members" whose numbers have swelled the statistics, while the number of bona fide adult members has dropped. And participation in the major National championships has correspondingly dropped.

It is so glaringly obvious, that Julian Illingworth even gave a speech about it at the Hartford US Nationals, which he won recently.

THE SOLUTIONS

Why?

The why is a complicated problem, which has been discussed broadly by many interested people.

I will address my view of the "why" by offering up some constructive advice to the administrators of the game as to some things to focus on. Even a focus on one or two of these areas would be likely to constitute some progress in the right direction.

Therefore, here follows the Ron Beck from SquashTalk list of things for the USA squash administrators to work on:

(1) US Adult squash rankings. They are a joke. Almost every serious US adult squash player has an anectode to tell about a player "rated" much higher or lower than where they ought to be. The crushingly overwhelming conclusion is that there are so many of these anecdotes out there, that the rating system is most probably almost entirely useless. What to do? Get rid of the adult ratings. Go back to a national top 20 rankings for each age and skill category. Reinstitute a respected INDEPENDENT committee to produce the rankings. Until there are a set of rankings, based on tournament play for that season, for players to respect and aspire to, why would highly competitive individuals (squash players) enter tournaments? They won't and they don't! I have said this before on this webpage - a rating is NOT a ranking. They are two completely different things, and until we have a new adult ranking system, we have a massive hole in our system.

(2) A real tournament series. Several decades ago there was an established US "tour" of amateur tournaments around the country. These provided a focus of competitive activities for players at all levels. There was a high level of competition to even get into the draw of these tournaments -- because they (see point #1 above) were the basis for achieving a National top 20 status. The squash administrators should get focused immediately on re-creating a series of this nature. It doesn't help US squash one bit to have pro "satellite" tournaments, in which none, one or at most two Americans can even make it into the qualifying pre-draw!
Hey, if such a tournament series was created, SquashTalk will feature and follow every single one of these events

(3) Rebuilding city leagues. As far as I know, the only major squash center with a really flourishing league (with all clubs participating and most of the top to bottom players participating) is the Boston area. Squash administrators should be putting their resources behind helping to re-organize these leagues. Part of the task is to get some publicity around the results. US Squash controls Squash Magazine, they should insist that proper efforts be made to re-institute regular regional reporting on leagues, local tournaments and the like; and that those reports be issued to websites like SquashTalk and publications like Squash magazine.

(4) Geographic reach. Shame on US Squash! Currently three of their seven Board members are from the SAME TOWN (Greenwich, CT), two from the same club, and there is no representation from most geographies involved in squash in the USA. I am sorry, what kind of a signal is that sending to players from Santa Fe, Phoenix, Columbus Ohio, Dayton, Toledo, Detroit, Boston, Atlanta and other locations when all of the US Squash board members are from California, New York, and Fairfield County CT?   The future of the growth and fluorishing of adult squash is an embracing of all the made and varied places where squash is played in the USA and creative work to bring those communities closer together. It used to be that one could go to a tournament in Houston, Texas and count on players coming from Santa Barbara, Santa Fe, Detroit, and many other places, a community of people many of whom knew each other and whose bonds were strengthed by these meetings and encouraged by initiatives from the national association. Board members from places like Portland, Oregon, Cleveland, Dallas, Buffalo and other places contributed a lot in the past. The US squash community needs to begin to rebuild all of this. It is NOT all about a few pro squash players or a National junior team, or a few venture capitalists buying Board seats, it IS about participation, and encouragement of participation around the country.

(5) Outreach to the Athletic Club Business. US squash needs to put a focus on putting a face on the squash business and making commercial club owners encouraged to install squash, and comfortable about the decision to install squash. Help those businesses get the word out about their facilities. (see above) encourage all kinds of events that build up competition between clubs and so forth. John Nimick pleaded with the squash adminstrators to focus on this activity, in an open meeting he held with squash "thought leaders" some seven years ago. His pleadings were ignored.

(6) Initiative to support women's squash. It is really a very strange statement on the disfunctional nature of our squash administration around the country, that during the time that a woman held the Chairmanship of US Squash, the overall picture actually got worse as far as participation by women in events such as the US national championships. I don't really know what the answer is. What I do know is that the vast majority of women's college squash players quit after leaving college, and there must be a good solution to this problem. I invite women to offer suggestions, which I will publish (email: editor@squashtalk.com).

I think that's enough suggestions for a start. Stay tuned to SquashTalk for more in a series on what constructive, positive actions can help squash grow and flourish.