George E. Haines, Jr., 1943-2008, Legendary Coach At Haverford School
by Rob Dinerman
August 16, 2008---
George E. Haines, 64, who passed away on July 16, was a legendary
squash coach from 1976-89 at the Haverford School in suburban
Philadelphia who produced multiple regional Philadelphia-area high
school regional championships, several winners of U. S. national
doubles and singles championships and one squad in particular, namely
the 1982-83 squash team, that two years ago became the only TEAM
inductee into the Haverford Hall Of Fame.
Born on August 8, 1943, Haines grew up in Far Hills, NJ, eventually
excelling in both golf (a two-time winner of the NJ Amateur who also
qualified one year to play in the U. S. Open) and squash, playing each
sport with distinction at the University Of Pennsylvania, from whose
prestigious Wharton School Of Business he earned a degree in 1965.
After authoring a number of respected golf articles and histories, he
taught at Westtown School and Germantown Academy before joining the
Haverford faculty as a math teacher and coach of no fewer than six
different sports at one time or another during his tenure. His soccer,
golf and squash teams won a total of 17 Inter-Ac League Championships
and, as noted, the 1982-83 squash team was destined for a singular
distinction.
More than three hundred people jammed the Neil Buckley Pavilion at The
Haverford School on the evening of February 25, 2006, when that team
joined 43 individual members in the school’s Hall Of Fame. This
was only the second squash-related Haverford School induction ceremony
(the previous honoree being Ralph E. Howe, class of ’59, who was
elected into the USSRA Hall Of Fame in the inaugural class of 2003
after a career in which he was U. S. National and North American Open
champion in both singles and doubles) and, as noted, the first time
that a TEAM in any sport was given this level of recognition by the
prominent suburban-Philadelphia school.
The squad went undefeated in Inter-AC competition that year and even
pounded (eight matches to one) a Dartmouth team that was ranked sixth
in the college standings. Amazingly, no fewer than NINE of the 10 team
members went on to captain highly-ranked college teams, and it can be
safely said that that varsity left a legacy that profoundly influenced
both college squash during the second half of the 1980’s and the
amateur and professional game throughout the 1990’s and extending
even up to the present time.
The No. 1 position that year was split between Morris Clothier
‘83, who co-captained Franklin & Marshall to the No. 2
intercollegiate team ranking in 1986-87 and who went on to record his
ninth U. S. National Doubles title last spring, a record for a
right-wall player, and Russ Ball ‘84, who starred on four
national-champion teams at Harvard and reached the final of the U. S.
National Singles his senior year. Behind them were Chris Spahr
’83 and Beau Buford ’84, Clothier’s F & M
teammates and later multi-titled doubles players in their own rights;
Spahr’s younger brother Terry ’84, who starred at the
University of Pennsylvania and later won both the Atlantic Coast and
Woodruff-Nee championships in the early-1990’s; George Krall
’83, Bruce Hauptfuhrer ’83 (a Woodruff-Nee finalist in
’89), Alex Cuthbert ’83 and Dan Hutchinson ’85, who
would subsequently serve as team captains at Yale, Trinity, Dartmouth
and Harvard respectively; and Robert Hobbs ’85.
Haines’s success and longevity were all the more noteworthy for
coming in spite of a serious life-threatening brain tumor that
hospitalized him for months during the late 1970’s, and he is
fondly remembered for the genuineness of his interest in the squash
people he came to know (Palmer Page recently recalled a long visit he
received from Haines shortly after Page’s years as USSRA CEO
began and the contribution that Haines sent him shortly thereafter as a
sign of support) and even more so for the longstanding nature of the
loyalty to showed to his former protégés long after they
had graduated. Tom Harrity ’80, winner of five U. S. National
hardball titles during the 2000’s, gratefully noted that Haines
showed up in the Merion Cricket Club gallery even as recently as the
’05 hardball final to cheer him on, and how Haines made a point
of seeking him out and discussing the match in the locker room
afterwards. A number of his former players have been exchanging emails
in recent weeks after hearing of Haines’s passing (in Cathedral
Village in Roxborough, PA, from pneumonia) citing the “tons of
support for me” that Haines demonstrated and planning to fund
some tangible recognition (like a plaque or bench) in the
school’s squash facility, where Haines had such a valuable and
lasting an impact on his young charges for more than a dozen
victory-filled years.
Haines is survived by Elizabeth, his wife of 31 years; a son, George; a grandson; both parents; two sisters and a brother.