Rick Woolworth, 1951-2021, Early-1970’s Dartmouth Squash And Tennis Star by Rob Dinerman
photo Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute
Dateline December 20, 2021
-- DSR is sad to report the passing of Richard G. Woolworth Jr.,
69, universally known as Rick, who suffered an aortic dissection while
traveling out west on December 6th. An outstanding squash and tennis
player at Dartmouth College during the early 1970’s, Woolworth later
earned a top-15 U. S. national ranking and was captain of the New York
team that won the Lockett Cup (an annual hardball tri-city competition
that included teams from Boston and Philadelphia) in 1979.
Known for his classic strokes, excellent
shot-making skills and graceful court coverage, Woolworth alternated
with Scott McAllister in the Nos. 1 and 2 positions on Dartmouth’s
squash team in both his junior and senior years and captained the
Indians to their first-ever victory over Yale in the 1974 dual meet
between these two long-time Ivy League rivals. He contributed an
important victory over Yale standout (and future Gold Racquets and
William White winner) Derrick Niederman that day and culminated his
college squash career by making All-Ivy, an achievement which,
complemented by his outstanding performance on Dartmouth’s tennis team
(on which he won both the team’s Most Improved Award in 1972 and the
Sportsmanship Award in 1974) and excellence as a student, resulted in
his receiving the prestigious Kenneth Archibald Prize “For All-Around
Athletic Achievement And High Standing In Scholarship,” which is
essentially the college’s Scholar/Athlete Award. At the time, he was
only the second squash player (preceded by David Smoyer ’63) in the
Award’s 65-year history to have been accorded this distinction (which
squash players Peter Maglathlin and two-time S. L. Green winner Chris
Hanson subsequently received in 1978 and 2013 respectively). In 2004,
30 years after his graduation, Woolworth was designated a Wearer Of The
Green, the equivalent of being inducted into Dartmouth College’s
Athletics Hall of Fame.
After spending his first post-graduation year teaching
(and coaching the squash team) at Andover and then earning an MBA at
Stanford Business School --- where during the 1976-77 season he placed
second in the Northern California rankings, was the only
California-based player to earn a spot in the U.S. National Rankings
and played No. 1 on the NorCal team that defeated Harvard and came
within two points of upsetting New York in the U. S. Five-Man Team
Championships --- Woolworth and his wife Jill (a fellow Dartmouth alum,
as was his namesake father) moved to New York, where he began a career
in investment banking, initially at Dillon Read and later for 23 years
at Morgan Stanley and 10 more at Aetos Capital. He announced his
presence on the New York and U. S. amateur circuit in memorable fashion
by defeating the highly-ranked Gil Mateer at the very first tournament
of the 1977-78 season, the Trenton Invitational. He would go on to make
a significant mark throughout the next decade, including reaching the
semis of the 1978 New York States, recording wins at various times over
top-10 ranked players Glenn Greenberg, Ron Beck and Scott Ryan and
coming up with a career-highlight performance at the 1979 William White
Invitational, where he followed a 17-16 fifth-game victory (after
trailing 13-9 and 14-12) over Ned Edwards on Friday evening with a
17-15 fifth-game win the next morning over David Page. In the years
that followed, Woolworth would capture a total of 24 squash and tennis
club championships at the Field Club of Greenwich, including six
mixed-doubles tennis titles with Jill, his wife of 45 years, who also
won the club women’s singles championship in 1987. The couple had three
daughters, Jocelyn (a member of Dartmouth’s women’s squash team during
the early 2000’s), Virginia and Helen, who survive him, as does his
wife Jill, his siblings Andy Woolworth, Sally Lynch and Lucy Lamphere,
his mother, Helen B. Woolworth, and three grandchildren.
A longtime member of the Jesters Club who became an
outstanding golfer --- and winner of one Round Hill Club Championship
at the Open level and five at the Senior level --- after leg injuries
(requiring replacement surgery on both hips) curtailed his
racquet-sports career, Woolworth was made a Fellow of Stanford
University’s Distinguished Careers Institute in 2017 and devoted the
final decade of his life to the Telemachus Network, a non-profit
organization that he founded in 2011 whose mission it is to create
intergenerational friendships between emerging and experienced leaders
in both faith-based and secular environments. His passion for mentoring
that is embodied in this pursuit lives on in the many people whom he
touched and positively impacted. In lieu of flowers, the Woolworth
family asks that gifts in his memory be given to the two organizations
that meant the most to him, namely the Telemachus Network and Trinity
Church Greenwich.
