Now that my squash playing days are over, from time to time, I catch myself reflecting on my 40 plus years event packed squash career. It's a uniquely Californian history because, unlike many notable players who resettled in Northern California at that time, I was not an east coast transplant with an Ivy League school background. I was a homegrown Bay Area player who was introduced to squash while attending Berkeley.
Being a public school kid with modest beginnings, who knew that I would develop a long time passion for the game.
But I did.
I kicked myself out of the paper bag of local squash, traveled to tournaments throughout North America, while meeting many influential players along the way.
One can imagine the myriad of personalities I met, friends and foes alike, over the 40 year span I have been a part of the game.
I competed against the best players of my generation; who achieved multiple national championship titles in the days when hardball singles was the prevailing game and when the nascent softball singles (at least in the US) was played only as a diversion during the summer months.
To name a few:
Gordon Anderson, the affable Canadian, who toured with Sharif Khan and who was everyone’s friend (He was my partner when we won the 40+ National Doubles Squash Championships in 1998) . Detroit’s David Linden - the winner of multiple National softball and hardball singles crowns, Anil Nayar: the Harvard standout, the Indian National Junior Champion who was an intercollegiate as well as multiple singles national champion. Jon Foster, who with NY standout, Morris Clothier, was a multiple National Doubles Champion. New York’s legendary Jay Nelson. Ned Edwards. Bob Callahan the longtime coach of Princeton.
But in end, the ones who really stood out, to me, were the local players that were part of the Northern California squash community. These were the players who were mentors, aspirational role models, and good friends during my formative years while l was learning the ins and out of the game. Not only on the court, but the education extended into the locker rooms, dining rooms, and bars that were and still staples of squash culture.
Back in the day, there was a palpable sense of a west coast ethos with its own narrative.
This is my squash “Hall of Fame” made up of four local players who not only made an impression on me, but provided the source of distinctiveness that defined squash that was uniquely Northern Californian.
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Alex Eichmann: California Squash Legend
by Rob Dinerman
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Ralfe Miller (l) presents Alex Eichmann with his eponymous trophy.
(photo © 2004 courtesy Alex Eichmann)
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It is ironic in view of the standing he would subsequently acquire as arguably the most historically significant figure in the annals of Pacific Coast squash that this exceptional all-around athlete discovered the game completely by accident when he enrolled in a physical education course in the spring of 1960 during the last semester of his senior year at the University of California, Berkeley. The course was by happy coincidence taught by Ralfe Miller, a former runner-up in the Pacific Coast Squash Championship, who immediately spotted the potential in his young charge and encouraged him to pursue the sport after his graduation.
By that time. Eichmann had already achieved excellence in baseball, whereas a pitcher he played semi-pro ball in the Bay Area for several of his high-school years after becoming one of the few players to make the varsity as a freshman; soccer, where he followed in the footsteps of his father, Alex Sr., a member of the 1920 German Olympic squad; and golf, where he made all-city in high school and later led the UC Berkeley team to its best season in decades.
He also would become good enough as a bowler to routinely record scores in the 200 range, and one of his fondest athletic memories in later years was of leading his intramural college basketball club to three school championships, even though members of the UC Berkeley squad that defeated West Virginia 71-70 in the 1959 NCAA championship game were dispersed, usually two to a team, throughout the intramural league and Eichmann's teams did not have any players from that championship roster.
In one memorable final during the spring of '59, Eichmann's team beat an intramural opponent that featured varsity star Darrall Imhoff, who would have a successful career as an NBA starting center on the Elgin Baylor-Jerry West Los Angeles Laker teams that constantly opposed the Boston Celtic dynasty during the 1960's. At 6 foot, 10 inches, Imhoff was much too big for anyone on Eichmann's team to guard, but Eichmann, in an early version of the strategy that is presently routinely utilized against the current Laker starting center Shaquille O'Neal, ordered his teammates down the stretch to intentionally foul Imhoff, a poor free-throw shooter due to the line-drive trajectory of his delivery, and the strategy paid off handsomely in a close and very satisfying victory.
This latter incident provides an instructive look into some of the characteristics that would later serve him so well when he decided to focus on squash several years after graduating from Berkeley. Though Eichmann was only 5 foot, 9 inches, and 160 pounds, the arm strength he had developed as a pitcher and bowler enabled him to generate significant power, especially on his forehand drives, and his agility and multi-front athleticism made him an excellent retriever with noteworthy stamina. All of these qualities, buttressed by a competitive attitude whose intensity level became the stuff of legend, enabled Eichmann to frequently will his way to victories over opponents with far greater playing experience and shot-making skills by relentlessly running everything down and simply refusing to give in until his foes ran out of strength or patience or resolve, or all three.
But the shrewdness that also infused Eichmann's approach to squash was often overlooked, as was the wisdom he displayed in improving and expanding his game by seeking top players from the east who relocated to California and making them his practice partners. This group included two Harvard stars, namely Larry Sears, who would win the '62 and '63 Pacific Coast championships, and later Victor Niederhoffer, the '64 National Intercollegiate champion and '66 U. S. National champion, who took a job teaching at the UC Berkeley Business School in '69 and with whom Eichmann had a captivating series of matches during the several years that Niederhoffer lived out west.
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TAKING ON THE NIEDER
Alex Eichmann (at T) against Victor Niederhoffer
(photo © 2004 courtesy Alex Eichmann)
By the time Eichmann's rivalry with Niederhoffer began, he was already well along in a decade-long period of dominance in squash in the region that would eventually result in more than 40 tournament wins, highlighted by Pacific Coast titles in '67 (on his home Olympic Club courts and over Brooks Ragen in the final), '69 (over Steve Gurney, who in the mid-1970's would become the head coach at Yale), '70 (over George Morfitt, later a U. S. and Canadian multiple age-group champion) and '72 (again over Gurney, an ever-present Eichmann rival, though Eichmann wound up with a decisive 8-2 career edge). Eichmann also was a Pacific Coast finalist in '64 and '71, a six-time California state champion, the winner of the NorCals four straight years from 1970-73, six times the Olympic Club Invitational titlist, five times each the winner of the Ralfe Miller tournament and the University Club of San Francisco event and a three-time champion in the University Club of Los Angeles tourney.
In the first tournament of the 1969-70 season, the Ralfe Miller (named of course in honor of Eichmann's first squash mentor, who was himself a legendary figure in California squash lore) Eichmann and Niederhoffer met in the final, with the latter narrowly winning the first two games in tiebreakers, taking a much-needed rest in the 15-4 third game and reasserting himself in the 15-9 final fourth. But even in sustaining that defeat, Eichmann noted the one chink in his redoubtable foe's armor and determined to find a way to exploit it going forward. Niederhoffer at that time was somewhat out of shape and overweight, and he likely would have lost had his uncanny shot-making not (barely) carried him through those first two games and thereby given him the luxury of being able to let the third game go and conserve his energy for the fourth.
Eichmann realized that if he could up his own conditioning level even further and make his rematches with Niederhoffer more battles of attrition than tests of their respective racquet skills, he might well defeat his storied opponent.
Niederhoffer, a first-ballot inductee into the U.S.S.R.A. Squash Hall Of Fame several decades later, would win the Nationals four straight years from 1972-75 and become Sharif Khan's most notorious rival during the 1970's, even beating Khan in the final round of the '75 North American Open in Mexico City. Throughout Niederhoffer's career he fully earned his reputation for winning down-to-the-wire matches---but on this occasion, it was Eichmann whose superior fitness and tenacity carried the day, to the tune of a 15-13 fifth-game victory that is still talked about reverentially among longtime aficionados of that era.
Eichmann recorded a second victory over Niederhoffer, also in five games, seven months later when they met in an early-season Olympic Club vs. UC Berkeley team match, but this setback only served to galvanize the latter, who had already set his sights on winning the '72 Nationals in Detroit. Eichmann attributes his first-round win over Gulmast Khan, Sharif's younger brother, in large part to the frequent practice sessions that he and Niederhoffer scheduled as a run-up to that tournament, but in the second round he lost decisively to The Champ himself, who would go on to win that Nationals without losing a single game.
Eichmann would begin winding down his playing career during the next few years, though he did have one last hurrah in February '74 in Annapolis, site of that year's Nationals, when he played No. 1 and led the Pacific Coast to victory in the Five-Man Team National Championships. He and teammates Morfitt, John Hutchinson (Eichmann's conqueror in the '71 Pac Coast final), John
Puddicombe and Dick Radloff prevailed 3-2 in a memorable final over a tough Westerns squad paced by the O'Laughlin brothers, Dave and Larry.
SQUASH ENTREPRENEUR
By that time, Eichmann, then in his late 30's, was beginning to turn his squash-related interests in a markedly different direction, one which may ultimately have had a greater long-term impact on squash in California than that created by even his extended run of on-court accomplishments. Inspired in part by news of the successful launching of the first commercial squash club in New York a few years earlier, and with the strong financial backing of a group of wealthy investors from nearby Hillsborough (about 20 miles south of San Francisco), Eichmann built the Peninsula Squash Club in San Mateo in 1975, a four-court facility that swiftly displaced the several private clubs in downtown San Francisco as "the place to be" for squash devotees and the major hub of that sport in the area.
Eichmann ran every aspect of the club, from giving lessons to handling court bookings to making sure the towel area was well stocked, and, once the word swiftly got around, the best players in the area started showing up to practice with Eichmann and tune their games for upcoming tournaments. His father, whose own athletic achievements made him totally at ease in this kind of environment, also became a constant and popular fixture at the club, where Eichmann would frequently hold court in front of a happily captive audience of his friends, admirers, and members.
This entrepreneurial undertaking proved so successful that five years later Eichmann built a second and even more substantial facility, the Squash Club of San Francisco, located in the great city itself and featuring among its eight courts a glass-back exhibition court with a 300-spectator capacity gallery which top WPSA pro Stu Goldstein deemed "the best court on our tour," quite a compliment given that during this early-1980's heyday period there were close to 25 tournaments (most of them held at exclusive private clubs) on the annual schedule.
The two major events hosted during that time at this latter club, namely the WPSA ranking tour stop in March '81 and the U. S. Nationals two years later, were both fabulously successful, and there can be no question either that these have to be considered landmark events in the greatest period of squash expansion ever in California squash (with more tournaments, more flights, larger draws and more enthusiasm than at any time either before or since) or that this surge was to a significant degree attributable to the existence and success of Eichmann's two clubs, which for the first time made the game readily accessible to many people who were not members of the few private San Francisco clubs.
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WPSA Stars (Sharif, Aziz, Gordie Anderson, Frank Satterthwaite,
Eichmann, Clive Caldwell at the 1981 WPSA Tour event inaugurating
Eichmann's new club. (photo © 2004 courtesy Alex Eichmann)
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Nor can there be any doubt that the boost that these clubs provided to the area, which was duplicated by similar commercial-club successes in other regions of the country, enabled the pro and amateur circuits in this country to grow in a way that provided an entire squash generation with a degree of playing and money-making opportunities that were, unfortunately, absent during the arc of Eichmann's own playing career. The massive expansion of the game, and the proud realization of the important role that he himself had played in its occurrence was particularly fulfilling to this son of San Francisco, who lived his entire life there before moving in '95 to Sacramento, where he still is a frequent and proficient golfer.
Now 66 and seemingly as feisty as ever, especially when recalling questionable referees' calls that went against him or opponents with whom he clashed decades ago, Eichmann was able to retire in his early 50's after getting "offers he couldn't refuse" from the real estate developers to whom he wound up selling his clubs near the end of the 1980's. He continues to enjoy the respect and admiration of all who witnessed or were in any way associated with his outstanding and multi-front squash career.
Tom Dashiell, Eichmann's mid-1970's sparring partner and occasional tournament opponent and later (in '79) the first Californian to be ranked in the USSRA top 10, noted recently that throughout those years that it was Eichmann, "who hated to lose more than anyone I have ever known," against whom he would constantly measure the progress of his game. Ted Gross, the only Californian to seriously compete on (and crack the top 15 of) the WPSA tour, said that Eichmann had been his primary squash role model and the inspiration for his own career aspirations. And Alan Fox, the USSRA President during the early 1990's and a Californian himself whose playing days substantially overlapped with Eichmann's, made special mention of the multitude of fronts on which Eichmann had made enormous contributions and of Eichmann's status almost as an icon of that substantial period in west coast squash in general and California squash in particular.
That he was able to play with the type of edge he exuded throughout his career and still command such affection all these years later from such a disparate group of people is perhaps the consummate tribute to what this legendary figure meant to squash during such an important time in the game's evolution.
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Alex Eichmann Retires From Competition
March 1974, NorCal Yearbook Publication
After twelve event filled years of exciting play and unselfish contributions to NorCal Squash, Alex Eichmann announced his retirement from the amateur ranks.
He won four Nor Cals, five Cal States, and four Pacific Coast titles. In 1972, Eichmann achieved national ranking by defeating along the way Gulmast Khan, son of Hashim, in the Nationals and lost to eventual champion Victor Niederhoffer. (Although Eichmann defeated Niederhoffer three times during his career, one being in the 1970 NorCal Championships.)
Eichmann also starred in doubles, winning the Pacific Coast Doubles in 1966 with his partner Dan Morgan.
His crowning achievement was when in 1974, he played number one on the Pacific Coast Team which won the Team National Championships (with teammates John Hutchinson, George Morfitt, Bob Puddicombe, and Dick Radloff). The Pacific Coast Team also won the National Title in 1954, 1957, and 1961.
Yet with all of his competitive achievements, Eichmann’s influence to all of the players he met, coached, advised, encouraged and inspired was his greatest contribution - when the best player takes the time and interest to help beginners.
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WHERE'S DICK?
HE'S GONE!—LEGENDARY CAL SQUASH COACH DICK CRAWFORD RETIRES TO SENIOR TENNIS CIRCUIT
April 1994
by Mike O’Neal
Where's Dick was the humorous question asked at Coach Dick Crawford's retirement roast on a recent balmy evening at Spenger's seafood restaurant in Berkeley. The clear and serious answer is that he was and will always be in the hearts of every player he ever coached in his 27-year career as coach of the University of California squash team. This answer was written in the smiles and words of all those players, great and small, who returned this night to the college of their youth to honor this man who had, indeed, helped shape their lives.
United States Squash Racquets Association (USSRA) President Alan Fox, a graduate of UC Berkeley Law School, and a good friend and contemporary of Crawford's, attended the roast and, on behalf of the USSRA presented Crawford with the first Northern California SRA Sportsmanship Award. This award was endowed to the USSRA by the San Francisco Olympic Club and the NorCal Squash Association and its intent is to honor persons who have made outstanding contributions to the sport of squash in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In a moving tribute to his good friend, Fox offered his opinion that, in 27 years of selfless service, no one had done more than Crawford to put California squash on the national map. Fox praised Crawford as a persuasive motivator, a tireless promoter, and a generous teacher of young people. There were no dissenting opinions from this audience of over 100 former players, their families, and friends.
In his years at Berkeley, Crawford brought Cal squash into the national limelight. In 1977, he took the team back east to compete in the National Intercollegiates for the first time. Cal squash teams have now been back to the Nationals a total of 14 times under Crawford. In the period of 1990-1992, they won three straight Division III national titles. Thanks to Crawford's coaching and his promotion, Cal squash players gained the invaluable experience of competing on a national level. And the nation learned about the caliber of play on the West Coast.
And there was a host of great squash players who came out of Dick Crawford's program at Berkeley. Floyd Svensson, Alex Eichmann, John Lau, Kris Surano, Jim Huebner, Paul Gessling, Ted Gross, Paul Kohler, to name but a few. These names are legendary in California squash and, among them, these players hold numerous national titles. Some are now squash professionals and Naniche is the vice president of the USSRA. But how many people know that all these great players came from the same program, and that, almost to a man, they had never even heard of squash until an ex-quarterback from Western Michigan University took them out on the court and introduced them to a game they would play for a lifetime? The stories of these players will provide a hint of the greatness of a man who is leaving, but will never, ever be gone.
Big, raw-boned Jim Huebner was perhaps Coach Crawford's best player ever. A fabulous natural athlete, Huebner had been an excellent high school tennis player as well as the best miler in the state of California. It probably didn't hurt that he had good genes—his father had been an All-American tennis player at UCLA. With broad shoulders and a big hearty laugh, Huebner exudes the easy confidence of one familiar with achievement. After spending two years at San Jose State on a (track/tennis) scholarship, Huebner transferred to Berkeley. Crawford worked with him for two years and, as a senior in 1979, Huebner was named an All-American, the only squash All-American Cal has ever had. After college, Huebner went on the world professional softball tour for two years. This was quite a feat at the time because none really played softball seriously in the United States. So for Huebner to have any success at all in a game that was essentially new to him was truly remarkable—a testimony to his athletic talent and, perhaps, not completely unrelated to the wind that had made him a great high school miler. Now Huebner has settled down with his family—a wife and three children in Fresno—but he was not too busy to make the long drive to Berkeley to honor his coach, Dick Crawford.
It was Huebner who told a great story of Crawford's coaching legerdemain. Just before one trip to the Nationals, the Coach presented the team with brand new fluorescent blue-and-gold warmup suits. While moved at the generosity of the gift, some players suggested that Crawford might be getting a kickback from the manufacturer as the suits were garishly bright and actually came with a free pair of sunglasses to protect the wearer from their glare. The method in Crawford's sartorial madness was soon apparent, however. Huebner said that while warming up for one of his key matches, he noticed that his opponent was having an inordinately difficult time hitting the ball, actually missing it completely on a number of occasions. When he saw this same hapless adversary shielding his eyes to receive the first serve, Huebner suddenly understood. The guy was blinded by the fluorescent warmup suit. So, even as his body temperature soared over the 100 mark in the fifth game, Huebner was seen still wearing the suit. He had not even rolled up the sleeves. As he left the court victorious, stepping over the broiled remains of his glare struck victim, Huebner raised his hand in triumph. Reporters at the time were unclear as to whether he was making the V sign for victory, or an IV sign for a transfusion. But it little mattered, as yet again, Crawford, had found a novel way to win.
John Lau is well known to veteran San Francisco squash players and also to anyone who follows the national squash scene. In the early 1980s, John and Berkeley classmate Paul Gessling dominated California squash, as they took virtually every state and local title imaginable. John moved on to become the pro at the City's University Club where he has continued to refine his already exquisite game. In 1991 and 1992, he won two consecutive 35+ United States HardbaIl Championships. In 1992, he was a semifinalist in the United States Softball Championship. With all this accomplishment, it is hard to imagine that John had never even seen a squash court until, as a freshman at Berkeley, he stumbled into a class taught by Coach Crawford. Crawford recognized John's talent and steered him into squash. The rest is history. And in John's case, the benefits turned out to be more than just sport. Like a number of other players, John met his wife, women's A player Evy Kavaler, through squash. And so his debt to Coach Crawford is even greater than most.
Three of the other students in that storied advanced tennis class were Paul Gessling, Andre Naniche, and Mark Rosenstein. Gessling, who traded titles with Lau in the 80s, is now at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. And like Lau, Gessling met his wife Irene Naniche, through squash. Clearly, Coach Crawford's influence extends beyond the court. Andre Naniche was an accomplished tennis player out of Berkeley High School (class of 76) who went on to become an excellent men's A singles and doubles player. With a political prowess perhaps superior even to his squash, Naniche has ascended to the vice presidency of the USSRA. Rosenstein used his squash experience as a springboard to a fabulous lacrosse career, and now, as his lacrosse days seem numbered, he is returning with enthusiasm to the game he first learned from Coach Crawford.
Alex Eichmann was perhaps the craftiest player Crawford ever coached. If anyone could find a way to win it was Eichmann. Lefthanded and gifted with preternatural quickness and anticipation, Eichman won everything in sight in California in the early 70s. His list of accomplishments included not only numerous state championships but also a victory over the legendary national champion Victor Niederhofer. Forgotten by many as Eichmann moved forward in triumph was the origin of this great player—an origin that could be traced to ancient subterranean courts reached by rickety ladders and ruled by a special molder of men—Dick Crawford. In addition to all his playing accomplishments, Alex founded two popular squash clubs in the 1980s—the Peninsula Squash Club in San Mateo and the San Francisco Squash Club in the City. Numerous players, new and old, learned to love the game for the first time, or again, at one of these great clubs—both now sadly defunct.
Floyd Svennson is perhaps the most remarkable of all the players associated with Crawford. Svennson, a champion long distance runner at the University of Washington, got into squash as a civil engineering graduate student at Cal. He then proceeded to have one of the most incredible squash careers in history. Beginning at the age of 40, Swenson rapidly climbed from D to C to B to A status. And then, unbelievably, he won the California state men's A championship at the age of 50! He went on to win numerous national age group titles. On one memorable weekend, at the age of 53 in Salt Lake City, he played seven matches in one day including semifinals and finals in three different classes (Men's A's, Men's Senior A's, and Men's Doubles) and won each of the three events. A true phenomenon. (Floyd also accomplished an unprecedented Triple Crown winning the Canadian Seniors, US Nationals Seniors, and the Mexican Seniors in one calendar year.) And now at the age of 72, Floyd journeyed from his home in nearby Concord and arrived clear-eyed and bright smiling to honor Coach Crawford. What greater tribute than that such wonderful and accomplished people would come to do you honor?
And then there was Bob Tuck, better known now as the Berkeley Bear—the madcap mascot who drives the basketball fans into a feverish Blue and Gold frenzy. Tuck's puckish humor was evident early in his college career when after some brief tutoring from Coach Crawford, he became a good journeyman squash player and a perhaps world-class showman. For it was Bob, as some will remember, who one chilly night in a late sixties fall, waved unabashedly to a cheering throng from his lofty and naked perch atop the Biology building. As his embarrassed girlfriend held his clothes, a bemused Coach Crawford happened by with his buddy Alan Fox. "Isn't that Tuck?" Crawford inquired. And, of course, it was. Tuck was perhaps the first squash streaker.
And to this day his zeal is undiminished. Tuck was so eager to honor his old coach that he actually arrived a week early for the dinner. But this turned out to be a stroke of good fortune, when the Spenger's maitre'd' told him that that's how long he'd have to wait for a table.
And youth was also served. Paul Kohler, captain of the 1991 UC Berkeley team, past vice president of the NorCal SRA, and current nationally ranked A player, spoke fondly of his days with Crawford. No, Paul's long softball experience would not let him master the coach's beloved reverse corner, and oh how Paul longed to just play the game when Crawford called them together for yet another boring strategy session. But Kohler smiled quite broadly from the heart when he recalled how Coach Crawford told them he just wanted them to "rip it." And that smile truly said it all. Player and coach had struggled together in a game they loved. And in the end, they loved each other.
Ashley Kaye, a fine player from the 1992 team was the prime mover behind this event and he told the story of how Crawford had arrived late on the scene of the team's eastern tour and was aghast at reports of their eating habits, apparently supervised by one Bill Branson, a player whose gastronomic sense has been equated with that of Bluto in the Popeye cartoon series. The team, which was due to play Wesleyan, in the Division 1 (??) tournament, had just ordered up a round of cheeseburgers and fries, when Crawford entered the restaurant. Where's Dick? Well, here he was and he was horrified. Crawford canceled the cheeseburgers and ordered instead a nutritious round of fruit cocktails. The team went on to lose to Wesleyan, and many, Ashley Kaye among them, blamed the fruit cocktails.
Steve Morton, a Crawford squash player back in the late 70's (class of 79) and a serious surfer now out of Monterey delighted the audience with his reminiscences of the team trips back east. A personal story about a late night adventure, possibly with a member of the opposite sex, but unelaborated on piqued the crowd's interest. Although the audience kept begging for more details, sometimes in a rather unseemly fashion, the essence of the tale remained a mystery at press time.
A less sensational, but perhaps more memorable, Eastern swing story was of the time Crawford was a little late in getting his team back to the New York airport and saved time by leaving the rental car with a skycap. Apparently, the car was never seen again in one piece and the insurance company, to this day, questions Crawford's wisdom. But not so his squash players.
And these players were out in force on this special night. In addition to those already named, there were Jeff Mackiewicz, Jay Prince, Guy Lampard, John Schutt, and Steve DeLuchi to name a few. Other attending luminaries included Terry Eagle, Bill Murray, Bill Garratt, Murray Smith, Tom Dashiell, and Eddie Marr, Ted Gross, a great Cal player who went on to work as a hardball squash professional back east, was unable to attend in person, but he did send a letter praising his coach and thanking him for the contribution to his career and life. And hundreds more who could not come tonight had been buoyed in spirit and in life by this ambassador of sport.
As just one more example of the breadth of Crawford's influence, consider obstetrician and popular women's C player Sonia Soo Hoo and her husband, Irish singer and polymathic sports coach Michael Black. As a student at Cal, Sonia was in the advanced tennis class and Michael, in the course of earning his degree in physical education, was student teaching. They met on the court, and, in a very unusual result, both were winners at love. And whom do they have to thank, but the one and only Coach Crawford. After many years of marriage and squash, Sonia and Michael journeyed together across the Bay on this night to honor their friend, Dick Crawford.
And where did this man who meant so much to so many begin his journey?
Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1935, Crawford came to California after an impressive sports career in college and then the army. Crawford had played quarterback on the Western Michigan football team and also played three years of varsity tennis. Football was Crawford's passion in those days, and tennis just something he did for fun. That has changed a little now, as Dick no longer plays football, and he is ranked in the top 10 in the world in the 55+ Masters tennis.
After college, Dick played semi-pro football just long enough to be belted by a 250-lb linebacker and then he entered the army. And it was while in the service, at a god-forsaken base in Fort Greely, Alaska, midway between Fairbanks and Anchorage, that he played his first squash game on a jerry-rigged racquetball court in an airplane hangar in 1958. It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows him now, that Crawford, a special services officer, was in charge of virtually everything on the base—he ran all the athletic programs, the bowling alley, the store, game rooms, libraries, movies, etc. He also played quarterback for the football team, guard on the basketball team, and even found time to run a little track. There was also an unconfirmed report that he captained an Iditarod dog sled team.
After the army, Crawford came to California to coach football at Mountain View High School. The tennis coach at that school was a then unknown guy by the name of Dick Gould. Gould, of course, went on to Stanford to coach the likes of Dick Stockton and John McEnroe. When Crawford learned that his good friend, Chet Murphy, the tennis coach at Cal, was going on sabbatical in 1968, he leaped at the opportunity to enter the college ranks-moving to Berkeley to coach tennis, sailing, and squash. (As a historical aside, squash started at Cal in 1933 when the Harmon gym was erected. Ralfe Miller, for whom the annual UC tournament is named, was the first Cal squash coach.)When Murphy returned Crawford focused on teaching tennis classes while continuing to coach sailing and squash.
Crawford's approach to promoting squash and recruiting players was this. He taught the advanced competitive tennis class and when he saw a really promising athlete, he would suggest that he give squash a try. His very first recruit was Michael Jenson-Akula in 1968. His last was 18-year-old Derek Moulaison, class of 1997. Both were here at the roast to honor their mentor.
To help them gain experience, Crawford sent his players all over the Bay Area, and beyond, in search of competition. If there was one, there were fifty stories at the roast of players sent over to the University or Olympic Clubs with instructions that parking would be no problem and that parking tickets were an extremely unlikely event. Almost, to a man, the players came back— not always with their cars, and frequently with tickets, but always with the rich experience of competition and a slightly recast opinion of their coach.
In 1970, Crawford founded the Northern California Squash Racquets Association and served as its first president. He also organized an extremely successful interclub league system. And he did it all for nothing, for nothing save the good it did his players. He even spent a good deal of time trying to organize a Western States Squash Association (to include the likes of UCLA, the Air Force Academy, Washington, Stanford, Berkeley, etc.).
Now, at the age of 59, Crawford is retiring as Cal squash coach and planning to devote more time to playing the world senior tennis circuit. He already has an exotic itinerary planned. Like everything else he has touched in life, it seems likely that the senior tour will never be the same after Dick Crawford is through with it. Certainly that can be said of all the players he coached at Cal, for they were all a little different and a lot better when Dick was through with them.
And now the long ride is over and the dinner done. But still, there at the end, was Crawford, the once and always coach, the consummate molder of men and spinner of dreams, there he was with a bright and hopeful smile reading the tiny numbers off raffle tickets and giving away new squash balls to lucky recipients, even as most of the attendees had donned their coats and headed for home. No one but Crawford could see the thrill in this, just as no one but Crawford had seen the bright hope of Cal squash in 1968, just as no one had seen the coming legions of young men who would on one bright day in college step on a court they would never leave, a court they would play on til the twilight of their days. A man of vision and selfless effort, Crawford took his teams sometimes to glory, but always to sport—to the true joy of hard work and to always giving everything they had. And by giving everything, his players had gained the world.
But none gave more than Crawford. For 27 years, he gave his players absolutely everything he had. You could see it in their smiles and you could hear it in their words. They loved their coach. He had made a great difference in their lives and what nobler achievement can there be? Coach Crawford will be missed, but there is a little bit of him in everyone he ever taught and the whole world can be thankful for that. "Rip It!”
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TRIBUTE TO PETER GAYNOR
by Owen O’Donnell
Peter was not a particularly religious man, but Peter had a spiritual side. In fact he was one of the high priests of his spiritual group. He would show that spiritual side by driving to his favorite place of worship, parking near the entrance and entering the plain and simple building that was his spiritual home. He would go to the area set aside for spiritual participants to dress for their sessions. He would dress reverently and carefully in simple clothes without much in the way of adornment except for a sleeveless vest with a smiling jester on it.
Peter would pick up his instrument of spiritual fulfillment, which had a handle and a narrow neck connected to a large opening laced with a woven mesh. He would advance to the place of worship for a regular service of one hour. He would be accompanied by three other men who were similarly spiritually inclined, equipped and dressed.
One of those men, or Peter, would have a small round rubber ball, which played an important part in the ritual that followed. They would enter the chamber of worship reverently and with solemn purpose and they would practice their worshipful routine in pairs before the main rites of worship began.
Each worship period, after warmup would be proceeded with the ritual of the spinning of one of the spiritual instruments and the reading of the instrument before the worshipful interaction between the four men would begin. Each man would assume his appropriate place in the chamber of worship and the session of worship would begin when the first man would transfer the round orb in the direction of another worshiper in the chamber.
The process of transfer of the orb is highly ritualized and many of the transfer techniques have acquired refined names. Some of the worshipers have also developed a repertory of transfer techniques. Peter was particularly good at the reverse corner transfer along with the straight drop transfer. He would occasionally use the lob and the cross court lob, but he loved and cherished the reverse corner transfer.
Peter liked to worship from a fixed position in the chamber, which meant that he would locate himself in a particular area and try to worship exclusively from that place. Other participants liked and needed to worship from many different areas of the chamber, so they would move around frequently.
Peter disdained this approach to worship as demeaning and overexertive. He preferred a quiet and more sedate approach to worship, which was more meditative and contemplative and not so excessive and aggressive.
Peter liked to joke and banter with other worshipers and he particularly like to exalt over a well done transfer of his that the other group was unable to return. Peter’s love of banter extended beyond the chamber of worship and his ability to banter would grow with the consumption of alcoholic substances. He was very well known as much for his activities outside of the chamber of worship as for his abilities within the chamber. There are many stories about Peter’s actions both within the chamber of worship and outside it, but the presence of ladies in the group prohibits me from discussing them in any detail.
The transfers of the orb continued between the men in the chamber until the orb was transferred incorrectly and two of the men would record the event numerically and the result would be announced verbally. The spiritual worship would continue until the successes of one group of men added up to a sacred number. At that time two of the men would experience a sense of euphoria, which some worshipers associated with being in heaven and the other group of men would experience pain and angst associated with being in hell. Thus this worshipful event would prepare the men for the afterlife.
One of these episodes was not sufficient to conclude the period of worship in the chamber and the process of the transfer of the orb began again until the sacred number was tallied for a second time. At this time a separate tally of the number of times a group of men reached the sacred number was kept until the magical number of 3 was generated. When the number of 3 was reached, the sense of euphoria by the group of men laying claim to the number of 3 was magnified and they were anointed by the chamber of worship as the blessed ones and the other group would acknowledge their blessed state in a humble way by the ritual shaking of hands or hitting closed fists together.
Sometimes the group of four men would continue to engage in the orb transfer for several more periods until the sacred number of 15 was reached in order for the humbled group to try to obtain some sense of blessing and endowment from the chamber of worship. Rarely would this make up for the fact that they did not reach the number 3.
Once the process ended and the priests left the chamber of worship, they would need to engage in a period of ritual cleaning before returning to their normal everyday pursuits. This process occurred in the dressing area where the men would often engage in banter and gossip. This banter and gossip were always kept from the women for reasons that no one could explain. After the ritual cleaning in the cleaning chamber, the men would dress in their street clothes and leave the place of worship with either a euphoric state of bliss and blessing or a sense of sin and dread from having failed to worship properly and effectively enough during the session.
Thus did Peter lead a very spiritually full life since he would attend to the chamber of worship on as many days of the week as he could. He was known for his devotion to this exquisite form of spiritual worship throughout the land and he was particularly celebrated among the jester crowd of worshipers. Few men attain the heights of spiritual worship that Peter maintained for years. He will be forever known as a spiritual jester of this unusual and particular spiritual practice.
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The most accomplished women’s player in Northern California, Brett Elebash’s record speaks for itself.
76-77 B #2 NORCAL
77-78 NorCal Women’s A #1
77-78 PCSRA Women’s A #5 CA state champion?
78-79 Women’s A PSCRA #4
78-79 No Women’s - #2 D Mne’s
79-80 PCSRA Women’s #4
79-8- USSRA Women’s #13
80-81 NorCAl Women’s #1
1981-82 Norcal Women’s A Ranking: #1 Won Norcal Champ
1981-82 Pac Coast Women’s Champion and ranked #1 PCSRA
82-83 Norcal Women’s A Ranking: #1
1982-83 PCSRA #1 and 1982 Pacific Coast Women’s Champion
1983 Pacific Coast Women’s Open Champion
First SF Bake-Off 83 won over Kavaler
1988 NorCal Women’s #2
1988-89 USSRA Women’s 35A #3
1989 National Women’s 35+ lost in semis to Davenport
1989 Pac Coast Runner-up in Women’s Double with E. Paakspuu
1989 Pac Coast Runner-up Mixed with Surano
1990 Pac Coast Runner-up in women’s double with E. Paakspuu
1990 Pac Coast Mixed Winner with Surano
1991 National 35+ Finalist to Joyce Davenport
1991 Pac Coast Winner Mixed with Glen Williams
1992 NCSRA Mixed with Rick Smith #1
US Nationals Hard Ball 35 Finalist
2001 45+ Women's US Nationals Champion, Seattle
2005 Pac Coast 50s Doubles Winner with J. Gibbons, Vancouver
Honorable Mention
Floyd Svensson
In 1962, Floyd Svensson discovered the game of squash racquets.
Possessed with strong lungs and legs through years of being a long-distance runner, and coupled with excellent hand-eye coordination developed on the tennis courts, Floyd had the raw attributes that were needed to become an outstanding squash player.
With a few tournament matches under his belt and even eking out a few victories, it was apparent to those who witnessed him, that Floyd ’s competitive trajectory was upward.
But how high up was anyone’s guess. Floyd was not living in the east where most of the serious competition was played, but was living in the San Francisco Bay Area without the benefit of formal lessons or coaching. Floyd’s development could have been incomplete, hampered by being a self-taught player.
Floyd was left with no other choice but to improve through hours of coachless diligent practice. But he was a quick study learning the game by studying and observing local “A” players and applying what he saw,
Floyd moved up through the A class ranks.
In 1974, Floyd’s dedication came together with, to my knowledge, the since unequaled accomplishment of winning the US National 50+ Singles Championship (defending the title that he won the year before), won the Canadian National 50+, and journeyed to Mexico City and won the Mexican 50+ National Singles Championship.
The “Triple Crown”!
******
Ted Gross - California Torch Bearer
Highest Ranking Californian to Play Pro Circuit
Oct 31, 2003, by Rob Dinerman © 2002 SquashTalk
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Ted Gross, Berkeley Star
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The only West Coast product to ever attain a top-25 WPSA ranking, let alone top-15, Ted Gross followed his future wife Deborah (who had been admitted to Columbia to go for a Masters in Art) to New York in the summer of 1978 and proceeded to single-handedly change the stereotypically condescending perceptions that the eastern squash establishment had previously had of west coast
squash with his rock-solid, error-free game and admirable competitive attitude.
At various times during his six-year WPSA career, he defeated such top-10 WPSA luminaries as Ned Edwards, John Nimick, Clive Caldwell, Jon Foster and Tom Page while also recording a series of praiseworthy secondary wins (he was remarkably upset-proof, rarely losing a match to an opponent ranked below him), reaching a number of WPSA quarter-finals as well as the semis at a tour stop in Toledo in 1983, and twice earning a spot on teams that represented the United States in international team competition.
The most noteworthy of these was the historic 1981 squad that placed seventh in the World Team Championships in Sweden and that consisted of himself, Bill Andruss, Stu Goldstein and Edwards. This (by a wide margin) highest-ever U. S. finish was keyed by an upset victory over a heavily favored Canadian contingent (with Edwards defeating Doug Whittaker and Goldstein doing the same to Dale Styner) that for the first time ever elevated America's standing in the world squash community.
Gross had saved several match-points against him when he played current U. S. 45-and-over champion Foster for the final spot on that team on the last day of the team trials.
Buoyed by that team experience, as well as by his participation on a U. S. team that competed in Pakistan in 1980, Gross promptly embarked upon returning on perhaps his career-best extended stretch when the 1981-82 WPSA tour picked up that autumn, successfully forging his way through the tough qualifying draws in five of the next six tournaments and knocking off both Nimick and
Foster on the same day at the prestigious Boodles British Gin Open. This latter tournament, a highlight of the WPSA tour at the time, was held in New York at the Uptown Racquet Club, where Gross was a teaching pro from 1979-83, when he moved 50 blocks southwest to begin a two-year stint as the head professional at Fifth Avenue.
He maintained this level of play for most of the remainder of that season and the following one, twice (against Frank Satterthwaite in '82 in Toronto and against Dave Johnson in '83 in Minnesota) eking out close fifth games after being down two games to one and exiting each season with a ranking just inside the top 15.
A San Francisco native who permanently returned there with his wife and two children in the fall of '94 at the end of his 16-year sojourn in New York, Gross had an off-court self-presentation that typified the image of the easy-going and laid-back Californian, but his on-court persona was something quite different, as was his game. Both had the gritty determination and relentless execution as their foundation, and there was a distinctly blue-collar aspect to his playing style. He often seemed to be playing with a chip on his shoulder, perhaps as an understandable reaction to the skepticism that greeted his arrival on the east about the competitive prospects in WPSA play of a product of the Berkeley squash program and the Nor Cal tournament circuit. Though Gross lacked the racquet firepower and shot-making precision of many of his extraordinarily gifted WPSA peers, he evinced a willingness to grind out long and wearing points that more than nullified whatever natural superiority an opponent might enjoy. And his up-and-down-the-walls production and ability to get good depth on his groundstrokes were traits that fully conformed to the Jack Barnaby fundamentals of classic squash.
Nowhere were these qualities more in evidence than at the virtual outset of his "rookie" New York season when in just his second tournament Gross shocked everyone by winning the Slazenger Open in Philadelphia, winning both his semi-final with John Bottger and his final with Peter Talbert in five games. Bottger, who earned the No. 2 USSRA ranking that season, came from the famed Merion Cricket Club, while Talbert was tennis and squash captain at Williams and the son of tennis Hall of Famer Billy Talbert-when Gross out-lasted both of them just hours apart on a late-September Sunday afternoon he thereby jumped into the consciousness of the squash establishment in a way that his several prior seasons' worth of multiple California tournament titles hadn't even been able to approach.
His subsequent tournament wins the following season, first in the Boodles A-1 draw (featuring victories over Rick Woolworth, Bill Kaplan and Frank Brosens, with the first and last of these going five games) and later at the Park Avenue Squash Club Invitational, in which he defeated Foster and Edwards, both in five, before routing Juan deVillafranca in the final, only added to his reputation and set the stage for the productive run on the WPSA circuit that would follow.
Injury-free throughout his career, a considerable achievement in itself given his long-points playing style and full lesson schedule, Gross retired from active competition and his position at Fifth Avenue during the 1984-85 season, right around the time of his 30th birthday, to pursue a career in real estate. He remains to this one of the few native Californians to put his game up against those of the best products of squash's major historical centers and make a significant impact on professional squash during perhaps its most celebrated era of expansion.
Paul Gessling - #4 U.S. ranked Open player in 1983
John Lau - #1 U.S. ranked 35+ player in 1991, 1992
Kris Surano - San Francisco Bay Area's Kris Surano and Andre Naniche stood out above the rest. These two were ranked in the US Squash top twenty ten different times and achieved their highest ranking of 5 on four separate occasions. They were Coast Champions in 1981 and 1983 and have been Finalists in four other years.
Andre Naniche - former President of US Squash
Tom Dashiell - multi-timed Northern California Singles Champion
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