Richard William Danforth, 12/31/27 – 2/13/17, Three-Time US National Doubles Champion by Rob Dinerman
photo legacy.com
Dateline February 17th
– DSR is sad to report the death of Richard William (Bill) Danforth,
89, a power-hitting right-wall player who won the US National Doubles
and the Canadian National Doubles three times each during the 1960’s.
All six of those championships occurred with Sam Howe as his
complementary sharp-shooting left-wall partner, and each of the three
American titles came in dramatic fashion for one reason or another.
In 1963, the Howe/Danforth pairing fell behind two games
to love against the Vehslage brothers, Steve and Ramsey, on a
Wilmington Country Club court whose walls had gotten wet due to the
humidity of an unseasonably warm day. This caused the ball to bounce
erratically off the walls, and Danforth, who had a habit of letting
balls carom off the back wall so that he could position himself to
blast the away, was repeatedly being victimized by the ball’s
unpredictable action. Urged by Howe after the second game to volley
everything he could, Danforth implemented this stratagem and he and
Howe were able to dominate the remainder. Their attempted title defense
the following year came down to a simultaneous-championship-point
against Kit Spahr and Claude Beer, and on the pivotal final exchange,
Spahr let on over-hit Danforth cross-court go to the back wall and
could only watch in dismay when it nicked and rolled out at his feet.
Howe and Danforth then lost to Diehl Mateer and Howe’s
younger brother Ralph in both 1965 and 1966, but when the two teams
faced off again in the 1967 final in Buffalo (shortly after the
Howe/Danforth pairing had won the Canadian National Doubles for the
third straight time), the highly-anticipated rematch was abruptly
truncated late in the first game when Mateer ruptured his Achilles
tendon. In addition to his squash achievements, Danforth was an
exceptional golfer (he and Arnold Palmer golfed together when they were
growing up near Pittsburgh), a Korean War veteran and a highly
successful investment banker. He is survived by Leslie McCord Danforth,
his wife of 59 years; their two children, Richard and William Danforth,
and a grand-daughter, Cooper McCord Danforth.
