Coach John Stallings And Vinay Asthana Inducted Into Franklin & Marshall Hall of Fame by Rob Dinerman Dateline October 24, 2022
--- This past Friday evening John Stallings, who coached the men's
varsity squash team for 30 years, and Vinay Asthana '99, who twice
earned All-America selection during his college career, were among 10
inductees into the Franklin & Marshall Athletics Hall of Fame Class
of 2022. Lauren Packer Webster, F&M's Director of Athletic and
Recreation, and Margaret Hazlett, Vice President and Dean of Student
Affairs, presided over the event, which was attended by many F&M
alumni and former Hall of Fame honorees as well.
Coach Stallings, an F&M alumnus himself as a member of the Class of
'76, is the winningest squash coach in the program's history, finishing
his career with 239 victories in his capacity as the Diplomats' head
coach from 1991-2007. Prior to that he had served as co-head coach
along with "Doc' Marshall from 1987-91 after having previously spent
six years on staff as an assistant to Coach Marshall. F&M's 1986-87
team, co-captained by four-time first-team All-American Morris Clothier
and Chris Spahr, who were backed by stand-outs (and later high
achievers in USSRA singles and doubles competition) Geoff Kennedy,
Aashish Kamat, Yogesh Panchal, Beau Buford and Nat Otis, compiled a
dual-meet record of 15-1 and were ranked second nationally behind only
perennial champion Harvard. The only F&M Hall of Fame team
inductees other than this 1986-87 squash unit are the 1940, 1950, 1964,
1972 and 1974 football teams, the 1942 cross-country team, the 1952
basketball and soccer teams, the 1978 track and field relay team, the
1979 and 1991 basketball teams, the 1985 women's cross-country team,
the 1988 women's basketball team and the 2007 and 2009 women's lacrosse
teams.
Asthana, who earned second-team All-America honors as a junior and was
All-America Honorable Mention his senior year, had an overall 69-23
won-lost record (a .750 winning percentage), highlighted by a 19-1 mark
during his junior year. He and Coach Stallings join 13 F&M alums
who have previously been selected for the school's Hall of Fame based
on their achievements in squash. The others, in order of their year of
graduation, are Elizabeth C. Mackey '75, who is recognized as the
founder of F&M's women's team; Jennifer Whiting '78, Leslie
Johnston Grayson '82, the first F&M player, male or female, to earn
first-team All-America honors; the 1987 co-captains Clothier, a
nine-time U. S. National Doubles champion, and Spahr, the longtime head
pro at the University Club of Boston and the 2018 recipient of the U.
S. Squash Men's Sportsmanship Award; their college teammates Kamat and
Panchal, both Class of '89; Carol Gould '89; Lee Belknap '91, the
recipient of the prestigious Betty Richey Award presented "to
that collegiate player who best exemplifies the ideals of squash in her
love of and devotion to the game, her strong sense of fairness and her
excellence of play, contributions and leadership"; three-time (1992-95)
Intercollegiate Individuals finalist Margo Green '95; two-time
first-team All-American Jehangir Pandole '96; four-time second-team
All-American (and recipient of the John Skillman Award "presented
annually to a senior who excelled as both a top player and showed
impeccable sportsmanship throughout his career") Jess Berline '97; and
Asthana's twin brother (and classmate) Vineet, whose 109 dual-meet wins
is tops in the history of varsity squash at Franklin & Marshall.
