Paul Moses’ heart is in the right place, but if he really believes that he can talk about urban squash programs and "...abandon references to prep schools and Ivy League teams..." then he seriously misunderstands the central mission of most, if not all, of these programs. He need look no further than...
By James Zug
The eightieth J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions will be remembered for the
long-awaited arrival of a queen and the wildly exaggerated, misreported demise of a prince.
Nicol David had done everything in the game of squash, except play a competitive point at the most iconic squash tournament in the...
By James Zug
Photos by Ham Biggar
At 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...
By James Zug
Photos by Steve Line/SquashPics.com
It happened in a challenge match. Jose and I were both seniors, the two captains of the team, battling it out on a dark, winter night in New Hampshire for the number-one spot on the varsity ladder of our college team. The match went...
By James Zug
A quarter century ago, a squash racquet had a small head and weighed a ton—it’s amazing to imagine this, but the Head SX2, the standard racquet in the game in the late eighties, weighed 245 grams. This was considered an absolute innovation over the old wooden bats from the start of...
By James Zug
Grand Central Terminal. It is a magical place. It is the monumental building, weighty with history and grandeur. It is the largest rail terminal in the world—terminal not station: Grand Central is a destination. Trains terminate there. It is not a place you simply breeze through.
A total...
By James Zug
Neal Tew is the purveyor of a new method of developing squash: the nonprofit club.
Tew grew up playing at the Cincinnati Country Club. He was one of Don Mills’ protégés. The class of 1993 at Harvard, Tew was a part of two national championship teams; his senior...
By James Zug
Nick Matthew
Sweating Blood: My Life in Squash
Cheshire, England: internationalSportGroup, 2013
It is a shame but inevitable. Like everywhere else in their careers, Nick Matthew and James Willstrop are now placed side by side on the bookshelf. Just under two years ago, Willstrop came out with his memoir, Shot...
Published by Scribner in September 2003, the book covers every aspect of the sport, from its nineteenth century beginnings in the U.S. to the start of the twenty-first century. It’s quite possible US SQUASH would have missed its own centennial if it were not for Jim Zug’s seminal work...
By James Zug
In the fall of 1973 the first commercial squash club opened in the United States. Today, public clubs are commonplace. U.S. Squash estimates that a third of all courts in the country are in public clubs. One health club chain, Life Time Fit- ness, has forty-four clubs...