Squash on Display at the Sports Museum in Boston
by Lenny Bernheimer

October 15, 2017

I’m writing about an exhibit on squash we created here in Boston. It is now open at The Sports Museum which is located at TD Garden. The Sports Museum is an organization about 40 years old. Its exhibits are primarily about the five professional sports teams in Boston, but they do have additional exhibits for other sports. The museum also runs programs for kids in Boston, and about 20,000 people a year visit.

Our squash exhibit celebrates the importance of Boston and New England in the history and current status of squash. There are elements in the exhibit about the early beginnings of the sport in this country (first squash court in the country at St. Paul’s in New Hampshire), the Khans who lived and worked here, some of the major tournaments and events held here (U.S. Open, Boston Open, Squash at Symphony), the domination of Harvard and Trinity in intercollegiate squash, the SquashBusters program that started in Boston in 1996 and led to the urban squash movement across the country, the local U. S. Squash Hall of Fame members, and the achievements of Amanda Sobhy as the highest ranked U. S. pro player ever. We also included some examples of the evolution of the squash racquet and squash ball over the years.

For special exhibits like ours, the museum asks for a pretty significant sponsorship fee. I worked with both the Massachusetts Squash Association and The University Club to raise this fee. After the funding was procured, I worked with several others (John Nimick, Jim Zug Jr., Tom Poor) to decide which items should be included, then we set out to acquire them and donate them to the museum. The curator of the museum, Richard Johnson, was terrific to work with. He did some of his own research, added some nice ideas for inclusion, and he arranged the items in a large glass exhibit case. The museum will display it for 3-4 years, and then the contents will revert to the U. Club where it will be displayed, hopefully for eternity. It is meant to be a dynamic exhibit so that as other items become appropriate for inclusion, we can add them.