Ham Biggar Presented Brauns Award

By James Zug
Photos by Ham Biggar

A5t the eighth-annual Tub o’ Towels Cleveland Classic last month in Cleveland, Ohio, US Squash presented the 2013 W. Stewart Brauns, Jr., Award to Hamilton Fisk Biggar, III. The Brauns is one of the most prestigious awards in American squash. Created after the death of Stew Brauns in the late 1980s, the award is annually given to someone who has made major administrative, off-the-court contributions to the game of squash. Previous winners include Jahangir Khan, Quentin Hyder, Bob Callahan and Treddy Ketcham.

Ham Biggar epitomizes the Brauns Award. A Cleveland native, he was a barefoot punter for the football team at Syracuse. He opened Cleveland’s first disco in 1973, eventually owning a dozen around the country. In squash, he was a top doubles player. For ten consecutive years he and his partner, Jack Batt, were ranked in the top ten in the nation and together they won five Ohio state titles.

3In 1979 Biggar launched the Thirteenth Street Racquet Club in downtown Cleveland. The 50,000 square-foot commercial club had a bar and restaurant, a running track, fourteen racquetball courts and full aerobics and weightlifting facilities. Squash was the heart of the club. It had six hardball courts, one twenty-foot court and one doubles court. All were air-conditioned. At its height, the club had 6,000 members and was a tremendous catalyst for squash in Cleveland and the Midwest. And for romance: Biggar met his wife Terry on a squash court.

Biggar served on the US Squash board and its executive committee for many years. He was the secretary for US Squash between 1982 and 1989, the longest tenure of any non-CEO administrator in US Squash’s century-long history. He also served as the assistant secretary for three years and was the chair of the ranking committee. He was the tournament director for the seminal 1982 and 1983 North American Opens and the 1984 U.S. nationals, all of which he hosted at the Thirteenth Street Racquet Club.

His most indelible mark came as the game’s leading photographer in the 1980s. Biggar created some of the most iconic images in U.S. squash history. With skill and patience, he photographed dozens of tournaments and hundreds of people around the country. He was the first to perfect the use of the remote, front-wall camera, giving Squash News readers a new way to view the game and all its emotions.

His recent donation of his squash photographic archives to US Squash makes this legacy permanent. It ensures future generations will know the power of the phrase “photo: Ham Biggar.”

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In February the highlight of the Cleveland Classic, the annual WSA event at the Cleveland Racquet Club, was the presentation of the Stew Brauns Award to Ham Biggar. (L-R) Joe Russell, the Squash Director at the CRC, James Zug from US Squash, Ham Biggar, Terry Biggar and Tom Lucci, the president of CRC.