By James Zug
For thirty years the Eric R. Finkelman Award has been the highlight of the Lapham-Grant weekend. The U.S. v. Canada matches date back to 1922 and thus are the oldest annual international matches in the game of squash. The weekend has always been known for off-court hijinks...
By James Zug
Back in 1907 young Fred Tompkins invented a game. He called it squash doubles. He used the fastest balls he could find and an unused space that happened to be 45 by 25 feet. He was a full-time squash, tennis and racquets pro at the Racquet Club...
By James Zug
It was a spectacular point and unlike most spectacular points, the entire tournament — and possibly much more — hinged on it.
In football you have The Drive and The Catch and The Play (possibly also The Fumble but there are two of them); in basketball you sort of...
By James Zug
The inclusion of squash in the Olympic Games is an old idea. The earliest documented attempt was in 1947 for the 1952 Helsinki Games (recall that Los Angeles and Minneapolis finished tied for second in the city bidding that go around). The 1976 Montreal Games, selected in 1970, was considered...
By James Zug
Preston Quick directed the 28th annual Butcher/Ball/Ketcham National Intercollegiate Squash Doubles Championships in Philadelphia during the U.S. Open’s first weekend in October. The Racquet Club of Philadelphia again hosted, with Germantown Cricket Club providing two more courts. This enabled the Intercollegiates to offer a consolation for the...
By James Zug
If the British Open is the church of squash (hallowed but lately not as central to our lives) the United States Open is the economy of squash. In the 40 times the men’s event and 16 times the women’s event have been staged, the Open has seen...
By James Zug
Walking out onto the steps of St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Wayne, Pennsylvania, after Diehl Mateer's funeral service, one of the most storied players ever said to me: "He was the one, wasn't he? Yes, yes, George Diehl Mateer, Jr. was the greatest amateur squash player in...
By James Zug
1989
We had lost to Harvard in the regular season in 1989, 6-3 in Cambridge. A week later we beat them in the semis of the first nationals team tournament at Yale. We beat them 7-2. And then we beat Princeton in the finals. It was theoretically...
SMAG-Books 12
Summer Reading: Herewith is our second literary salon where we review the latest books about squash. Three of the four books were self-published; the fourth was privately published- all can be obtained with easy online sleuthing...
By James Zug
A Shot and a Ghost: A Year in the Brutal World of...
By James Zug
Marketing a tournament is easy these days: set up a website, send out some tweets, update Facebook and bam! The deal is done.
Not so fast. The North American Open has figured out that the best way to sell itself is with something old-school, something hardcopy. A commemorative...