125 Years Of Penn Squash Celebrated In Memorable Fashion by Rob Dinerman
University Of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann and ’81 captain Brian Roberts
Howard Coonley II ’66 accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award
The Ringe Courts
A view from the coaches’ office
Al Molloy’s widow Sheila receiving a standing ovation
Presenters, Honorees, Co-Chairs and Coaches: (first row, left to
right) Jack Wyant Jr., David Slosburg, Ann Wetzel, Leslie Smith Jannetta,
Palmer Page, Howard Coonley; (second row) Clay Hamlin, Brian Roberts,
Ned Edwards, Leslie Hill, Tony Vecchione
Dateline February 8th, 2014
--- On the evening of February 1st, nearly 400 people thronged to the
Ringe Courts at the University Of Pennsylvania to participate in the
125th Jubilee, marking the impressive chronological milestone of
125 combined years for the Penn men’s and women’s squash teams. The
celebration was the largest such gathering for any sport in the history
of Penn athletics and the turn-out would have been even greater were it
not for a fire marshal’s decree. Its five-hour duration was equally
divided between first cocktails and photo sessions near the courts and
then a sit-down dinner featuring several honorees and speeches in the
adjoining Hutchinson Gymnasium. The Co-Chairs were Palmer Page ’72 ---
who as a junior led the Quakers to the 1971 Six-Man team championship
(the forerunner of today’s Potter Cup emblematic of the National
College Team Championship), while capturing the Intercollegiate
Individual crown in an all-Penn final vs. Eliot Berry --- and Leslie
Smith Jannetta ‘93, the captain of the women’s team her senior year and
later an assistant coach to Demer Holleran for a three-year period that
included the 2000 Howe Cup championship squad. Both worked closely with
Penn Athletics Coordinator Loren Mead in planning an evening that came
off in remarkably seamless and harmonious fashion.
Rarely if ever has a college program staged an
event that was supported by so many former and current players, coaches
and aficionados --- indeed, fully one-third of all the living Penn
squash alums found their way to the Ringe Courts for this occasion, a
fact cited by University Of Pennsylvania president Amy Gutmann, who in
her speech also praised the academic achievements of the Penn players,
as well as the aggressiveness with which they held the T. Everywhere
one looked, some star in the vaunted Penn squash constellation
could be found reminiscing about his/her varsity years or reuniting
with teammates or coaches from his/her era, whether it was Joe Swain
‘75, Penn’s first-ever four-year first-team all-American, who stayed
only briefly but drove down from Greenwich just to be in the ’74
Six-Man Champions photo (as were four of the five living members of
that sextet, with Swain joined by Gil Mateer, Dan Roblin and Sandy
Groff); or the 1987 North American Open champion Ned Edwards ‘80, one
of six Penn Individuals champs (Leroy Lewis in ’38, Howard Coonley II
in ’66, Page in ’71, Alicia McConnell from 1982-84 and Jessica DiMauro
in ’96 were the others, four of whom were present that night), and
later the Penn coach from 1990-96; or Gil Mateer ‘77, a four-time U.S.
National Doubles titlist and one of the designated Decade Captains for
the 1970’s; or Coonley, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award
during the dinner portion of the schedule for both his on-court
exploits as a collegian and for heading the Graduate Racquet Club,
which in 2006 was renamed the Penn Squash Sports Board, for nearly 30
years; or legendary women’s coach Ann Wetzel ‘52, one of eight Penn
inductees (four of whom served at one time or another as Penn coaches)
into the U. S. Squash Hall Of Fame.
From Near And Far
Rina Borromeo ‘01, who played a crucial
role in the 2000 Howe Cup triumph, flew all the way from London to be
part of this night, as did Jonathan Foster ’79 (who captained the ’79
team to its first win over Harvard in several decades and then played
Edwards in an exciting all-Penn Individuals final several weeks later)
from Los Angeles; Foster’s Atlanta-based teammate Eben Hardie ’80 was
one of MANY other attendees whose willingness to travel substantial
distances immeasurably enhanced the event, and several others from
those outstanding late-1970’s squads were also present, including Pat
Canavan ’80, the team co-captain along with Edwards his senior year,
who has been the head pro at the New York Athletic Club for nearly 20
years. Saquib Shirazi, universally known as Squib, captain of the ’91
men’s team, currently living in Karachi, Pakistan, came the farthest
distance of anybody.
Hardie and dozens of former Penn players
also wrote personalized remembrances of their college squash
experiences that were included in the Program, copies of which were
distributed to everyone present, as were Penn Squash T-shirts and
baseball caps. Almost every living Penn captain of the past 30 years
was present, and in a number of cases so were more than a half-dozen of
their teammates in any given year as well. All five living members of
the ’71 Six-Man Championship team (namely Page, Jeff Condon, Anil
Kapur, Rick Wheeler and Charlie Jacobs) that out-scored Harvard, 33
points to 31, made it to Ringe for their photo, as did a substantial
number of the team members from the ’66 and ’69 Ivy League men’s
champions and the women’s 2000 Howe Cup roster and the 2008 Ivy League
champion squad.
Movin' On Up
At the time the festivities officially began
at 5 PM, the entire squash area was still buzzing from the thrilling
5-4 win that the Penn women’s team had just attained over a tough Yale
contingent, with No. 1 player Anaka Alankamony edging out Eli senior
(and 2011 Individuals winner) Millie Tomlinson, 11-8 in the fifth, in
the deciding match after being behind two games to one. The freshman
Alankamony’s wins that week over her Princeton and Yale opponents would
earn her the Player Of The Week designation by the College Squash
Association. Less than a week earlier, the Penn men’s team had, by a
decisive 7-2 tally, recorded its first win over Princeton in the 40
years since the ’74 squad had done so en route to the Six-Man crown.
This breakthrough marked the fourth time in recent months (previously
vs. George Washington, Dartmouth and Williams) that a loss a year ago
had been avenged this season; the Quaker sweep of the Princeton men’s
and women’s teams late last month had never happened before 2014. Both
Penn varsities thereby sent the unmistakable message that they are on
the ascent, and the current Penn players spent the evening savoring
their recent accomplishments, meeting and mixing with their squash
forebears and getting a first-hand feel for the tradition they have
joined.
The Ringe Courts facility was festooned with
memorabilia of past Penn glory, with slide shows on big screens placed
near the courts, enlarged articles from The Daily Pennsylvanian
chronicling Penn triumphs and team pictures and photos as well. In its
own way that collage constituted a pictorial history of Penn squash,
whether in the form of news accounts of Quaker victories (a number of
which were written by Cindy Shmerler ‘81, a varsity squash player
herself and later a sportswriter for the New York Times), team photos
of high-achieving rosters, candid shots of players hoisting their
coaches in spontaneous celebration, even a memorable photo of the 1979
U. S. Team that competed in the biennial World Team Championships,
three of whose four members (Edwards, Foster and Mateer) were Penn
players --- no other college has ever placed as many as three of its
alums on an American national squash team roster.
Glorious Past
Some of the achievements associated with Penn
squash are truly extraordinary. Included in this category are the nine
straight years --- from 1965-66 through 1973-74 --- in which the men’s
team placed either first or second in the college team rankings, a
skein all the more noteworthy for the 50 consecutive losses that the
team had previously sustained throughout a nine-year period (1948-49
through 1956-57) shortly prior to the legendary Al Molloy’s arrival in
September 1959; the 15-year period in which the women’s Nationals was
won by Barbara Maltby ’70 (1980-81), Alicia McConnell ’85 (1982-88) and
Holleran (1989-94), all of whom played prominent playing or coaching
roles at Ringe; the enormous accomplishments of Hunter Lott Jr. ‘36, an
EIGHT-time U. S. Doubles champion who helped fund the Ringe Courts
(Penn had no squash courts during his mid-1930’s college years and had
to practice at the old University Club on 16th Street and Locust) and
was literally a first-ballot U. S. Squash Hall of Famer (as were
Maltby, winner of Penn’s Best Female Athlete Award in 1969-70, her
senior year, and McConnell) as an inductee in the inaugural class of
2000; and a women’s coaching ledger so stable that there have been only
four coaches in its 46 years of existence, three of whom held their
positions for at least nine years. Wetzel, who won the U. S. Nationals
in both singles and doubles in 1964, started the women’s team in 1968
as a club sport (it became a varsity sport starting with the 1973-74
season) and spent 24 years at the helm before retiring in 1992.
Holleran, who won a combined 27 U. S. National singles, doubles and
mixed doubles titles, then held that role from 1992-2001, following
which Jim Martel coached for three years until the arrival in the fall
of 2004 of the current coach, Jack Wyant Jr., who headed the women’s
program for his first six years before taking the reins of the men’s
program as well beginning with the 2010-11 campaign.
The men’s team has been blessed with exceptional
continuity at the coaching position as well, with Wally Johnson, whom
Lott termed the best all-around athlete he had ever seen, serving from
1928-59 (other than a one-year sabbatical in the mid-1950’s), followed
by Molloy from 1959-90 --- two men covering a stretch of SIXTY-TWO
YEARS! Edwards then took over for his revered former coach for six
years, followed by Jim Masland for three leading up to the 11-year
period (from 1999-2010) during which Craig Thorpe-Clark headed the
program. The coaches who were present for the Jubilee (Holleran,
Edwards, Thorpe-Clark, Wetzel and, of course, Wyant) were showered with
affection by their grateful former protégés throughout the evening, as
was Malloy’s enormously popular widow, Sheila, whose son-in-law, the
Reverend John Galloway, delivered the Invocation, and who herself was
moved to tears by the prolonged standing ovation that she received in
response to Page’s salutation of her in his opening remarks after
everyone had moved to the Hutchinson Gymnasium for dinner.
Page also recognized Howard Butcher IV ’59,
whose father in the late-1950’s gave Penn 95% of the cost of building
the squash courts and naming the facility for his close friend Thomas
B. K. Ringe, who had died at a young age. The Butcher extended family
has been closely allied with Penn squash for decades, with sons and
nephews that represented the Red and Blue well into the 1990’s.
Honored Guests
Page’s comments preceded the showing of an impressive video entitled “This is Pennsylvania Squash,”
during which leading Red and Blue figures like McConnell, former No. 1
and current assistant coach Gilly Lane ‘07 (a four-time U. S. Nationals
finalist), Edwards, Clay Hamlin ‘67 and Coach Wyant took turns
emphatically listing some highlights of Penn squash’s impressive
statistical history --- eight intercollegiate singles titles, six
intercollegiate doubles titles, 36 U. S. National championships, 67
women’s all-American honors since 1981, 24 men’s all-American honors
since 1984, etc. Later there were five honorees who gave speeches at
the podium during the course of this part of the event, namely Jessie
Hill ’76 (who spoke by video from New Mexico) and David Slosburg ‘74, a
member of Penn’s Board Of Overseers of the Department Of Recreational
And Intercollegiate Athletics, both of whom are significant long-time
financial supporters of Penn squash whose generosity, along with many
others’, has funded the overseas training trips the teams have made in
recent years and given the players the best possible equipment and
training facilities; Coach Wetzel, still displaying a level of energy
and even feistiness that belies that fact that she is well into her
ninth decade, who seconded comments that Ms. Hill had made about the
importance of putting something back into a program that so many of
them have gotten so much out of; Brian Roberts ’81, the CEO of Comcast
and a Penn all-American, No. 1 player and captain his senior year; and
Coonley, who was given his Lifetime Achievement Award as he ascended to
the podium by his presenter, Douglas Kramer, who earlier in the day had
been elected the incoming Chair of the Penn Squash Sports Board,
succeeding Coonley.
In Coonley’s acceptance speech he
explicitly paid tribute to Coach Molloy and Hunter Lott, the former for
the relationship they developed that went “far beyond that of coach and
athlete” and the latter for personifying the philosophy that “it’s all
about the kids.” Emphasizing “the experiences we have had, the memories
which we carry with us, the friendships with teammates and opponents
which endure, and the life lessons which we have been given,” Coonley
concluded that, “Tonight marks a significant turning point in the
history and trajectory of Penn squash. There is a really positive
energy in the air and all of us, hopefully, just by being here are
choosing to be active participants in that turning point and in the
next 125 years, so to speak.”
Roberts, fresh from the intriguing experience
of having watched the Penn women oppose a Yale varsity on which his
daughter Amanda is a member, remarked with relief that he wound up with
the best of both worlds, with Amanda winning her match while Penn won
the dual meet. He then publicly thanked four people who had a profound
effect on his squash career and life, naming two teammates, Foster and
Edwards, and two coaches, Molloy and his Germantown Academy coach
George Haines ‘66, who was later a legendary figure at Haverford School
and whose widow, Liz, was in attendance. Haines, a math teacher at
Germantown who had decided during the 1972-73 school year to start a
squash team, successfully recruited Roberts, an eighth-grader at the
time who had just been cut from the basketball team, to be part of the
first squash team, which had to take the SEPTA train to the Gwyned
Racquet Club in order to practice. During Roberts’s senior year, Haines
recommended him to Molloy, under whom Roberts, aided significantly by
Edwards and Foster, steadily progressed to the No. 1 position and
first-team all-America status, while learning valuable life lessons
along the way as well.
Lessons Learned
Roberts recounted an example of the latter, which
occurred during his sophomore 1978-79 season when Penn recorded its
first dual-meet victory in two decades over Harvard, with Roberts’s
first-ever career win over his longtime nemesis Joe Somers at No. 9
giving Penn its fifth point and hence clinching the eventual 6-3
triumph. Roberts got to bask in his accomplishment during a raucous
celebratory team dinner in Boston that night, but just two days later,
on Monday afternoon, he found himself having to defend his No. 9
standing in a challenge match against Hardie, who prevailed on that
occasion and hence displaced Roberts to the No. 10 slot (only the Nos.
1 through 9 matches count in the official dual-meet tally) for the
upcoming Princeton meet later that week to decide that year’s national
championship. Monday had been the designated challenge-match day
throughout the season, and in requiring Roberts to face Hardie that
day, the old-school coach, a former Marine, was conveying the important
lesson that the rules apply to everyone and do not get suspended even
when one has had a noteworthy recent achievement. One memorable photo
that was on display was of Roberts, Edwards, Foster and Molloy when
they were counselors at the Broad Street Squash Camp in the summer of
1980, which was run by Foster, Broad Street’s general manager at the
time, and which may have been the first of the junior summer squash
camps that proliferated throughout the U. S. during the decade of the
1980’s.
Although the speeches varied considerably in terms
of delivery, focus and length, the speakers all conveyed common themes
in expressing gratitude to the program, affection for their former
teammates and coaches and a continuing commitment to the cause;
Slosburg insightfully observed that the Penn squash program personifies
the dual characteristics of “Tradition And Passion,” both of which were
on visible display throughout the evening. Every speaker, including
Coach Wyant in his concluding remarks, also ended with exactly the same
emphatic exhortation which could assuredly be regarded as a concise but
cogent summary of the entire magical evening as well: “Go Penn Squash!
Author Rob Dinerman,
the Editor of Dailysquashreport.com, has been closely following college
squash for four decades. He has spent the past several years writing
histories of squash at various prep schools and colleges, including the
Phillips Exeter Academy and St. Paul’s School. In his current extended
project, he is writing histories of squash at Harvard during various
coaches’ eras.
