With Regard to the Wild Card
by Richard Millman

April 24, 2015

With regard to the Wild Card, every wild card in a US-based tournament should go to an American who is trying to develop his or her game to compete at the highest level.

We can't change 100 years of college tradition overnight and schools rightly provide a bright path to the future for perhaps 99% of college Squash players. But the insistence on playing and practicing Varsity team Squash to the exclusion of professional training and  tournaments has held us back.

We have now (and as far as I can see have always had) as much if not more talent than any other nation. But the simple mathematics of a 17 year old athlete who plays 15 hours per week for four years attempting to compete against a similar 17 year old who plays 50 hours per week is always going to result in the college athlete falling behind at the most crucial developmental stage of a Squash career.

In Sweden and Egypt - both of which have a college academic tradition - more perhaps than the UK which has always had greater numbers going into the workplace rather than college - there has been a very successful pathway for players who have alternated a semester of college with a semester of PSA or WSA. Without the limitations placed by having to only play and train for team Squash this has allowed some academically minded professional players to get their degrees over 5-7 year periods and to rise to lofty heights in the World Rankings.

In my view we need to adopt a policy of actively encouraging US Squash players to play a minimum of 7 PSA/WSA tournaments per year and to create a possible pathway for semester on  /semester off players to attend college and play team Squash.

Both in Tennis and Squash the US has failed to see the big picture and has hamstrung itself with traditions that have damaged the capacity of the nation to evolve in these sports.

Couple this with the fact that coaches are forced to live by their win/loss records, there is relatively little energy going into trying to develop the players that leave the junior ranks and go into college.

It is more that players of a known quantity are maintained rather than improved - as will always happen when you segregate all the top players to practice with players less than themselves and only allow them to come out to play against other top players occasionally. There is of course some progress - even remarkable considering the limited circumstances, but still stunted as compared to what could be possible.

Imagine if all of the top US players could practice with PSA/WSA players on a regular basis while still studying.

I believe we would see at least 20 US players in the World top 100 within five years and 40 within 10 if we allowed this program to be implemented.

And would it be so terrible if of all the college players 15 or 20 of them graduated after 7 years instead of 3 or 4? If they had a world class Squash career behind them I think it would actually enhance their value to society as mature and balanced people capable of competing globally.

It is hard to break honorable and well loved traditions. But if we didn't do so then we would still be worried about sailing off of the edge of the world.