All
I came across this interview of Ted Gross - a fellow Cal alum and friend. It offers a needed perspective of a by-gone era to beginning players just getting into the game.
Great read.
John
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Saturday, August 18, 2012
Ted Gross publishes the Daily Squash Report. He played squash at the University of California at Berkeley, on the pro tour, and for the U.S. National Team. He's lived on both coasts and has a unique perspective on the evolution of American squash.
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1) Who introduced you to the sport of squash?
The great Dick Crawford at the University of California at Berkeley.
Dick had been a top high school quarterback in the state of Michigan and had no racquet sports experience. He became a Physical Education professor at Cal, learned squash out of a book, and built a club program that changed the lives of hundreds of Cal students.
It took a few years to figure it out, be we eventually realized Dick was paying for pretty much everything out of his own pocket – the travel, the awards banquets, the uniforms, the tournament fees, the equipment, and on and on.
He treated everyone with the same degree of interest and enthusiasm, whether they were always going to be D players or had a chance to turn pro.
Dick had the greatest heart of anyone I’ve known in squash.
1974 Cal Squash Team
Back Row (L-R): Dick Crawford, Ted Gross, Rob Kritzer, John Lau
Front Row (L-R): Tom Rausch, Scott Chandler, Nick Dederer. Scott Lambert
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2) You started playing hardball?
Yes, not only was it hardball, but for the first few years we used the original hardball, which was a larger, heavier ball that required a heavier racquet.
By the mid-1970’s most players had switched to the 70+ ball, and it soon became the standard. The most memorable thing about the original heavy ball was that if you got hit with one you developed a colorful and substantial bullseye welt that seemed to last forever.
3) Do you regret that hardball squash has faded?
No. Hardball doesn’t work with today’s racquets.
The pro game died at the right time, because match play was starting to get ridiculous, with guys going for back wall nicks and wailing on frontwall-backwall groundstrokes that the opponent had to chase down from behind. The finesse was squeezed out of the game by the advances in equipment.
However, the elimination of hardball courts around the country hurt the average recreational softball player in my opinion. I personally couldn't stand softball on the narrow court, but the fact was it was a better game and a better workout for most club players than softball on the official court.
(IMHO - The integrity and nuances of the hardball game could have been preserved and intact if wood remained as a construction specification of the racquet - as it is with Court Tennis. Also - an article on how a juiced up ball is impacting baseball. The same influences can be said about how composite racquets affected the game of hardball squash - John)
4) Is softball less exciting a game to watch than hardball squash?
That's close, but I would have to say yes.
The very top softball pros are awfully exciting to watch, but the average pro match was more exciting to watch with the hardball, in my view.
You consistently had WPSA qualifying and early-round hardball matches that were highly dramatic. From a viewing standpoint, hardball had the speed and sound of the ball going for it, plus the fact that players could end rallies in dramatic fashion by definitively rolling the ball on the floor or ripping it into the corners. There were also, in my opinion, more dramatic moments within the individual point in hardball than in softball.
The scoring system, which lent itself to overtime sudden-death drama, also helped, as did the three-referee appeal system. Players appealed a high percentage of calls, which was sometimes obnoxious, but it added a human element to the proceedings.
In 1980 we sent a team to Pakistan for the Hashim Khan Championships and I got to watch Jahangir as a teenager beat Mohibullah Khan Jr. and Qamar Zaman for the first time, coming from two games down in each match. The final with Zaman, who had won a British Open and may have been the best racquet magician of all time, was spectacular, and the second greatest match I ever saw.
The greatest though was Jahangir versus Tommy Page in hardball a few years later at Town Hall in New York City.
5) As a player, how did you feel when the WPSA and ISPA merged to become the PSA?
I thought it was the right move whose time had come.
6) You played College Squash at U. C. Berkeley. Hardball squash?
Yes, everything was 100% hardball. My only exposure to softball back then was through Barrington’s entertaining and inspirational book, “The Book of Jonah”.
7) Did you travel the country playing or was it regional?
We stayed on the west coast except for an annual trip back east to the Intercollegiates.
Our finest hour though was a match against Stanford before the annual Cal-Stanford football game. The game represents a bitter rivalry between the schools that has gone on for over a hundred years.
This particular game had Rose Bowl implications, and both teams were strong and there were several future NFL players on the field that day.
We went down to Palo Alto in the morning and took care of business, and at halftime of the football game the PA announcer said, “And ladies and gentlemen, earlier today, in squash, it was Cal 7, Stanford 2” (or whatever similar score we dominated them by).
Stanford Stadium in those days held over 100,000 people, so at that moment approximately 50,000 fans let out a massive, sustained cheer. Of course most of them had no idea what the sport was, but that didn’t matter.
 1977 Cal Squash Team
Back Row (L- R): Dick Crawford, Gary Walter, Ted Gross, Bruce Bettencourt, Steve Morton, Drew Sorenson, Paul Gessling
Front Row (L-R): Kris Surano, Dave Helson, ?, Dave White,
Bob Jones, Andre Naniche
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8) As a west coast based squash fan, do you believe there is an east coast bias in squash?
No.
9) You played on the 1981 USA team that finished 7th at the World Teams. Please tell me a little about that experience representing your country in international competition.
It was a lot of fun, and in retrospect a great honor.
We didn’t get much support from US Squash back then because all four team members were professionals and US Squash had not yet made the leap to embrace the pro game.
There were 21 countries in the world championships that year in Sweden, and we were the only team that had to pay its own way and the only one that had no coach. I remember the Canadian guys had expense accounts and would sometimes sign for us for food in the hotels.
We qualified into the final-eight playoff and ended up at a famous arena in Stockholm, and for some reason the King of Sweden took an interest in us and sat in the front row watching a couple of our matches.
10) Was it difficult switching between the softball game and the hardball game. Where did you train?
It wasn’t difficult at all, because most of us had to give lessons to supplement our incomes, and the lessons became pretty much equally divided between hardball and softball.
I worked and trained at the Uptown Racquet Club on East 86th Street in New York City.
Back then, the place felt like the center of the universe.
11) Based in NYC while playing? How did you enjoy the city?
I lived in a 5-story walk-up, so after a full day on the courts I didn’t want to go back out for any reason. But invariably at night I’d be stretched out on the couch, totally relaxed, maybe a Rangers hockey game on, and the phone would ring.
Something would be going on – something was always going on – and I’d find myself getting up and going back out against my better judgment.
New York got the hooks into you and didn’t let up.
12) Did you move to train for squash or other reasons?
For squash.
The game was exploding, and the opportunity was there. The WPSA had Xerox and IBM as sponsors.
13) Were there many international courts at the time?
At that time, in the late 70’s-early 80’s, the only wide courts I was aware of in the US were all in New York: 2 at Uptown, 1 at Broad Street and 1 at Park Place.
There were 68 public courts in Manhattan back then, spread over 9 clubs. Anyone could walk in, pay an hourly fee, and play. 64 of the courts were hardball.
We played 15-20 tournaments a year. Most were in the northeast, many were in Toronto, some were in the midwest, a few were on the west coast, and a couple were in Mexico.
It was a great era - we were treated like celebrities at every event.
15) You won the Slazenger Open almost immediately upon joining the tour? Was that your greatest success? Other good wins?
I can’t remember much of my competitive history anymore. It’s mostly a blur. I rely on my old friend Rob Dinerman to fill me in.
Rob will say, “Remember in Montreal in ’81, when you were down 2-1 to so-and-so, and at 12-all in the fourth he just caught the top of the tin on a reverse, and you eked out that game and then won in five?”
And I’m thinking: No, I don’t remember that – I don’t remember the match, the opponent, or the tournament!
16) What was your lifestyle back then? (coaching, tournaments, married, etc.)
At first, having just finished college, it was exciting to be able to earn good money teaching an unlimited number of lessons.
After a while, like most WPSA pros, I came to my senses and reduced the lesson load to the bare minimum necessary to survive.
On a social level, it was a good time to be a squash pro in New York.
17) Could you make a living on the WPSA Tour?
No. The top two or three guys could, but that was about it. Everyone else had to scramble to make it work.
18) Why did you retire?
I woke up one day and it hit me that flying to Minneapolis in February wasn’t as appealing as it once had been.
I couldn’t help thinking of Don Meredith on Monday Night Football: Turn out the lights, the party’s over.
19) Which players are you still in touch with?
I love running into or talking to any of the old WPSA guys. To an extent, we ran our own tour, and it was a small enough group that there is a fraternal bond that everyone is aware of on some level.
In the early years, Sharif Khan was the heart of the tour, and at the end it was Mark Talbott. They came from very different backgrounds, but both had magnetic personalities and were beloved representatives of the sport.
I ran into Mark a few years ago at a junior tennis tournament in California, with our sons both in action. Suddenly the kids’ matches didn’t matter, and for a few wonderful hours we turned back the clock. Then reality set in and we had to go back to being parents.
20) Why did you found the Daily Squash Report?
I admired the way Ron Beck ran Squashtalk, and how he sustained it for ten years. When it looked like Ron was finally running out of energy, it seemed natural to pick up the slack. I ran the idea by my friend and favorite squash writer Rob Dinerman, and a couple days later we were online.
Before Ron, Tom and Hazel Jones did a tremendous job pioneering the monthly newspaper, Squash News. They always came in on time, and I try to do the same.
21) Do you view SquashSite as a competitor? Is there an intense rivalry?
Squashsite is the best in the business. Steve and Fram perform a wonderful service, and I’m not sure it is fully appreciated. I’ve often said that if they decided to stop publishing, and the great journalist Howard Harding stopped writing, the sport as we know it would effectively shut down.
No, there is no rivalry at all. Steve couldn’t be more generous with information, reports and photos. He is also a fantastic on-site reporter at the major events.
We were recently honored to have Steve create the storyline for “The Club From Hell”, a collaborative novel featuring ten different writers that is featured on both sites.
My favorite piece of Steve’s writing is probably his April Fool’s take on the PSA v PST feud. He comes up with a “half-point” rule, which supposedly satisfies both sides, in which “a half-point is awarded to the party least at fault when a rally ends in a let”.
22) What do you view as a low moment in squash?
In the early 80’s I was sitting in the bar of the Uptown Racquet Club one evening with Marc Tascher, who was then second-in-command at Town Squash and would go on to build the operation, as CEO, into the New York Sports Clubs empire.
Uptown was humming along just perfectly that night – all fourteen courts were filled, everyone seemed to be having fun, the bar was overflowing, and there was nothing you could seemingly find fault with.
Across 86th Street was a run-down looking Jack LaLanne exercise studio that occupied a space above a storefront. We watched a slow but steady stream of people heading up the stairs to the studio.
Marc said: “The problem is, why aren’t they coming in here?”
I said, “Uh-oh”.
23) What was squash’s best moment?
Probably the development of the portable court.
24) Do you agree with the decision to move to Point a Rally Scoring for all ages?
Not at all - most matches in PAR 11 are unreasonably short.
My opinion is everyone should be playing PAR to 15, with no-set at 14-all.
However, a scoring system that should be experimented with is the following, which I've obviously based on no-ad tennis. I'm guessing this would provide many more "critical point" situations:
Each game is played to four points, with sudden death at 3-all.
The winner of 3-out-of-five games wins the set. The winner of 3-out-of-five sets wins the match.
25) What do you think could grow the game?
I think the urban programs have exactly the right idea. We need to somehow apply the same approach to non-disadvantaged kids as well.
Boy, you are really digging deep in the vault to come up with that!
When my daughter was in middle school I was convinced she wasn’t reading enough, so I wrote a kids’ novel that I thought she and her friends might enjoy, and I put it online.
It centers on a group of kids who live in a southern California beach town and start a band. There is an original surfing-themed song that develops throughout the story, and at the end the reader can listen to the actual song, as written and recorded by my son who was fifteen at the time.
He’s only played squash now and then, but I’ll give him a pass.
(Squash E-zine note: See more about the book at TheZStreetBand.com or purchase "The Z Street Band" on Amazon.com here. )
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