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...

Harrity Makes it a Triple

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...

U.S. Open 2012

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...
By James Zug Photos by Steve Line/SquashPics.com There was something primal about it: two Yorkshiremen battling it out in a glass box at a city train station a continent away from home, surrounded by hundreds of screaming people, gladiators in a modern age. In addition, a subterranean fissure was evident. The...
By James Zug Photos by Todd Rothstein In early January Merion Cricket Club hosted its 50th William White Tournament. Two hundred and seventy players entered in 18 draws spread across hardball and softball singles and hardball doubles. Over 460 people came to the black-tie dinner-dance, making it the largest social event...

The Numbers Stop

By James Zug It was bound to happen. At some point, the numbers would stop ticking over. Eight times they had won 5-4 matches. A couple of them were ridiculously close, match balls saved, epic comebacks. It couldn't go on forever like that. The numbers stopped twice this season. The monkeys...