Kristen Lange on playing in the World University Games
U.S. SQUASH and the College Squash Association joined forces to send five players to represent the United States at the 2008 World University Squash Championships in Cairo Egypt. John Fulham (Yale) Lee Rosen (Penn) Tucker George (U.S. Naval Academy) Amanda Seibert (Princeton) and Kristen Lange (Penn) participated in both the individual and team tournaments. Lange, a member of this year’s U.S. Pan–American gold medal winning womens team and a two-time All-America at Penn, reflects on the U.S. teams trip to Cairo.
Going to Egypt for the World University Games, I was not sure what to expect. There had been multiple emails sent about what to wear, what not to wear, the cultural differences that we would witness and, of course, the high possibility that at least one of us was going to get sick. For the most part I just brushed off these concerns with a careless flick of my wrist—”When I get there I will decide for myself what is the what.
Well, as much as I hate to admit it the emails were right. As a woman, I received a lot of attention, and I learned to always wear pants. But the emails were also right about one other major fact—Egypt is amazing. There is no other place like it on earth. The day we walked off the plane in Cairo, we naively declared that it was not that hot; comfortable actually. Hahaha, boy were we wrong. By noon that day, the sun was high and we were sweltering hot. Our saving grace was that we were inside where there was AC.
Since it was such a large event, and Egypt is such a historic country, the tournament had hired tour guides for us. Our main tour guide, Kareem, was a great guy. Truth be told though, everyone there was very hospitable, constantly asking if we needed or wanted anything. Most the time I felt as if I had 20 tour guides! By the time the tournament started the guides had become our friends and were cheering for us throughout the week. I don’t think Kareem ever missed one of our matches.
I know people say that New York is the city that never sleeps, but with all do respect, I think Cairo deserves that title. During the day, since it is so hot, Cairo is a little slow, but come dusk Cairo is a bustling metropolis, where taxi drivers and civilians alike fight for position on the road and sidewalks. The honking of horns never stops in Egypt, no matter where you are or what you are doing you can hear the horns honking; not in the New York sense where people honk to tell you they are mad, but rather in a friendly way to tell a person to “watch out, I am on your right and coming up the side.” It’s crazy.
The best part of the trip to Egypt though, was not the taxi drives, not the bazaar, nor the pyramids (though they are incredible), no. The best part of Egypt was, without a doubt, the squash. How could it not be good? In the women’s draw we had two top 20 players! All I could think was, “Wow; these women (and men) are in college, and are some of the best players in the world!” Granted some of them are doing school half time or are considerably older than me, but they are still doing college and squash successfully. I remember sitting by the courts and thinking, “Wow, this is where college squash has the potential of going! Professional players, playing both for a university and semi-pro, the possibility for growth and improvement in the US College squash circuit is huge!” Going to college is something that can help one play squash professionally in the long run, which is going against the common opinion that college squash hurts your game. I hate to sound trite, but in some ways it was a really inspirational tournament. Just seeing where college squash and my own game can go is a feeling I cannot quite put into words.
While the individual event was a great time and full of amazing squash, nothing compares to playing on a team. The five or us got along fantastically, the guys were great and Amanda (Siebert) is always a great person to travel with. The night we received our seeding was a bit of a punch in the gut—we were seeded last, dead last. Of course our team was rather annoyed. We thought that at least we should be second to last.
That night we resolved to do the best we could; if you think about it, there really is no place to go but up. The close matches that we had with some of our competitors were thrilling, even though we did not win them all, we had the best time playing the matches, and cheering on our team. Not to mention that we had some of the best looking gear (thanks Conor). All in all, I think the team event was a success for us. It was a hard field, we proved that we are a strong squash team, and country, and that we are not afraid of a challenge.
Our trip to Egypt was a thrilling 10-day excursion, where I probably learned more about squash and my own perseverance. It is a trip I will never forget. Shakarun.
