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In Memoriam: Maryland Doubles Champion George Doetsch

DOUBLES COMMUNITY MOURNS LOSS OF OUTSTANDING SPORTSMAN

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Oct 3, 2003, By Rob Dinerman © 2002 SquashTalk

George L. Doetsch Sr., a member of the Maryland State Squash Racquets Association (MSSRA) Hall of Fame and the winner of 15 Maryland State doubles titles as well as the 1963 U. S. Senior (45-and-over) championship with partner Bill Lamble, died September 23rd of an apparent heart attack at Oak Crest Village in Parkland, MD, where he had lived for the past eight years.

The former radio executive at WBAL was an avid squash player from 1939, when at age 24 he took up the game after having been an outstanding college swimmer and Navy swimming instructor at the Bainbridge Naval Training Center during World War II, to 1983, when he finally stopped playing at age 68, two years after his retirement after an 18-year career selling advertising space at
WBAL. The Baltimore native and life-long resident was 88 years old, and he is survived by his wife Doris, to whom he was married for 64 years, their son, George L. Doetsch Jr., two grand-children and five great-grandchildren.

A 1933 graduate of City College, where he won medals in swimming, Doetsch started playing squash on the second floor of the Park Plaza Building at Charles and Madison Streets in downtown Baltimore on a doubles court used by members of the nearby (and now defunct) University Club. His impressive size (he was 6' 2", which was considered quite tall during that era) and power (a legacy
of his years as a swimmer) caused him to gravitate to the right wall, where his skills and steady, tin-free style were an excellent complement to Lamble's shot-making and finesse.

Deemed "arguably the best doubles team ever in Maryland" by Jim Lacy, who along with his brother Joe were frequent opponents of Doetsch and Lamble, they were certainly the best Maryland doubles team during the period from 1949, when they won their first Maryland State Doubles crown, through 1964, when they won their 15th (in 16 years) and last such title. In 1962 the USSRA inaugurated a National Senior Doubles event for players age 45-and-over (which was changed some years later to a 50-and-over), and Doetsch and Lamble won the second edition of this event in 1963.

Doetsch and his perennial partner, Baltimore co-denizen and good friend Lamble, also competed in doubles matches in both England and South Africa in tours arranged by the Jesters Club during this period. Inducted by the MSSRA into its Hall Of Fame in 2000, Doetsch also played gold well enough to have garnered three holes in one over the years, the last of which, at the Five Farms
Course in Baltimore County, occurred just over a year ago. He had a pilot's license and flew Piper Cubs for many years as well. "A giant of a man and a giant of a gentleman," USSRA CEO Palmer Page noted in praising Mr. Doetsch's decades of achievement in and service to squash, and few aficionados of the game, especially those from Maryland, would dispute Page's glowing assessment.

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