Lucky Boy - Squash

All

I've been an avid racquet sports enthusiast for over 50 years - quire a long time.  In addition to squash, I've played tennis, platform tennis, real tennis, racquets, and racquetball.  I'm extremely fortunate to have friends who have even MORE beguiling experiences than I have had.

David Body who resides in Southern California, is one of them. His illustrious narrative is more than a glimpse into his  remarkable world of racquet sports but a room-filling panoramic photograph.

Enjoy reading it as much as I did.

John

******

Lucky Boy - Squash

by David Body

Why the title?

Some years ago an old friend who was in his 80’s and had known me from my early teens told my wife, Stephanie, that I was a lucky boy! I think that he meant it in a wider context than that we met and married.

This made me think about what luck meant in the context of my personal, architectural, lacrosse, tennis, squash and pelota careers. Luck comes in many flavors, good, bad, tough, pot and Irish to name a few. I suppose I have benefitted from some good luck and have had my share of the other categories. I also like to think that some events in my life that may be perceived as luck may also be examples of seizing opportunities that were presented.

I have to clarify that I was not a superstar at any of my endeavors. I was privileged to have dabbled in the deep end and like to think that I was good enough to fully appreciate the remarkable skill of the world class performers. This for me is achievement enough.

These reminiscences have highlighted luck, opportunities and lessons.

Introduction

“Well after all Pickering, I am an ordinary man.”
My Fair Lady...  Professor Higgins

“If you compare yourself with others you may become vain and bitter for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.”
Desiderata…   Max Ehrmann

“Of course a man has to take advantage of his opportunities, but the opportunities have to come.”
Theodore Roosevelt. Cambridge 1910

Squash in England   1956-1965

Stockport Grammar School did not have any squash courts, so my activity during the winter was limited to lacrosse and to tennis when the weather cooperated and when very occasionally the only indoor court within 60 miles was available!

Luck and opportunity   By 1956 my tennis standard had outgrown the wonderful small Bramhall Park Lawn Tennis Club, so to further improve my game I joined the premier club in the region, The Manchester Northern Lawn Tennis Club. The club had squash courts!!

At this time in England and in most countries tennis players played squash in the winter months. Good examples in the USA and Australia were Vic Seixas and Frank Sedgeman, both Wimbledon Tennis Champions and both National Squash Champions in their respective countries.

I did not own a car and the club was an hour’s bus ride plus quite a long walk from home, so my improvement at squash was not mercurial! The club did not have a squash professional/teacher and even if it had I would not have had the wherewithal to pay for lessons. So once again I had to rely on the monkey see monkey do brand of learning the game. My friends from the Lancashire and Cheshire County tennis teams who also played squash were patient, as were a few pure squash players, and I rose through the club teams thanks to their help until I became a respectable, but certainly not stellar, player.

Lesson   Always try to play against those better than you.

A word of clarification for the uninitiated. Each county in England has a multitude of sports clubs, tennis, squash, hockey, rugby etc. The progression for a player in any of these is to play on a club’s top team and aspire to be selected for the County “All Star Team” and ultimately to represent England. I was born in Cheshire and the adjacent county was Lancashire north of the River Mersey, numerically superior but inferior in most other regards!!!

I have found that there is a bond among squash players that is different to that among tennis players. Perhaps it is due to competing in a confined space where deviating from the etiquette of the game can result in unpleasant consequences? It may also have something to do with the necessity for copious amounts of Robinsons best bitter to replace fluids after a match.

Lesson   Don’t let dedication to the game get in the way of the social aspects of a sport.

Following a couple of years developing squash skills at “The Northern” I departed for architectural school at Sheffield University which fortunately had two squash courts and a squash team. The University did not have a lacrosse team at that time or I almost certainly would have played lacrosse and not squash in the winter season.

Luck   Had I played lacrosse I would have missed the experiences that squash later presented.

Another word of clarification. In the UK in the 50’s there was no recruiting of athletes for universities, so the quality of the team was dependant on whoever was enrolled at a given time. Also there was no limit on eligibility, so medical students for example could play for the full 6 years that they were at the University. At this time only about 4% of eligible people attended University, and of that number only 4% were women

When I arrived in Sheffield the team had one player more skilled than I who had learned squash at the Barnard Castle School in Durham and I quickly found myself playing number 2 on the 5 man team. I enjoyed my 4 years playing squash at Sheffield which followed an interesting path. We were not one of the stronger university teams, and I rapidly improved by playing against, and frequently being beaten by, the best players on the opposing teams. I became the #1 player and in 1971 was selected for the English UAU team. (A sort of “All England”). I was #5 for the UAU and once again, as is the case with most of my sports, I was not the star of this team and very fortunate to have been selected!!

Lesson   Losing hurts, but results in greater improvement than winning against inferior competition.

The University had one staff sports coordinator plus a small administrative staff to run all the sports clubs. There were no coaches for any of the sports in the US sense of the word. The clubs ran themselves including deciding how to spend the modest travel budget that was allotted for each season. The sequence that I followed was to play for a couple of years, then become match secretary and then become captain.

As match secretary I was responsible for arranging the following season’s matches, both home and away, coordinating with my peers at other Universities and clubs. I was also responsible for the budget. Would we spend the funds by playing teams from further afield or would we compete against the more adjacent teams and take on a short international trip? We also had to budget for the inter university individual and team tournaments.

My term as captain was also a major learning experience. There was no coach to select the team. It was my responsibility. I had to deal with the inevitable disappointments when a player learned that he was not on the team. I also had to determine the playing order of the team to maximize our chances.

Lesson   Management and intrapersonal skills learned early will be invaluable in all aspects of life.

One year we chose to spend part of our budget on a squash tour to Dublin. We played Trinity College (and lost) where I was billeted in Oscar Wilde's room at the Botany Bay Residence. (He was not there at the time!) We also played The Fitzwilliam Club (and lost) and our final match was against Guinness Brewery where the hosts generously installed a keg of Guinness in the gallery. This was one of the major disadvantages of being the #1 who played the last match. Not only did I have to watch my teammates imbibe but by the time I finished my match the keg was empty. The hospitality of all our hosts was legion and this was my first experience of the traditional squash community generosity that I was to experience later in my career in the US, Canada, Mexico and South Africa.

Another less salubrious disadvantage of playing #1 manifested itself when in order to save money we travelled with the rugby team. The tradition after a rugby match was for the teams to immerse themselves in a large communal bath, sing songs and drink beer from jugs being passed around the perimeter. A squash match took longer than a rugby match so you can imagine the quality of the water by the time I had finished.

Lesson   Sometimes aspiring to be the best can have negative impacts!

I have only good memories of my squash life in Sheffield. In 1961 I graduated and it was back over the Pennines to the Manchester Northern.

About this time a revolution was taking place in the upper echelons of squash. Most squash players up to this point had trained for tournaments by playing sometimes 2 or 3 times a day. Then came Jonah Barrington who set about making himself the fittest squash player ever with weight and circuit training. I doubt that he was the most gifted player of his generation but he could outlast almost everyone. Thus the game started to become one of attrition rather than shot making. To its detriment in my opinion.

These years in Manchester were most enjoyable as I played mainly for the alcohol fuelled Northern second team (the first team had the 5 top players from Lancashire and Cheshire) with occasional Cheshire practice sessions at ICI Northwich and even more occasional, mainly losing, appearances as #5 on the Cheshire team. Perhaps the most memorable experience was a match against Norfolk in Norwich during which I survived the cross country trip in one of my closest friend’s minivan!! No motorways in those days.

I have always regretted that no one in my family ever saw me play squash. It never occurred to me that they might be interested.

Lesson   Don’t assume that because people don’t gush that they are not interested.

In 1964 I decided to further my architectural career with a year in Canada and a year in the United States. It turned out to be a rather longer stay than I had planned.

Squash in Canada   1965-1969

I arrived in Toronto in the spring of 1965 and enjoyed a season of tennis. When winter set in it was time to move inside. There was only one, rather exclusive, indoor tennis club in the city and I could neither afford nor hope to join it, so there was no option but squash. Too late to learn hockey or curling. I had been fortunate to have become a member of the Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club which despite the name had very strong tennis and squash programs. There was a long waiting list for membership when I arrived, but the club had a visionary tradition of allowing the occasional good tennis, squash or cricket player to jump the queue in order to “refresh the stock”. I would not have qualified for squash but I was admitted as a tennis player!!

Luck   My tennis contacts also shaped my squash life in Canada.

At that time the version of squash played in the US, Canada and Mexico was quite different from that of the rest of the world. The casual observer would think it to be the same game, but the differences essentially meant that Americans, Canadians and Mexicans were not competitive with the rest of the world and vice versa..

The “international game” is played on a court measuring 32’ by 21’. The ball is quite soft and the racquets are light. The “tin” is higher than the US version and the upper out of bounds markings are different. The “North American game” (superior in my opinion) is played on a court measuring 32’ by 18’-6”. The ball is hard and the racquets heavier. The tin is lower and the game rewards the shot maker rather than the retriever.

The N. American game is now largely extinct. More of that later.

Luck   My style of game and my strokes which were derived from tennis were well suited to this game.

Another wonderful discovery was the game of N. American squash doubles which is played on a court 45’ by 25’ and as the name implies has two two-person teams in the court.

Luck   My game with the heavier hit of tennis was even better suited to doubles.

None the less, as I learned the North American game, it was back to the basics for me. I had to start playing in the C tournaments, and then after winning one of the B tournaments I rose to the dizzying heights of being the worst A player in the club!!

There was a very good squash professional at the club. However, once again, I was financially not in a position to avail myself of his services so it was back to “monkey see monkey do”.

Because of my tennis visibility during the summer I was well known to the squash community, and once again I had some good players take me under their wing for which I was most grateful. This did not stop them setting me up for their entertainment. In the first B tournament I entered I found myself, by chance (!), playing Judith Jackson in the first round. She was a good tennis player and a top Canadian squash player who could not get any competition from the women in Toronto so was allowed to play in the men’s tournaments. Needless to say there were quite a lot of people in the gallery to watch my humiliation! They were cheated because I won. She became a friend, and she remained one of Canada’s top players until her career was tragically cut short as she succumbed to cancer at a very early age.

Lesson   Swallowing your pride and starting at the bottom can be very rewarding.

I played singles or doubles five or six times a week in the winter during my stay in Toronto, and by the time I left I was a respectable but certainly not a stellar A player. Once again I had landed on my feet and enjoyed five years of wonderful squash camaraderie.

Interclub team competition was not as developed as it was in the UK, and most of the competition was in the form of intramural, regional, and national tournaments.

Perhaps a digression to discuss the traditional Saturday night dinner dance at a tournament. This event has largely disappeared from the calendar, but in the 60’s it was very popular. It took some time for me to figure out one of its traditions. The cocktail hour and the dinner were completed by about 9.00pm whereupon the entire male population retreated to the bar adjacent to the men’s locker room. (Another wonderful amenity that has been a victim of the times). There they watched Hockey Night in Canada (Only the third period was televised.) with Foster Hewitt and then returned to the revelries!

On a cold February day I was offered an opportunity to further my architectural experience. It meant leaving the many friends and colleagues whom I had met in Canada and with many of whom I am still in touch 50 years later. The decision was one of the most difficult that I have ever faced. The opportunity was 3000 miles south in Los Angeles.

Lesson   Opportunities arise but some are very difficult to evaluate. There is no dress rehearsal. 

Squash in the USA 1969-Present

When I arrived in California and started to explore the squash scene in Los Angeles I found only two private squash clubs, neither of which I could afford. Fortunately word had got around that there was a new player in town, and I got a call from Ted King who played at the Pasadena YMCA. Ted was one of those remarkably generous people who not only arranged for me to play at the Y but also probably organized my not paying dues for the first couple of years. Ted, a dentist, also did all my dental work for the cost of materials for a few years while I was becoming established. Meeting Ted was one of my mega luck occasions.

Luck   Ted was the first of many American squash players who welcomed me.

Despite the paucity of clubs there was an active squash league, and during the years that I played for the YMCA we won the top division four times. There was also a doubles league that played on non-standard courts.

I played #2 for the team, and the best player was King Lambert, a former nationally ranked tennis and squash player. He took me under his wing and taught me how to curb my tendency to be a hot shot to the point where I could actually beat him! King and I went on to travel together extensively in South America and Mexico playing pelota.

Lesson   Be generous with your time to mentor younger players. 

Once again I started off as a B player but rapidly won enough tournaments, including the State B Championships, to be promoted. There was a flourishing west coast “circuit” which included tournaments not only at the Los Angeles clubs ( South Bay, The University Club and the Pasadena YMCA) but also at The University Club and The Olympic Club in San Francisco, The Multnomah Club in Portland, The University Clubs in Denver and Seattle and several clubs in Vancouver including Hollyburn and The Vancouver Lawn Tennis Club where I had competed in the Canadian Open Tennis Championships in 1966.

The center of both singles and doubles squash in California was San Francisco, and I was fortunate both to have a series of architectural projects in the city during the 70’s and to be welcomed to The University Club and The Olympic Club when I was in town. The friendships that were forged during this period have lasted to this day. Three were groomsmen at our wedding, Murray Smith, Barry Seymour and Alan Fox. 

Luck   Architectural projects in San Francisco enabled me to get to know the better players.

At this time I was playing lacrosse, squash, tennis and pelota and the trunk of my trusty red Volvo P1800 became somewhat of an urban legend containing equipment and discarded clothing for all four sports. In this trigger happy age, if the police had walked by they may have suspected that it contained the victim of foul play!!

In Los Angeles I played at several clubs, all of which went out of business. Pasadena YMCA, The University Club, Squash Club International, Center Courts and The Venice Squash Club. When the latter exited I arranged for many of the members to join Sports Club LA, one of my architectural clients. It did not last long. One of our older players had an ichabodian physique, size 16 sneakers, a knee brace, ankle brace, elbow brace and dubious clothing. To see him walking through the fitness center populated by young spandex clad women and buff males was a sight to behold.

No reminiscence of squash in Los Angeles is complete without focusing on the wonderful, quirky, idiosyncratic epitome of Southern California and Venice in the 70’s, The Venice Squash Club.
It flourished from 1972 to 1986 and its genesis and demise were stories in themselves. It was built by two Venice characters, Dave Park, whose daughter became a very good player, and Steve Vorgitch. I don’t think either of them knew what squash was but it seemed like a good idea to them. It was a key club and had three courts. One was regulation sized, and two were a bit narrow, a flaw not detected by Hashim Khan and other notables who played there.
After it was built, they recruited some of the better players in LA by offering no dues for a year or so. I would have joined anyway since it was very close to where I lived! I was asked to show up one morning for a photo shoot to promote the club. I found that I was to instruct a very attractive lady who happened to be wearing shorts and pantyhose. I don’t think she had high heels. I still have the picture.

The club rapidly accumulated a Damon Runyonesque membership and it became a club that was known to players across the country, the Canadians, Anderson and Caldwell, the east coasters Satterthwaite and Howe, and the legends Hashim and Sharif Khan.

It is said to have had coed showers, which is true but has been wildly exaggerated. As women started to play the game, it was easy to provide a modest changing room. It was harder to install a shower room and the ladies did have access to the men’s locker room showers. This was not prurient and was a solution to a problem that was entirely acceptable in 1970’s Venice.

Word of the end of the club came in a very personal way. Dave and Steve had lost interest and delegated its management to an oleaginous character called Slim. We actually had a group willing to purchase it but we were not made aware that it was for sale. I was in my office and I got a call from my wife Stephanie, who is an artist with a ceramics studio in Venice. She had received a call from an artist friend who was married to Marvin Rand, a renowned architectural photographer, saying that they had finally found the perfect studio for themselves. She said it was on Beach Street and Stephanie said that was near David’s squash club. She said it IS David’s squash club. And so ended the life of one of the most unique squash clubs in the USA and  one that certainly reflected the time and place in which it existed.

The Venice Squash Club was the location of two seminal events of my life. One more significant than the other!

In January 1976 I got a call from a friend, Joann Callis, a well known contemporary photographer, saying that she had someone that I might like to meet. Stephanie DeLange was a ceramic artist with a studio quite close to the squash club. Whether it was my romantic nature or the wish to let her see one of my sporting addictions I don’t recall, but my first sight of my future wife was from the squash court looking up at the gallery! Subsequently we discovered that we had both modeled for Joann in the 70’s, and in 2014 we found ourselves on the walls of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles where Joann was having a one person retrospective!

The second event took place in the locker room where Sandy Clark and I were enjoying a post match beer. A mutual friend who was an immigration attorney said “isn’t it time that you both became US citizens?” We had both been thinking of it, in my case because I wanted to participate in the electoral process but had been deterred by the paper work. Our friend said that he would do the paperwork and prepare us for the interview. So in 1985 I became an American citizen. The swearing in ceremony at the Los Angeles Convention Center was very moving. I had not escaped a repressive situation, but many of the new citizens had and the joy in the room brought tears to our eyes.

I had several respectable tournament wins over better players than I. The truth is that I had more flair than application in most of my activities! There are two that stand out in my memory.

In 1975 the California Open State Tournament was held in Los Angeles at the Venice Squash Club. I progressed to the final with a win over the # 1 seed in the semi final and played a person in the final that was notorious both for his extreme fitness and at the time a somewhat cavalier attitude to the etiquette of the game.  I lost the first game and partway through the second I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and only went for winners for the rest of the match. Not particularly proud of this but it did teach me a lesson.

Lesson   To quote Stan Woodworth on the Cate School tournament entry form “Remember. It’s only a game!”

In 1978 I entered the California State 35 and Over Championships in San Matteo. I was certainly not the favorite going in, and unseeded I beat the second seed in the semifinal and played the favorite in the final. He was a much better player than I and won the first two games. Whether this inadvertently lulled him into a false sense of confidence I don’t know, but I suddenly found my touch and won the next three games and the title.

Lesson    To quote a famous pundit “It's never over till it’s over”.

My occasional wins over superior players remind me of a quote from a journeyman senior professional golfer when interviewed after winning a PGA Senior Open Championship. ”I’m not consistent enough to be bad all the time!”

Sometime in the 80’s the inevitable happened. There had been an upsurge of interest in the US converting to the “International” style of squash that I described earlier. Canada and Mexico had already started to switch. The impetus came from the top players who could not compete with the best in the rest of the world and from the colleges and universities who had intercollegiate teams. It also was influenced by the desire to have squash in the Olympics.

The eventual switch authorized by the US Squash Association had several effects.
It caused me to retire from competitive squash. I had been having problems with knees and chronic hamstring issues and the nature of the game made me non competitive. Ironic since I was weaned on the “International” game in the UK.

Luck   Bad for me. My squash career may have lasted longer with the US game.

It was an expensive decision from the point of view of courts. The “international” court is 2’- 6” wider than the US court. Making existing courts wider is almost impossible. I believe that the Yale campus had 50 US sized courts and Harvard a similar number.

Luck  Good for me and for my architectural colleagues!

 It caused great stress for one of my closest friends, Alan Fox, who had the misfortune to be President of the US Squash Association at this time of turmoil. He suffered much abuse, some vitriolic, from the hard core “hardballers” mainly located on the east coast! Even 30 years later there is an undercurrent of resentment!

Luck  Bad in this case for Alan. Timing is everything!!

In the mid 80’s the constant travel connected to  my architectural career started to demand more time ,and I gradually withdrew from the tournament scene but continued to play a lot of squash and to play in  team matches when I was invited. I played in several Lapham Grant matches against Canada which gave me the opportunity to reconnect with my Toronto friends. Perhaps the two most memorable sets of experiences were the Jesters 1991 tour to South Africa and the series of Copa Wadsworth matches against Mexico which started for me in 1990.

My participation in the Copa Wadsworth matches against Mexico between 1990 and 2007 is another highlight of my squash career.

My first contact with squash in Mexico was in 1972 when I was playing for Southern California in a weeklong pelota competition (more of that in my pelota reminiscences). After the day playing and being outclassed by the Mexican pelota team (several of whom had Olympic gold medals from when the sport had been a demonstration event at the Mexico City Olympics) the three squash players among us (King Lambert, Steve Gurney and myself) showed up to play a “friendly” match against some local players. We were shocked to see that the match had been advertised, that a crowd had assembled behind the first glass back walled court we had seen, and that the Mexican team included their top players (one of whom became a US national champion a couple of years later.) The altitude also did not help our chances, and I will draw a veil over the results of the two evening encounters.

Once again however, the legendary hospitality of the Mexicans was in evidence and two of these players were to become good friends.

Lesson   Sometimes a loss can have unexpected benefits!

In 1980 I was invited to play in the annual Copa Wadsworth match against Mexico in Mexico City. The fixture was the brainchild of George Wadsworth an expatriate American who had spent most of his life in Mexico. His idea was to foster friendship between the two countries, and I should make it clear that while there is honest competition the emphasis is on sportsmanship. The teams comprise various age groups and his original plan was that the players should be over 35.

An example of sportsmanship that comes to mind occurred one year when the Mexicans had trouble finding players of equivalent age to some of us. (It seems that in the US squash is played to an older age.) I was matched against a good player at least 20 years my junior. At the altitude of 7400 ft. stamina is a big issue and he could see that I was struggling. It was his serve and he “accidentally” dropped the ball on his toe and let it roll to the front wall whereupon he strolled very slowly after it giving me the chance to regroup!

The annual matches alternate between Mexico and the US. Mexico City has been the venue in Mexico with the exception of one year in Tijuana, while the US matches have been hosted in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Louisville, Colorado Springs, Portland, Chicago and most recently Philadelphia. I participated in these matches from 1980 to 2010 and was the 1998 captain of the US team in Mexico City.

The fixture now seems to be on a firm footing, but there were some years when both the Mexicans and the US had a difficult time raising a travelling team. The year that I was captain of the team in Mexico City I had to call in some chips from squash friends to put together a team. I am proud of the fact that George Wadsworth said in a speech that this year was pivotal in keeping the fixture alive.

Although I no longer play in the matches I have made several good friends whom I see quite frequently. These biannual trips to Mexico City enabled me to get to know the city and its many cultural attractions and also gave me the opportunity for side trips to Cuernavaca and Oaxaca.

I have a great regard for the Mexican people and feel for them in this rather turbulent time. My first visit to Mexico was as a tourist in 1971. At that time Mexico City was one of the safest capitals in the world. One could walk anywhere day or night. Now one has to be more careful although the danger to tourists in Mexico City is blown out of proportion by the US press. After all we don’t live in one of the safest countries.

Luck  The Copa Wadsworth gave me a unique opportunity to get to know a different culture.

Lesson    Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers!

I was never much of a squash administrator but I like to think that my contribution to the growth of the game lies in my architectural career. I specialized in sports buildings, mainly university student recreation centers, and was able to get close to a hundred courts included in the projects from Orono to San Diego and Miami to Pullman. Some of these were a hard sell in states that had never really heard of the game!

Luck   I was an architect and in a position to plead the case for squash at many universities.

Lesson   Contribute to your passion in any way you can. Everyone is not an administrator.

Until 2012 I continued to play “friendly” squash with friends in Los Angeles and to play some doubles when I found myself near a court. My knees and hamstrings finally told me to quit. However most of our friends are squash players and I keep in touch with the game in the US and around the world.

Lesson   You don’t have to be a superstar to get great satisfaction from “playing the game”.

Luck  The great good fortune of discovering this game which has been a wonderful part of my life

******

Related Reads

Remembering David Body

The Pelota Years

The Last Squash Tennis Player

So You Think You Know Your Racquet Sports?

Malkot