Samuel
Purdy Howe III, 7/14/38-9/15/22, Hall of Fame Squash Player And
Multiple-Times US Squash National Singles and Doubles
Champion by Rob Dinerman Dateline September 15, 2022
--- We at DSR are sad to report that Sam "Sunny" Howe, a racquet-sports
legend who starred in squash, court tennis and tennis and the
highlights of whose squash career were the U. S. National Singles
titles that he won in 1962 and 1967 (with three other final-round
advances as well) and the U. S. National Doubles championships that he
won three times each with Bill Danforth (in 1963, 1964 and 1967) and
his younger brother Ralph (from 1969-71), died early Thursday morning
following a month-long hospitalization. He was 84 years old.
As one of the highest-achieving products of the famed Merion Cricket
Club junior program that churned out so many national-championship
players for several decades during the middle part of the 20th Century,
Sam Howe was known for his fluid, classic strokes, deadly short game
and level-headed demeanor. The Howe family lived less than 100 yards
away from Merion during Sam's childhood years. As a star high-school
athlete at Haverford School (also located easy walking distance from
Merion), Sam Howe led his teammates to Inter-Ac league squash and
tennis championships in both his junior and senior years during the
mid-1950's, following which he played No. 1 during his entire varsity
squash career at Yale, reaching the finals of the Intercollegiate
Individual tournament in both his junior and senior years and leading
the Elis as a sophomore to the 1958 Ivy League title and as a junior to
the 1959 USSRA National Five-Man Team Championship. He also played an
important role on Yale tennis teams that won the EITA title (the
equivalent of the Ivy League championship) in 1959 and 1960 and were
led at the top of the lineup by future International Tennis Hall of
Famers Gene Scott (Howe's doubles partner) and Donald Dell.
Between them, Ralph and Sam Howe dominated amateur squash throughout
the decade of the 1960's and into the early 1970's, with the 1967-68
season being the only one in the period from 1962-71 in which neither
of them won either the U. S. National Singles or Doubles or both. In
1962 Ralph won the Intercollegiate Individuals (for the first of
two-straight years) and Sam, trailing Ben Heckscher 2-0, 9-7 in the
final, rallied to win the U. S. National Singles crown. In 1963 Sam and
Danforth won the U. S. National Doubles, then successfully defended
that title (18-17 in the fifth in their final-round win over Claude
Beer and Kit Spahr) in 1964, the same year in which Ralph won the U. S.
National Singles over Henri Salaun. Ralph Howe and Diehl Mateer then
won the U. S. National Doubles in 1965 and 1966, beating Sam Howe and
Danforth both years in the finals.
The two teams met for the third straight year in the 1967 U. S.
National Doubles final, but that match ended prematurely when Mateer
ruptured his left Achilles tendon late in the first game. Since Sam
Howe had won both the U. S. National Singles and Canadian
National Singles and Doubles tournaments earlier that winter, he became
the first player ever to win both the U. S. and Canadian National
Singles and Doubles titles ---- dubbed squash's Grand Slam --- in the
same year, a feat that has never been equaled. Also during the 1966-67
season, Ralph and Sam Howe met in the final round of the historically
pro-dominated North American Open, with Ralph winning, 15-13 in the
fifth. It was the only time in the 15-year period from 1960-74 that the
tournament was won by someone other than a member of the extended Khan
clan, and during the 27 remaining years in which the North American
Open was played after 1967 (the 1994 edition being its swan song in
deference to the degree to which the softball game had taken over by
that juncture), there would be a "sibling final" only one more time,
when Sharif straight-gamed his younger brother Aziz in 1981.
After competing against each other in U. S. National Doubles play for
more than a half-decade, the Howe brothers teamed up to win the
tournament three straight years from 1969-71, during the first two
years of which Sam Howe also reached the finals of the U.S. National
Singles, losing both times in a five-game final to Anil Nayar. Although
total-replacement operations to both hips sidelined Sam Howe for close
to 20 years starting in the mid-1970’s and extending through most of
the decade of the 1980’s, he marked the silver anniversary of his last
U. S. National Doubles championship at the Open level in 1971 by
teaming with Jim Zug to win the 1996 U. S. National Doubles 55-and-over
title, with age-group national squash doubles titles to follow in 2001
(the Canadian 60-and-over) with Chris Pickwoad and in 2004 (the U. S.
65-and-over) with Don Mills, whom Sam Howe also partnered to the 65's
World Doubles crown later that spring.
Two years earlier Ralph and Sam Howe had been inducted into the U. S.
Squash Hall of Fame as members of the Class of 2002, along with
four-time (1938, 1941, 1942 and 1948) U. S. National women's champion
Cecile Bowes. In 2021 the Howe brothers were inducted, also jointly,
into the International Court Tennis Hall of Fame. They are the only two
people who are members of the Hall of Fame in both of those sports, and
a racquet-sports biography of the Howe brothers titled Brothers & Champions: Ralph And Sam Howe--Stories From The Golden Age Of Racquet Sports is due to be released later this autumn.
In addition to his extraordinary multiple-front accomplishments, Sam
Howe was a beloved figure throughout the racquet-sports community,
known for his dignity, generosity and class. Upon receiving the somber
news, Ned Edwards, the Executive Director of the Specter Center and a
U. S. Squash Hall of Famer himself, described Sam Howe as “a terrific
man, gentle, smart, funny, interested in others and so humble about his
own outstanding achievements, life and career. Sam Howe was a treasure.”
1969 U. S. National Doubles Champions Ralph And Sam Howe,
Finalists David Pemberton-Smith And Ian McAvity Flank Tournament
Officials
Sam Howe Receiving The Trophy From Seymour Knox After Winning The 1962 U. S. National Singles As Finalist Ben Heckscher Looks On
Germain Glidden With Sam Howe After Howe Won The 1967 U. S. Nationals
Bill Danforth And Sam Howe After Winning The 1963 U. S. National Doubles
