U. S. Squash Hall Of Famers Honored During U.S. Open
by Rob Dinerman of Dailysquashreport.com
photos courtesy Steve Cubbins
Dateline October 5, 2011 --- During a between-matches break in the action as the U. S. Open tournament’s opening main-draw round unfolded this past weekend, four Philadelphia-based U. S. Squash Hall Of Fame inductees --- namely Darwin Kingsley III, who was elected in 2001, Ann Wetzel (2003), Sam Howe (2002) and Demer Holleran (2004) --- were invited onto the portable glass-wall exhibition court and recognized for their outstanding careers of achievement in and contribution to the game.
Kingsley, like his father Darwin Jr. and younger brother Charlie, was USSRA President from 1974-75, as part of the only family to have three members serve in that prestigious capacity. Several years after his term ended, he was appointed to fill the newly created position of Executive Director of the Association, in which important role he served for nearly 20 years, overseeing the most impressive expansion in the history of the sport. Though known mostly for what he accomplished in that role, Kingsley was also an excellent player, captain of the Yale team in 1950 (a position Charlie would himself fill nine years later) and winner of several national age-group doubles titles during the 1970’s and 1980’s. An annual hardball tournament named in his honor was held at Penn for many years.
Like the Kingsley brothers, Howe was a Yale captain, in his case in the early 1960’s, prior to winning the U. S. Nationals both in 1962 and in 1967, the year in which he became the first and still the only player ever to win the Canadian and U. S. National singles and doubles tournaments in the same season. The only blemish on that campaign was his 15-13 fifth-game loss in the final of the North American Open to his younger brother Ralph (the first-ever Open final to be contested between siblings), with whom Sam later teamed up to win the U. S. National Doubles throughout the three-year span from 1969-71. Fittingly, this pair would be inducted into the Hall Of Fame on the same Saturday-night ceremony during the National Doubles weekend in New York in the spring of 2002.
Wetzel was best known for her perseverance --- she was runner-up in the Nationals six times before breaking through in 1964 --- as well as her adaptability, which she proved by winning the National Doubles crown four times with four different partners during the 12-year period from 1952-1964. She was also instrumental in helping found the college women’s squash association in the early-1970’s and in both starting and coaching the women’s squash team at Penn for several decades until her retirement in 1994.
Holleran would follow in Wetzel’s footsteps as Penn women’s coach, and indeed would lead the Lady Quakers to their first and only national college team championship in 2000. By then Holleran’s legacy as one of the best woman players in U. S. squash history had been fully established by her host of national junior titles; her trio of intercollegiate individual crowns in the late 1980’s; her triumph in each of the last six holdings of the women’s hardball Nationals (1989-94), with several national softball championships as well; and her 10 National Doubles wins (the last nine with Alicia McConnell) and six World Doubles crowns. She also first starred on and then coached the U. S. women’s teams in international competition; indeed, she barely made it on time to her Hall Of Fame induction ceremony at the University Club of New York in October 2004, having flown in that same day from Amsterdam, where she had been coaching the American team in the biennial World Team Championships. She currently operates the Fairmount Athletic Club in suburban Philadelphia.
Darwin Kingsley
Ann Wetzel
Sam Howe
Demer HolleranBack To Main
