By Hope Prockop
Team USA travelled to Guatemala City on November 4th for the 20th Pan American Federation Squash Championships. Team USA included Natalie Grainger, Amanda Sobhy, Olivia Blatchford, Kristen Lange, Julian Illingworth, Chris Gordon, Todd Harrity and Graham Bassett as players, Chris Walker as coach and me, Hope Prockop, as manager. Each participating country is asked to send a referee—not all do—but representing USA on this trip was Brad Burke.
Welcome to Guatemala where the hosts are friendly and the volcanoes are active but vehicle exhaust is dark and dirty, the promises of internet access are false and the tap water is off-limits for drinking. No matter, we came to kick some volcanic ash and bring medals home!
The draws are all online and it is my hope to bring you what you wont find on the draws, including what it’s like to be in the close company of USA’s finest squash players and what it is like to be in Guatemala with the best squash players from North, Central and South America! Everyone has a story to tell and this trip reminds me once again that squash is a tie that binds and that Team USA dominates!
Our arrival in Guatemala City was a bit of a scramble as we needed to sort out hotel rooms that could accommodate the 10 of us—and we had very little ability to communicate with our mostly Spanish speaking hosts. As a result, we have almost all resolved to complete a Rosetta Stone Spanish tutorial before next year’s trip to the Pan Am Games in Guadalajara!
The 17 countries present were staying between two hotels, located a few blocks from one another in an area known as the Zona Vida. The Zona Vida has high security measures in place to ensure the safety of tourists—Guatemala has gang and drug problems—so observing machine gun wielding police was part of our daily routine. It was reassuring on the one hand and a bit unsettling on the other. Nevertheless, we felt safe and spent most of our time at the squash club anyway.
As we arrived at the first hotel (where we thought we would be staying) we enjoyed seeing familiar faces from other counties—members of Team USA have many friends from the South and Central American countries who play WISPA, PSA, college squash or have previously played Pan Am’s. So as not to have Team USA (10 of us) sleeping in three rooms (this meant nine beds and men and women together), we moved to the Holiday Inn where we could have our athletes sleeping on proper beds (no camping cots or pull out sofas) and separated by gender. Our home for the next 10 days became the Holiday Inn, complete with fresh pineapple and papaya, fried plantains and Guatemalan coffee each morning.
The squash club, Sporta Club, was a 45-60 minute minibus ride away from the hotels. The minibuses provided for the players were jam packed every trip to and from the hotels. None of the drivers seemed to be concerned with passenger maximums. As we rode to the club and saw the local Guatemalan buses (locally called chicken buses) overflowing with bodies, ours looked quite spacious!
The first few days in Guatemala City were unseasonably cold and windy. On more than one occasion, we sought refuge in the club’s saunas. The mile high altitude affected many of our players for the first hit or two, then we acclimated. The high altitude ball’s bounce was different and the cold courts made for a situation in which our players had to adjust. Fortunately, they did it well and quickly!
The Individual Championships went from Saturday thru Tuesday. The Doubles was played over two days, Monday and Tuesday. It is in doubles (played in a singles court and eyewear is required!) that the spirit of the event really begins as some of the strongest doubles teams are not medal winners in singles and by Monday, the singles draws are getting a bit more heated. On Wednesday, the 3-player Team event began and it ran thru Saturday. Team play starts with round robin/pool play, then the winners advance into a full draw. It was a full week of squash!
To recap the results, 1 Gold in Womens Team (Grainger, Sobhy, Blatchford and Lange); 3 silver medals: Mixed Doubles (Sobhy and Harrity), Womens Doubles (Blatchford and Lange) and Womens Singles (Grainger); 1 Bronze in Mens Team (Illingworth, Gordon, Harrity, and Bassett). Amanda Sobhy shared the 3rd place medal in the Womens Singles with Nicolette Fernandez (Guyana). At the Teams medal ceremony, I sang our National Anthem a capella. Squash courts with their high ceilings give excellent acoustics so that helped! USA tied the medal count with Mexico at six medals each.
I watched almost every USA match and tried to sit as close as possible to the glass. It is amazing to hear Coach Walker work with players both in preparation for matches (mental and physical training) and in performance. He has an endless reservoir of ideas, talent, support, humor and perspective. Everyone I know would be better as a person and as a squash player if they had five minutes with Chris Walker. No joke!
While I am at it, let me say that our athletes are extraordinary, too. Graham Bassett, PSA player and pro at CityView in NY, filled in at the last minute for Gilly Lane, and Todd Harrity took a week away from Princeton to be a Team USA first timer. Julian Illingworth and Chris Gordon, seasoned PSA players, gave USA a free ride to the team semis. For the women, Kristen Lange, a recent UPenn graduate, joined us from Seattle as she begins her WISPA career. Natalie Grainger led the young powerhouses of Amanda Sobhy (2010 World Junior Champ) and Team USA veteran Olivia Blatchford thru the semis and finals. Their sense of purpose is crystal clear and they all enjoy the game.
Sporta Club, where the tournament was played, has a small café, but I don’t think it has ever seen the volume of customers it saw during our week there. Fortunately, we made a few strategic trips to the Hiper Paix (Mega Wal-Mart) of Guatemala and purchased fruit, bread, PB&J, water, muffins, cheese and avocado and we were able to keep our athletes properly fueled. Sporta didn’t have internet access—despite promises—so most players, if they hung around, got involved in a card game or watched a movie or listened to music. It was fun to see the teams socializing and making connections. Squash is great for that!
Our Team USA gear was really smart looking. The trouble was, it was quickly in need of being laundered. I was sure that I had left my daily maternal rituals of grocery shopping and laundry back at home, but for my new squash family, I was undeniably experienced and would excel at this! Do what you’re good at, right?
Our days at the club were long and we’d go for dinners late in the evening, but every chance we could, we’d go as a team. We are creatures of habit and we found a great restaurant for dinner, very near the hotel, and managed to be repeat customers. We were visited by Ken Stillman, the North American representative to the Federation Panamerican Squash Organization, a diehard USA fan and former US Squash President, and he treated us to dinner at a steakhouse the night before the team semis. What’s a Pan Am’s without a visit from Ken?
This yearly tournament is enjoyed by all the players, coaches, managers, referees and local hosts. To culminate the week, there was a dinner and dancing party that followed the Team medal ceremony. A dry ice machine, neon disco flashing lights and disco balls decorated this year’s party along with local cuisine and libations.
The highlights of the trip include our medal collection, the bonding of Team USA (which, barring unforeseen circumstances, hopes to be building together for the next several years), expert coaching from Chris Walker and a qualifying spot for next year’s Pan Am Games in Guadalajara. To US SQUASH, thank you for sending us and for believing in us. It is a huge honor to wave our flag far and wide. Our blog from this trip can be seen at NationalTeams.blogspot.com.
