February 7, 2002 -Edward
J. Hahn, who stunned the squash world more than a half-century ago by
becoming the first midwesterner to win the USSRA Nationals, then
accentuated this accomplishment by doing it again one year later,
passed away on December 13, 2001 at his home in Wayne, NJ at the age of
88. Hahn was cited by The Detroit News as the 6th most important
amateur athlete in Detriot history. (July 31, 2001, Joe Falls)
Born in New York, where he later worked as a cop during the years
immediately prior to World War II, Hahn first moved to Detroit in 1934
before spending a few years managing a health club in St. Louis. Ed
served in the Signal Corps during World War Two and was awarded the
Bronze Star for his actions in combat in New Guinea. After serving
during the war years, he returned to Detroit, where his involvement in
the game began in earnest.
His brother, Joseph T. Hahn, several years older, who would eventually
serve as USSRA President from 1961-63, was a much more extroverted and
forceful presence, while by contrast Ed was content to take a much
lower profile. Behind his quiet and gentlemanly demeanor, though, was a
steely determination to win, as the traditional powers back east would
discover first-hand in 1950, when that year's National Championships
were hosted by the University Club of New York.
AN UNKNOWN ON THE EAST COAST IN '50
The first 53 editions of this the most important squash championship of
that era had all been won by players who hailed from either
Philadelphia, New York or Boston, were in their 20's or at most early
30's, had attended (or, in the case of a few undergraduate winners,
were attending) Ivy League schools and had memberships in exclusive
private clubs.
Hahn, a former basketball player who throughout his career was clad in
high-top coal-black canvas basketball shoes, was remarkably atypical in
that he fit into NONE of those categories, a fact which also meant that
he entered the rarefied atmosphere of that national tournament as a
virtual unknown. He trailed the formidable and multi-titled Cal
McCracken two games to one in the quarters before rallying through the
final two games, while in the top half's other quarter top-seeded Diehl
Mateer was shocked by the upset-causing heroics of Pittsburgh's Jack
Isherwood, who was spent by this career-highlight effort and offered
little resistance to Hahn in their ensuing straight-set semi.
This brought the unseeded Hahn to the final round, where he would face
a similarly unexpected finalist in New York's Dick Rothschild, a
well-known player who was on a major run of his own in which he had
already defeated first four-time National Champion Stanley Brinton in
the quarters and then Boston's Roger Bakey in the semis.
There was great anticipation flowing through the packed cathedral-like
gallery of the University Club's main exhibition courts before this
final between two heretofore unheralded contestants, but the match
itself proved an anti-climax, as Rothschild, like Isherwood before him,
had already spent himself in his pre-Hahn exploits while Hahn himself,
ironically the far older player at age 37, was inexorable throughout
his 30-minute 15-4, 15-10 and 17-14 victory.
HUMIDITY AND FOOTWEAR
Both Hahn's conditioning level and his adaptability served him well
this weekend, whose unseasonable warmth both sapped the energy of his
victims and nullified shotmaking to a degree that frustrated several of
his opponents. Though possessed of a fine touch himself, Hahn
understood the limitations this weekend's climate imposed on that
approach and he instead resourcefully ground his way to this
prestigious championship.
One other noteworthy aspect of that weekend's evolution was the
distinctive footwear worn by both participants in the final. Hahn's
aforementioned presentation differed dramatically from the norm in both
model and especially in color in that whites-only era, while Rothschild
played in stylish white saddle-soled shoes bound across the middle by a
brown leather band. Neither was responding to any orthopedic or medical
exigency; both simply felt more comfortable in their respective
choices, which normally would seem better suited to a Harlem asphalt
playground or a country fair than to the court environs of the
University Club.
EAST COAST ARROGANCE
Though there was a certain grudging respect for Hahn's accomplishment
that weekend in Manhattan, there was also an element, especially among
the USSRA establishment in the northeastern corridor, which viewed
squash as "their" game, that Hahn's title had been something of a
fluke. After all, rather than defeating the top seeds head-to-head, he
had instead been the beneficiary of a draw that had broken in such a
way as to allow him to win both his semi-final and final against lesser
known opponents who had knocked off the top seeds for him and exhausted
themselves in the process.
There was still a tendency at that time for Easterners in the squash
world to look down their noses at players from other parts of the
country and to regard them almost as interlopers. Throughout the
interceding 12 months between Hahn's win in New York and the 1951 event
at the Lake Shore Club in Chicago, the feeling therefore was that Hahn
was something short of a deserving National Champion who had better
enjoy his status while he could because in Illinois the title would
return back east where it belonged.
Boston's Roger Bakey pressed him hard in their semi-final, but Hahn
survived that test and moved on to the final, where he faced another
Bostonian 13 years his junior in the person of Henri Salaun.
MEMORABLE BATTLE WITH SALAUN
The latter, who would go on to win the Nationals four times (in 1955,
1957, 1958 and 1961) while establishing a legendary rivalry with Diehl
Mateer, was entering his first Nationals final. He had broken a string
in the only racquet he brought to Chicago in his semi-final match and
therefore had to borrow one of Bakey's racquets for the final, an
ironic development for someone who later became a highly successful
proprietor of a sports equipment company specializing in racquet sales,
including a number of models that bear his name! Salaun, who liked to
play with loosely-strung racquets, had to make do with Bakey's models,
which were extremely tightly strung. Though this disparity caused
Salaun some understandable adjustment problems at the final's outset,
he nevertheless earned a two games to one lead before falling behind in
the fourth game and deciding to let that game go and prepare for the
all-or-nothing fifth.
Years later Salaun lamented this decision, feeling that had he pressed
the 38-year-old Hahn all the way through the fourth game he might not
have rescued the game but at least he likely would have depleted him
and left him more vulnerable in the fifth game. Instead, a fresh Hahn
got on a hot shooting spree, volleying a series of sharply-hit nicks
and winners that brought him to a seemingly insurmountable 10-1 lead.
Twenty-four years later, in the semi-finals of the 1975 Veterans (i. e.
40-and-over) Nationals, the 49-year-old Salaun, who this time found
himself operating from the opposite end of the age gap in his match
with 40-year-old Pete Bostwick, would face the identical formidable
deficit and close to 12-14 before surrendering that match and with it
his last chance to add a seventh National Veterans title to a trophy
chest which has been swollen by national age-group crowns at every
subsequent age-group level.
In Chicago, Henri would actually exceed the dimensions of his later
rally against Bostwick and balance Hahn's enormous edge with a 12-3 run
of his own that squared the fifth game at 13-all! A beleaguered Hahn
called "no-set" and after a pair of split points, with the 1951
National Championship riding on a single point, Hahn's patience through
a nerve-wracking series of left-wall exchanges paid off when Salaun
impetuously tried to blow a rail by Hahn and, perhaps in part due to
the unfamiliar tightness of his borrowed racquet, over-hit the ball to
such a degree that it soared just above the back wall boundary and
landed in the first row right in the unwelcoming lap of a fan who had
placed a bet on Salaun to win! With his successful defense, albeit by
an irreducibly slender margin, of the National title, Hahn had created
a legacy for himself that could no longer be challenged.
AGE GROUP FEATS
Not that his 1950 accomplishment should have been questioned in the
first place, especially in view of the Canadian Singles championship he
also won that year, but there were many more important titles to
follow. Despite being age-eligible for the Veterans event by 1953, when
he attained his 40th birthday, Hahn continued to play, and play well,
in the regular Men's event until 1958, when he emulated his 1950-1951
Men's duet by winning the Veteran's tourney in both 1958 and 1959. That
latter win, like its counterpart eight years earlier, required him to
rally from a two games to one deficit, this time against Victor
Elmaleh, now age 83, who was always regarded as a tough competitor, and
who recently recalled how mentally tough Hahn showed himself to be in
winning those last two games of their final 43 years ago.
When the National Seniors flight (for players age 50 and over) was
inaugurated in 1967, Hahn won the event that year and again in 1969 at
age 56. He also teamed with his brother Joe to win the Men's National
Doubles in Philadelphia in 1955, even though both were well into their
forties at the time, which made them the oldest team ever to win this
title, a replay of Hahn's status in becoming the oldest winner of the
Singles several years earlier.
DOUBLES DOMINANCE
He combined with Howard Davis(one of his teammates 30 years earlier
when Hahn led the Detroit team to the 1947 USSRA National Team
Championship) to win the Senior Doubles in 1967, where they defeated
defending champions Treddy Ketcham and James Ethridge in the final.
Ketcham, who teamed with Ethridge to defeat Hahn and his partners in
several other Senior Doubles finals, fondly recalled his left-wall
battles with Hahn and remembered him, like so many others interviewed
for this article, as quiet and a gentleman off the court and also quiet
but a fierce competitor on it. By compiling this plethora of
achievements in both singles and doubles on the National level, Hahn
paved the way for those from the midwest and West Coast who followed
his example and thereby helped ("forced" might be a more accurate word)
the USSRA to expand its previously limited horizons.
REGIONAL ROUNDUP
His record in regional competition was phenomenal and extended over the
course of several decades. For example, he won the Michigan State
Singles title for FIFTEEN straight years from 1948-1962 and again in
1964. He also won the Detroit City Championship several times in the
early 1960's and the State Doubles crown, which wasn't inaugurated
until late in his career, on four occasions, the last of which occurred
in 1967, by which time he was 54 years old.
Additionally, Hahn was Western Squash Singles champion 11 times during
this same lengthy period, a testimony to both his ability and his
longevity, while serving as President of the Michigan Squash Racquets
Association and for many years as the Michigan representative to the
USSRA Board of Directors.
HALL OF FAMER
Elected to the Michigan Amateur Sports Hall of Fame in 1976, he also
subsequently became a member of the New Jersey Sports Hall of Fame
after moving to that state in 1967 to join his brother Joe as Sales
Manager of Joe's Clairmont Cadillac in Montclair, where he worked for
15 years before retiring in 1982 at age 69. His older brother Joe, a
USSRA Honorary Life Member who was National Veterans runner-up seven
straight years from 1950-56, died in April 1982 at age 76; his son
Tommy ran Clairmont Cadillac for a number of years after his father's
death.
Ed is survived by his wife of more than 60 years, Vivian, their son
Eddie Jr., and daughter Mary Ann Hayes, four grandchildren and two
great grandchildren. He deserves to be admiringly remembered for his
quiet and good-humored nature and ready and genuine smile which belied
the mental tenacity with which he competed, and for the manner in
which, through his presence and accomplishments, he led by example,
significantly broadened squash's heretofore provincial profile and
helped make it truly a national game.