Richard William Danforth, 12/31/27 – 2/13/17, Three-Time US National Doubles Champion
by Rob Dinerman

photo legacy.com

Dateline February 17th – DSR is sad to report the death of Richard William (Bill) Danforth, 89, a power-hitting right-wall player who won the US National Doubles and the Canadian National Doubles three times each during the 1960’s. All six of those championships occurred with Sam Howe as his complementary sharp-shooting left-wall partner, and each of the three American titles came in dramatic fashion for one reason or another.

   In 1963, the Howe/Danforth pairing fell behind two games to love against the Vehslage brothers, Steve and Ramsey, on a Wilmington Country Club court whose walls had gotten wet due to the humidity of an unseasonably warm day. This caused the ball to bounce erratically off the walls, and Danforth, who had a habit of letting balls carom off the back wall so that he could position himself to blast the away, was repeatedly being victimized by the ball’s unpredictable action. Urged by Howe after the second game to volley everything he could, Danforth implemented this stratagem and he and Howe were able to dominate the remainder. Their attempted title defense the following year came down to a simultaneous-championship-point against Kit Spahr and Claude Beer, and on the pivotal final exchange, Spahr let on over-hit Danforth cross-court go to the back wall and could only watch in dismay when it nicked and rolled out at his feet.

   Howe and Danforth then lost to Diehl Mateer and Howe’s younger brother Ralph in both 1965 and 1966, but when the two teams faced off again in the 1967 final in Buffalo (shortly after the Howe/Danforth pairing had won the Canadian National Doubles for the third straight time), the highly-anticipated rematch was abruptly truncated late in the first game when Mateer ruptured his Achilles tendon.  In addition to his squash achievements, Danforth was an exceptional golfer (he and Arnold Palmer golfed together when they were growing up near Pittsburgh), a Korean War veteran and a highly successful investment banker. He is survived by Leslie McCord Danforth, his wife of 59 years; their two children, Richard and William Danforth, and a grand-daughter, Cooper McCord Danforth.