Seeing your
sport die is about as sad as seeing a pet die. Squash was that way for
me in Memphis where the tombstone reads “Born 1998, Died 2022.” Way back there was an
American hardball court at the University Club, which had some very
good players when it shifted to softball and carbon racquets around
1998. That was the same year that Rhodes College, a small liberal-arts
college with high aspirations, built two nice standard-size courts in
its athletic building and opened them to outsiders for a modest annual
fee. The impetus was a dean
who had played squash in the Navy and a handful of faculty who were
squash diehards. It seemed squash might attract some students from the
Northeastern prep schools to this excellent but underpublicized Memphis
college that is the alma mater of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy
Barrett. But over the next 20
years only a few students enrolled who had experience and talent in
squash – which was offset by a couple dozen “community” members who
took advantage of the generosity of benefactors who paid for a
new unvarnished floor at Rhodes and a refurbished court at the Racquet
Club of Memphis. It seemed for a while that something was in the air.
But we had mistaken Indian Summer for Spring. Oddly enough, the high
and low point for squash came at the same time. We had an international
group of hardcores from Canada, America, Egypt, South Korea, Pakistan,
India, and paid former World Number One John White to come to
Rhodes for a weekend of instruction and free exhibitions. He, of
course, dispatched all comers with ease, which was no surprise. What
was surprising was that only three people (!!) besides the participants
came to watch. I mean, come on, it's a small sport but it's a big world
and he was the best. We bombed at the Racquet
Club a few months later, with free drinks and food in the package as
well as pointers. By then the knives were out. And I don't mean the
pandemic. The knives were pickleball paddles, and some 50 people showed
up for pickleball and four for squash. It was small consolation
that pickleball killed or at least mortally wounded tennis as well. You
probably know the methodology – easy to play, welcoming, age friendly,
mixed doubles, courts set up in churches and parking lots with tape and
portable nets that morphed into full-blown Pickleball Buildings at all
three private country clubs in Memphis and maybe your town too. Oh well, so be it. I was
fortunate to get introduced to squash (and Ted Gross and Daily Squash
Report) when I was 50 and enjoyed 20 years as a competitive tournament
player and, after knees went bad, a diehard “long ball” player (no
drops or boasts) thanks to tolerant partners. As an old friend of mine
once said, “I always knew there was a sport I was good at, it just took
me 50 years to find it.” Last year I enjoyed
watching my son play squash at the Yale Club in New York City and whip
up on some prep hotshots. He lives in Missoula, Montana where there are
more squash courts than there are in Memphis. My own racquet is
hanging on my memorabilia wall with black-and-white pictures and
vintage wooden tennis racquets. I was losing, most always losing, but I
looked good doing it. You had to give me that.
– John Branston is a retired journalist living in Memphis and won the
inaugural Daily Squash Report fiction contest and the squash bag and
racquet that came with it. He has a cool video on youtube.
