By Clifford I. Lavine, President
Squash has shown some dramatic growth in the golden state of California and nothing illustrates this better than our recent showing at the West Coast Invitational Junior Team Championship recently held in Seattle, WA. This tournament, which is held every year on Mothers’ Day and generously hosted by the Seattle Athletic Club, features some of the best junior squash talent from the west coast of the US and Canada. When we first participated in this tournament a few years ago, California could barely mount enough talent to field one team. This year we sent three teams to play in the Division 1 and 2 categories. Our Division 1 team won 1st place; our two Division 2 teams finished in 1st and 3rd place. While many of our entrants in this tournament were relatively new to squash, we have managed to win the Division 1 trophy—the Saunder’s Cup—three of the last four years. One of our players, Todd Lavine, will be the first to be listed three times on the cup; William and Leonard Mohr will be listed twice. At the national level, there are perhaps a dozen junior players from California ranked in the top of their age groups. None of these successes would have been possible, of course, without our wonderful teaching talent including, among others, Richard Elliott, Jonathan Perry, Niki Clement, Dominique Chiquet, Frank Schmidt, Kim Clearkin, Nancy Iskander, and until recently Mark Allen.
At the club level, there has also been a substantial increase in participation, particularly among women. Kim Clearkin, Assistant Squash Pro at the Pacific Athletic Club and a proud wearer of the Oxford “blues,” has almost single-handedly tripled the number of women playing squash in California. Kim’s approach was simple—walk around the club and ask women if they would like to try a new sport.
The Peninsula Squash League, managed with split-second precision by Dick Tetschlag and Joel Shaps, continued its very successful run. Somehow Dick and Joel have managed to get countless teams to play consistently and, as scheduled, at multiple venues up and down the Peninsula and East Bay. Herding cats is easier.
Northern California has also shown growth and success at the college level. Under Mark Talbott’s leadership, the women’s team at Stanford finished 7th in the final CSA rankings for 2007-2008, up from 28th just a few years ago. Across the Bay, Ashley Kayler, who has almost single-handedly built and maintained California Berkeley’s men’s squash team, recently added to his workload by forming a women’s team.
None of our growth and successes would be possible without the support of a large number of dedicated and talented volunteers which include Doug Mohr and Reyn Morgan, who worked day-and-night to organize and train our West Coast Junior teams; Ashley Kayler at Berkeley; Frank Schmidt, Larry Salzer, Nancy Iskander, Kim Clearkin and Kevin Jernigan who work with me on the Northern California Squash Board of Directors; Dick Tetschlag and Joel Shaps who founded and kept the Peninsula League running; and all the too-many-to mention adult players at the Pacific Athletic Club who mentor our junior players.
