William Ramsdell Dann, 1926-2006, Buffalo Squash Star Had a Half Century Doubles Partnership by Rob Dinerman
December 18, 2006-Squashtalk
has learned of the death earlier this month of Will Dann, a charter
member of the Buffalo Squash Hall Of Fame (inducted in 2000) and winner
with left-wall partner and lifelong friend Nelson Graves II of four U.
S. and four Canadian National Doubles age-group championships, who
succumbed on December 9th after a six-month bout with cancer at age 80.
Dann also was a solid singles player (with five 50-and-over Buffalo
city titles to his credit) and noted bagpipe player as well (who
performed for years as a member of the Caledonia Bagpipers), but he is
best known for the remarkable (indeed, quite possibly unparalleled)
longevity of his partnership with Graves, Dann's childhood friend,
fellow Buffalo native and Dartmouth '50 classmate (after they had spent
two years in the Navy together), with whom he formed a classic doubles
partnership, with Dann providing the pace and speed from his right-wall
post that set up Graves's exceptional shot-making skills and court
acumen.
It was at the suggestion in the early 1950's of Al Malloy, the Buffalo
Tennis & Squash Club head pro at the time and later a legendary
squash and tennis coach at Penn, that Dann and Graves teamed up on the
doubles court, faring well in the invitational tournaments of the day,
including the inaugural event hosted by their own club in 1956. When
the Buffalo Tennis & Squash Club hosted its golden-anniversary 50th
edition of this tourney in December '05, Graves and Dann not only
entered the 70-and-over flight but got all the way to the finals, even
though they were each just months away from their respective 80th
birthdays!
This latter phenomenon underscores the depth and staying power of the
degree to which this pair was "joined at the hip": born a mere two
weeks apart, each the god-parent to one of the other's sons, they were
friends and doubles partners, through good times and bad, through
injuries and slumps, for more than FIFTY YEARS, a cautionary and
emphatic contrast to today's climate, especially the ever-changing and
demonstrably loyalty-free top tier of the ISDA pro tour, where
partnerships are known to last fewer than 50 DAYS, and, as one current
example should confirm, only two of the top seven teams in this
season's upcoming North American Open (Gary Waite/Damien Mudge and
Chris Walker/Viktor Berg, who met in the final) are intact from the
Open of a year ago.
And there were far more good times than bad for the Graves/Dann tandem,
especially when they won the Canadian 40's in '67, the Canadian and U.
S. 50's in '78, the U. S. 60's in '87, the Canadian 60's in '88 and the
Canadian and U. S. 70's in '97, an especially gratifying achievement in
the latter case for occurring on their home courts in Buffalo in front
of their enthusiastically cheering friends, family and club members,
who turned out in force to cheer these popular protagonists to victory.
Seven-time Buffalo city A Doubles champs during their younger years,
they played in their club's annual invitational more than three dozen
times, the last time, as noted, just last December, a year almost to
the day prior to Dann's death.
Dann's life, like his partnership with Graves, was marked by stability
and loyalty; he worked in various capacities at Marine Midland Bank for
more than three decades prior to retiring in the early 1990's, and was
married for the last 57 years of his life to Marian (Taddy) Taylor, who
survives him, as do his sons, Jessie and William Jr., and a total of
four grand-children.
Even as recently as his last practice game with Graves this past March
(in which, as the latter happily noted, they prevailed over much
younger opponents), Dann appeared to be in good health. But a bad case
of shingles shortly thereafter likely made him vulnerable to the cancer
near his lung that followed, and he spent his final few weeks in
hospice care near his East Aurora home.