February 2, 2014 What
I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is what defines success. About a
year ago, I left my job as an editorial assistant at HarperCollins
publishers when I accepted a position to teach English and coach squash
at the Hill School. Hill is a mid-sized independent school located
about 45 minutes northwest of Philadelphia.
I know this area well. I was born at the hospital at
the University of Pennsylvania. I grew up in a 200 year old farm house
in Chester County. I attended the Shipley School until I was fourteen.
I learned how to play squash at Berwyn Squash and Fitness. I am a
Philadelphia girl, through and through. Therefore, I know the truth
about scholastic squash in this zip code—it’s very good. The Hill
School is a member of two scholastic squash leagues: the Mid-Atlantic
Squash Association, which is basically an amalgamation of the Inter Ac
schools, a handful of public school, us and the Lawrenceville School.
The other league that we are a member of is the Mid-Atlantic Prep
League, which consists of Lawrenceville, Hill, Mercersberg, Blair,
Peddie, and Hun. I would guestimate that 80% of Hill’s schedule is
dictated by the Mid-Atlantic Squash Association.
My girls’ team at Hill is weak. We are not weak
because we do not work hard. We are not weak because we want to be. We
are weak because all of my players, except for two, learned to play
squash at the Hill School. Teams that fill the MASA include, Baldwin,
Germantown Friends School, William Penn Charter, and Episcopal Academy
to name just a few. If you look at the top division of the 2014 US High
School Nationals, you will see all of these teams list, one after the
other. Now when you look for the Hill School, you will have to scan
down toward the bottom. We are seeded at the top of division four, the
last division.
So this has been my challenge for this season: how
do I convince a group of smart, motivated young women to keep working
when they lose every match 9-0? Is success defined by a win/loss
record? If I showed you a video of all of my players, 1 through 9, from
two months ago, you would see the improvement. They don’t hit the ball
into the middle of the court anymore. They hit crisp drives into the
back corners. They volley (sometimes). They rarely serve out. But we’ve
only won two games all season.
Sometimes, when I’m depressed and frustrated, I
think that there’s no place for programs like mine in US Squash
anymore. In the 1970s and 80s, when hardball was still played in
America, the great players all went to boarding school. Demer Holleran
played for my alma mater, Phillips Exeter Academy, Garrett and Reade
Frank played for the Hill School, and John Musto played for St. Paul’s
School. Players could go to a boarding school, learn the game, and
become dominant enough to fill the rosters in the top university teams.
That’s not the case anymore. The best juniors are better suited to a
day school environment because they can leave school at 3:30 and go
train with a private coach. They don’t have Saturday classes to worry
about, so they can leave at will to go play in junior tournaments.
I lived in New York City for three years after I
graduated from college. While there, I was on the board of New York
Squash and was heavily involved with creating a city-wide doubles
league. I played every US Doubles Nationals I could manage to travel
to. Young women are not sticking with the game of squash. This became
painfully obvious to me while in New York. We often struggled to put
together a coherent women’s 5.0 singles league. When I traveled to the
Doubles Nationals in St. Louis last year, there were only three teams
in the women’s open division. Something is being lost in translation.
The women I played against at Exeter and Wellesley are giving up their
racquets. And it’s not because they’ve started families, or because
their jobs have become too consuming.
I believe that if we continue to squeeze the
programs like mine at Hill out of the conversation, the trend I saw as
a young woman in New York will continue to worsen. Squash, unlike
tennis, has a bad habit of forcing those who are not the best, out of
the game. We define success by National Championships, individual
titles, and who can stack their team with the most nationally ranked
players. But how many of those players are giving back to the game? How
many of them continue to play? What kind of a sports community are we
fostering? I believe that my team should enjoy the sport just as much
as anyone else. But working within the constraints that we have, I am
not sure that we will ever get to the level of our comrades in Newtown
Square, or in Bryn Mawr. And does that mean my players are any less
important? Or that they should just give up? I don’t think so. How do
we get these young women, who will not be national champions, to
continue playing? I don’t have the answer yet, but I’m working on
it.
Sarah Odell is an instructor of
English and the Director of Squash at the Hill School in Pottstown,
Pennsylvania.
What's On My
Mind is a column by rotating authors.
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