Stop Waiting For a Cure to What Ails Squash

The patient is diagnosed with cancer, the so called doctors say it's best to wait for a cure for cancer, we're almost certain the cure is close at hand. As a patient, would you not take treatment to try and arrest the spread of the disease, or would you not take treatment and wait for the cure?

That is essentially what those who believe squash in the 2020 Olympics will achieve, a cure to what ails this sport right now. I can only speak for what seems to be the case in the United States. Our National tournament, the illustrious and once prestigious SL Green Open is fielding 16 men players! And the women's draw 8 players. The patient is dying while waiting for this cure which could be right around the corner...when the patient is dead. there's no coming back.

 I applaud the Daily Squash Report which continues to carry all the angles associated with this troubling issue concerning squash. I live in New York, the greatest City, hands down, in the world but it is not even close, most likely at the bottom for Squash. Take away the Tournament of Champions and Squash in New York isn't even on the map. It is really heartwarming to hear that the West Side Tennis club is adding squash, but then that is offset by rurmors that New York Sports Club at 86th Street will be discontinuing squash.

Maybe we are going back to those dark ages where squash was played in exclusive clubs. Maybe all in roads the Khans made in the 50's and 60's to open up this closed society and make squash accessible to all who could find a public court and hit around, learn the game, play and play, went for naught. I hope not.

Perhaps it's time to call for a summit of all the squash organizations, historians, coaches, experts, directors to come together and begin to lay the ground work to reviving this great sport. Take small steps towards keeping the disease from spreading. Don't wait for one cure, the Olympics is just another method of treatment, it is NOT a cure. Yes, it will bring much more money to the top players, but not everyone who plays squash will hit that level. The game is fuelled by all those 3.0, 3.5, 4.0...players out there. They are the future of this game.

I propose the following:

once and for all let's determine if those high profile venues actually garner new players to the game?

what real impact will the Olympics have on attracting new players at all levels?

what turns the average sports person off to squash?

once and for all how many US born players play collegiate squash?

once and for all how many US born players after college continue to play past 30?

once and for all organizations like the PST (Pro Squash Tour) should be lauded for their attempts to bring squash to an audience and not squashed by the bigger more powerful organizations.

time to evaluate the vision and leadership of the squash governing bodies!

evaluate and assess this game at an independent, non-partisan level.

Once completed, get the best squash minds together, the best squash business people, the best minds who play this game at any level and set a roadmap to how to fix what is wrong. And above all, please don't wait for some miraculous cure, it may be too late by then.

Gustav Detter Puts on a Clinic at LA Fitness in Lake Success, NY

Another fantastic weekend of Squash at LA Fitness, in Lake Success, NY. When we all thought no one could surpass Hisham Ashour’s clinic last month, lo and behold, Gustav Detter comes along and by all feedback the clinic was just as good; “different,” as some players put it but everyone sure did “sweat a lot”. The clinic, two sessions, on a beautiful Sunday morning, was sold out. Detter, one of the greatest collegiate squash players ever and anchor to the legendary Trinity men's squash team, and much the subject of Paul Assiante’s wonderful book chronicling Trinity College’s historic undefeated consecutive wins (13) seasons, brought a high octane approach to squash. His drills are intense, continuous, and very instructive. I always like to ask my students what the visiting coach says about their game, technique or footwork. And when they come off the court and say, “he said something that finally clicked”, as Russ Feinberg said about an explanation Gustav had provided for his drop shot, it makes it all that much better.


The clinic was followed by an exhibition match between Kyle Jens and Gustav what a match, a fiercely contested battle with Gustav taking the match while showing tremendous grit and determination in coming back. The last two games Jens  had 3 game balls in each against him, but Gustav seemed to pull each game out with some amazing reserve.
The match drew quite a viewing crowd which is a how we show people at the gym just how great a sport squash is and hopefully garner new recruits to the game.

Coming up in January, just in time for those playing in the Grand Open regionals is a Cameron Pillay clinic, top ranked Australian player and consistentlytop 20 in the world. He comes out of the renowned Australian Squash institute with such greats as Stuart Boswell, David Palmer, and the Martin brothers Brett and Rodney.

We are hoping to host a surpirs exhibition round robin with Pillay and others. Winner in total points will take the prize. Hope to see you all at that one, , thanks, to Gustav for a great Sunday of squash. Photos and filming of the match will be posted soon..

World Squash Day 2012

My gratitude and admiration go out to Alan Thatcher for all his efforts in promoting squash for inclusion in the 2020 Olympics, either in Madrid, Tokyo, or Istanbul and his "World Squash Day" this past weekend. This is a poem I wrote about squash appropriate to the 2020 inclusion, I hope, of squash. It is a poem taken out of a series of poems I am currently writing:


from THE FAMILY ALBUM


V. Our Father The Squash Player
    (July, 2020)


"I  followed him to the courts
just to  carry his rackets
l wanted to play just like him.
I'd  watch him warm up the  ball
(that day he was playing Rich Kuszleski)
the gunshots off the front wall
the black ball rocketing to his forehand then to his backhand
deliberate steps to the ball like a big yawn
in the early morning; he  woke early to prepare
 my brown bag  lunch  and in big black marker wrote
my name drawing some funny cartoons of squash players.

And then one morning, he  motioned me onto the court, take a racket
he seemed to say;
and I jumped as if it was my first big league at bat --
he  gently closed the door behind me -- this is where I always wanted to be.

He showed me  the grip, explained the bold red  boundary lines,
looking never down on me but crouching to meet me eyes.

-------------

 I can see him on the court where he is not
that gentle giant that moved freely within
the white walls which when he played he seemed made
the grand canyon there --
exhausted I measured his each step to my three
a tango on the court,
"you'll get better," he'd grin with his head slightly cocked to one side
 "someday maybe even
take a game."
And then Thanksgiving '05
I beat him and never lost to him again --
until the time too ill to hit around with me
I left for Madrid and he died.
I didn't tell him what I should have told him
 -- being on court with him
were  the best moments of my life
"never go easy", he'd say,
it echoes  now  and again when  I think
he is me"

Squash Ghosts from the Winter Garden

Too fitting this time of year when ghouls and goblins and ghosts abound as the summer green leaves die in a glorious flourish of amazing colors, that two great squash players in their own right seemed to resurrect visions of squash ghostly presence from years back, some say the "golden age of squash".

I watched Hisham Ashour play my son in an exhibition at our club and after the match I talked to Hisham and spoke to him about Tristan Nancarrow. It wasn't coincidence. I watched this amazing player and great personality move about our club and later on the squash court, I thought as I watched him on the court that he is like watching Tristan Nancarrow circa 1991 at the Tournament of Champions in the World Financial Center Winter Gardens playing Mark Talbot. I was always enthralled by Mark Talbot and thought that his titanic battles on the hard ball court with Jahangir were something out of early Greek mythology. I can close my eyes and still see Tristan Nancarrow toy with Mr. Talbot with a dazzling array of shots and movement on the court as if he was Baryshnikov, who moves like that I thought, who hits the ball as if each shot was a beautifully constructed stanza of excellent verse. I had never seen anything like it in the 20 years since -- that is until this past week at our club when I watched Hisham play my son, I was refereeing the match and I kept having these flashbacks. Everyone at Hisham's level hits the ball well, moves well, is graceful...but there's something different, it's the intangible, it's the bravado that says he can do anything he wants to that small ball on that big spacious infinite angled court. He is a magician and like Tristan you are left with sense of awe...When Hisham said his hero and idol was Jansher, I of course had to ask him, his brother against Jansher, who wins. He was quick to answer as if he'd already spent hours in the past debating this: Jansher in 5. It was tantalizing, but I was thinking in my head, that it is Hisham I'd pay to watch play Jansher...I told him of a 10 minute clip of Tristan (which I later sent to him) nearing the end of his career playing Jansher, he pushed Jansher, he was close...what if I could have conjured that match and then I thought, what could possibly be better than Tristan and Hisham -- no doubt, Hisham in 5.

The next day, Gustav Detter, the great collegiate player from squash powerhouse Trinity college came to our club. He is the very player who is legendary for his astonishing comeback victory over Yasser El Haby, arguably the greatest collegiate squash player ever, a few years back to ensure that Yasser would not end his college career undefeated. In that match Gustav was down 0-2, 1 - 6 and came back to win --what's more the storied Trinity streak of consecutive team wins was on the line and Gustave preserved it, for at least a few more years.

Gustav is from Sweden and plays on the National team. He is quite amazing to watch, he is so quick, powerful, fit and graceful, a lefhander. His court presence reminded me of someone, his low sense of gravity, then a ghost appeared, that young Anders Wahlstadt, I was watching Anders move around the court, so fit, so strong playing Ditmar at the TOC in the Winter Garden, playing in Hynes Auditorium against perennial amateur US national champion Will Carlin. While Gustav played in the collegiate ranks, he has a professional game. While Anders reached number 17 in the world before he moved and settled in the US, Gustav, well we aren't sure if he had turned pro. The sky was the limit, I think.

Gustav and my son played, Gustav moved about the court like a young Anders, they had some long rallies and I've written about this before but I used to watch young Canadian Chris Stevens and Anders battle it out at Park Place. LA Fitness while not in the dark and dank basement like Park Place has an equal number of quirks, such as a "dead" floor and fast wall. But watching my son and Gustav play and thinking about those great years when Park Place was my second home, Anders was liked nothing we'd ever seen. And to those who managed to see Gustav at LA Fitness, which seems to be my primary home these days, he was certainly like nothing we'd seen before, well everyone but me.

The irony and beauty of this game, if you are in it for awhile, ghosts come and go, but you start connecting the dots and that connection forms a lineage, so to speak of players past and present. Yes, irony, when my son, who wasn't a baby at the height of Anders squash career, recently was on court with him and had a very spirited match. My son remarked, that Anders is an old player now, but he still has those great hands. Gustav, and Anders in his prime, sorry Gustav, as much as I admire your game, you would have had to have seen Anders, a vision of squash, like you, just at a different plane. But then in all fairness, if you were to turn pro and rank in the top 20 in the world, what a match, Anders, tie breaker in the fifth, both players pounding it out, punishing each other, Nordic warriors to the end...and Tristan against Gustav? Sorry Gustav, Tristan in 3.

Squash God Meets His Son: Hisham Ashour in LA Fitness, Lake Success, NY

Hisham Ashour world ranked #12 PSA squash professional today in a small club in Lake Success , Long Island, NY met his son, my son as a matter of fact. It was one of the best moments of my life to have managed to get these two people on court together. My son and I coach out of this LA Fitness club, and when we arrived on the scene, where there are two international courts, there were no players. This was 7 years ago. In fact, there was discussion as we heard that the club wanted to take the squash courts and convert them into racquetball courts or aerobics studios.

It was then that my son and I decided that we needed to make something happen there. We used to play and drill and talk to anyone who seemed interested in this game. Eventually, we built a huge student base and began attracting some players from every angle of life you can imagine. One of the best players is a young man who works at the juice bar who happens to be one of the most gifted players I've seen, and there are racquetball players, a 67 year old man who is one of the fittest 67 year old you will ever find and he is a most interesting intellectual and conversationalist who studies this game as if her were 20 years old. There's a 50 year old island woman, a mother of 5 that pushed through this weekend with a bad knee just to be on court with Hisham, she is so fit and has such a passion for this game, any spoiled, brat junior, who doesn't want to train and sulks about the hard work it takes to be good at this game, should spend a half hour with this woman and be ashamed.

I had been badly injured and to be honest squash burnt out the last 4 months. The club and the squash energy was at a low. I physically just couldn't do much. I was coaching with a fractured foot and two severely pulled hamstrings. I was tired, I was hurt, I was beginning to hate this game. Anyone can tell you when you can't play what you love you hate that. My best student gave up the game, it was such a huge disappointment to me considering I invested 3 years in this young man. I wish him the best, I take responsibility for why he no longer plays. Some say I should have just coached him taken the money and let him find his own way. But I believed in his abilities and worked tirelessly to elevate his game. I only hope that someday he returns to the game and we get on the court like we did for 3 years and hit around, like a father and his son, because he was like a son to me.

My real son, biological son, and I are huge fans of Hisham Ashour, I wrote an article about him a few years back. It was a crazy article in which I compared him to Ezra Pound, the great modernist poet, and arguably one of the greatest poets in the English language. It was crazy, what would a young, rock star squash player from Egypt care about that comparison. But anyone who knows me knows that I presented Hisham with the greatest compliment I could, comparing him to my great master, my poetry guru, my god.

This weekend, I managed to bring Hisham out to the LA Fitness club, I didn't sleep the night before thinking something is going to go wrong. Hisham will cancel, the players in the clinic will pull out, something would go wrong. I wanted so much to bring this squash genius to a place that in reality squash time would have forgotten. The courts aren't great, management has no interest in squash, we fought for 3 years to finally get shellac removed from the floors and I almost beg and plead the cleaning people not to scrub with slick soap the walls to a bright white.

For some reason this club represents my struggles with squash and my dedication to making my son the best player he can be. Hisham , had a very bad cold in his back when he showed up at the club. I was just so grateful he didn't cancel. When I checked him into the club I told the woman at the desk that she is looking at one of the great players of the game, she smiled and made him sign his guest waver.

As we walked the football field length of the club to the courts, I greeted some friends and Hisham, the keen eye he has looked at all the racquetball courts and remarked "stupid game, you should convert them all to squash." I remarked that first my job is to convert the players to squash then the courts will follow, he knew immediately what I was saying.

To make a long story short, he stretched out his ailing back, did these remarkable clinics with these dedicated club players, and of all the time I've been involved in squash, this great player, who loves this game more than the air he breathes genuinely worked to make this motley crew better. When he went to the water fountain and players in the clinic followed him, he talked to them, he pointed out details, flaws in their game, and as he told me "at the level they are playing the slightest correction is huge in their game".

Hisham loves people, he has the rarest abilities to take the most complex ideas, about squash and simplify them. I listened to what he said to players, I watched their faces, they were glued to his every word, I listened, admired this young man who at 30 years old is a player, a coach, for the people who love this game. He radiates this passion for the game, I cannot ever him imagine doing anything else, just as couldn't imagine pound doing anything but writing great poetry. His interest in every player at whatever level they are is intense, he missed nothing, every detail he sees, it's his eye, it's intuitive..

The day concluded with a match with my son. Hisham had a bad back and my son was nursing a troublesome knee, but I told my son pop some Advil and take this opportunity to get on court with this great player. I gave Hisham my super roller to roll out his back. I'm old school I will pay with fractures, pain, pulled or strained muscles...I never want to be anywhere else but on that court.

I hadn't seen my son play since he played a PST match with David Palmer last year. My son went to England, trained with Steve Townsend in Birmingham, England, and played and worked like hell only to come back to the US and injure both Achilles. I watched him through rehabilitation and therapy and as it goes the darkest time is also the brightest time. He thought he wouldn't play again, he was depressed. However, while injured, he perfected his strokes and game to a different level. As they began the match Hisham, hurt as he was was simply incredible to watch. He redirected the ball to fool my son, who was scrambling all over the court. But I saw something different in points and of course the wizardry of Hisham's shots. My son, he wanted to attack the ball, he just didn't want to retrieve he wanted to push way up on the "T" and attack every shot. The game went to its obvious conclusion, some great points but Hisham, bad back and all won easily.

As they started the second game , Hisham continued with his inimitable array of shots, that to be honest no one could tell where they are going. He went up easily in the match at 3-0 but them something changed. My son began to watch the ball better, not falling for the fakes, a couple of long gruelling points and he was back in it. The game seesawed until it went to a tie breaker and as if scripted for a movie Hisham ended it with his famous and patented Mizuki shot. But wait, it was a let, it stayed up a bit. No issue, he finished it on the next point.

We drove Hisham to Heights Casino in Brooklyn to watch the Carol Weymuller Women's professional final where he needed to watch the match of one of his students in the final. On our way there, I listened to my son and Hisham banter about squash and different players. My son is extremely knowledgeable about squash, he is a squash genius. but when he spoke to Hisham about the game past and present, he was really talking to not me his father, who brought him into the world, but to his squash father -- the two were like father and son, like me and my son once were when we were on court when he was 12 and I was like, I guess, his squash god.

I said very few words as we found our way to Heights, I had been the adoptive squash father, today my son met his real squash father.

　

　

　

　

　

　

Olympics 2020

Okay, Andy Murray beat Roger Federrer for Olympic gold, the US Men's Basketball team demolished Nigeria by over 80 points. And John White resigned the Pro Squash Tour (PST) to play in a Pro Squash Association (PSA) event and the continued pathetic squash community's lament of why Squash isn't in these Olympics. Frankly, who cares? Do I want to see Ramy Ashour play Nick Matthew in the gold medal match when I can see them in a professional capacity 5-8 times a year? Does anyone really care that Niclas Massu won the Olympic gold for tennis in 2004 and 2008? Will anyone care all that much in four years about Murray winning in the Olympics except a few patriotic starved Brits (by the way Murray is Scottish and they are up for independence in 2013 so Murray's gold for the queen will matter even less). As I watched track and field and swimming events, these are the true and purest form of athleticism, they play not for Lebron size contracts and Murray's certain leveraged medal endorsements. Okay, Michael Phelps was pitching Subway and any other corporate product sponsors but the path that got him to to Beijing and now London was a path of exalted amateur athletics.

The distinction between professional and amateur was abolished in 1986 because the Soviet Union paid it's athletes and supported them much like corporations now do.By the way, the Soviet Union is dead and gone some 23 years ago. Soviet athletes were considered professional because they took money. And our athletes, hmmm, never seem to take money, from anyone. Well, since 1986 everyone now takes money from all the big bad corporations, the very same corporations that cheated investors, consumers and those pest environmentalists that hate when Exxon or BP decimate the environment for generations -- dare I mention Coca-Cola which studies have indicated are responsible a good part of obesity in the US.

The Olympics will mean something to me when Todd Harrity represents the United States squash team in the Olympics actually he is probably too old so Mason Ripka or Faraz Khan will have to do, not when professionals like Chris Gordon or Julian Illingsworth represent the U.S. which I'm sure they won't be in 2020 they'll be old men. Restore the integrity of the spirit of the Olympics, bring back the vision of purity of Jesse Owens, Bruce Jenner and Olga Corbet. I don't want to see Roger Federrer or Labron James in the Olympics because they happen to have mass appeal and stuff the advertising coffers of all the corporate sponsors.

For all those squash and Olympic proponents (sorry Mr. Thatcher), including the professional players themselves, show how squash transcends money and greed and corporate sponsorship, promote amateur athletics, promote participation in the Olympics, but at the amateur level, uphold the highest ideals of amateur athletics, somewhere in the United States, in India, in Pakistan, a young player with ideals as high as the sky, with purity of soul, uncorrupted, who embraces the pursuit of perfection in the true Rousseauian manner, refuting institutions as inherently corrupt. It is only the individual we should rest our hopes and dreams and gold upon, not the corporate sponsored icons of professional athletes.

Another Nail in the Coffin of Manhattan Squash

Another nail in the coffin for New York City Squash. What had been rumored for the past couple of months that New York Sports' Lincoln Squash courts will be closing seems a reality as of October 1, 2012. This is very sad. And the sadness has nothing to do with sentiment, it has to do with the fact that the greatest sport in the world cannot seem to survive in the greatest city in the world. Sure, there are private clubs still and a a few, sorry, 2 City Clubs (not counting the outer Boroughs) remaining. But there's always Chelsea Piers, right? Sorry not those Chelsea Piers in Manhattan, but the one which is a transit system away and just opened in Connecticut. Unless the US squash search engine for Manhattan squash tournaments is wrong (one of my students asked about playing in an adult tournament), there aren't any in Manhattan through the end of 2012. To those who have helped put the nails in the coffin for New York City squash, you can just imagine to which after life I am sending you.