Harlem school sends first all-Black squash team to national championship
Thurgood Marshall Academy’s all-Black team will mark a first for high school squash in the U.S. as the sport pushes to diversify
“If we can all dedicate ourselves here,” Muhwati told the high-schoolers huddled around him, “ … we have a real shot of winning nationals.”
The boys from Thurgood Marshall Academy were quiet as the weight of their coach’s words landed. It was the first year Thurgood Marshall, a public school in the Harlem neighborhood of New York, had even formed a varsity team for squash.
The racket sport, long seen as an enclave of New England country clubs and the Ivy League, is not the sport of choice in Harlem. An all-Black team has never competed in squash’s high school national championship. The Thurgood Marshall Panthers are poised to change that. They will be the first team of Black players to compete in the season-ending tournament in Philadelphia beginning Friday, US Squash officials confirmed to The Washington Post.
It will be a milestone for a sport that officials say is growing and diversifying despite its historically exclusive image. It will be a bigger one for Thurgood Marshall. The team has electrified the school community with the spectacle of competing — and winning — in a sport new to most of their families and peers. Now, they’ll play on a national stage.
“Young Black men from Harlem,” said Shamika Bracey-Anderson, whose son Maurice plays on the team. “Who would ever think?”
Squash — a fast-paced indoor racket sport played on a box-shaped court — has struggled with its accessibility and popularity in the U.S. despite having a larger following overseas. Courts are hard to build and often expensive to access.
In 2021, around 1.2 million people in the U.S. played the sport, according to a 2022 study by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. It estimated about 57 percent of players were White and about 8 percent were Black. Nearly 40 percent had an annual salary topping $100,000.
If some students at Thurgood Marshall had heard of the sport, they didn’t think it was for them, assistant principal John Johnson said.
“Most of our students thought it was an elitist program where only the kids at the wealthier schools … in New York City could afford to play this game,” he said.
Kevin Klipstein, the president of US Squash, acknowledged the image problems his sport continues to confront. He said fixing them is his top goal, adding that the sport is making headway in diverse markets like Houston and southern California, far from its northeast roots. Growing squash after the stifling impact of the pandemic and the explosive growth of competitors like pickleball means tackling the barriers keeping would-be players from getting on the court.
Thurgood Marshall Academy is the beneficiary of a key pillar in that effort: a network of nonprofits that invite schoolchildren for free squash coaching and after-school tutoring. George Polsky, a social worker who played squash at Harvard, opened StreetSquash, one of the first programs, in Harlem in 1999.
Polsky went from school to school pitching his vision. Sandye Johnson, Thurgood Marshall’s principal at the time, was the first administrator to listen.
“I never even knew there was a sport called squash,” she said. “I grew up in Harlem. Just knew the traditional sports. But when anyone comes in the door and offers something different, I have to listen.”
Sandye Johnson praised StreetSquash’s academic support, which includes mentorship and help with college applications. But the squash was a hit, too. The program grew and opened a permanent facility with eight squash courts in 2008.
Muhwati became StreetSquash’s head coach in 2019. He has also experienced being an outsider in the sport. Muhwati, who grew up in Zimbabwe, was recruited to play for Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., and won four national championships on a team bolstered by international recruits. Sometimes they caught flak for it, he said.
“When you walk into Harvard and beat them at the sport they’ve been playing since the school was created, it’s not always taken that nicely,” Muhwati said with a laugh.
As high school squash in New York grew, StreetSquash joined a league for public schools in New York and Connecticut. Players from Thurgood Marshall and other schools competed as a team representing the nonprofit. But there were never enough players to form a Thurgood Marshall team until last year.
Muhwati saw the opportunity in September and asked his players from Thurgood Marshall to stay behind after practice.
“A big point I made was this has nothing to do with StreetSquash,” Muhwati said. “It’s all about the legacy they will leave for themselves and for their school.”
The idea of finally playing in Thurgood Marshall’s black and red fired up his players, Muhwati said. The school quickly rallied behind them. A fundraiser to cover the team’s registration fee and travel costs raised over $7,000 in a week, and a math teacher offered to pay for uniforms. Johnson, the assistant principal, took a cohort of sixth-graders to cheer on the Panthers for one match. An hour after learning the rules of the game, they were cheering and banging on the court walls.
John Johnson, who is also a StreetSquash board member, wasn’t surprised Thurgood Marshall’s students got behind a new sport so quickly. The school only offers a few varsity sports, primarily basketball and volleyball. Bracey-Anderson said she was delighted to see her son break the mold.
“Most kids, you know, as big as he is, first thing they’re going to say is, ‘He’s good for football,’” she said.
Thurgood Marshall finished the season with an 8-2 record. It won’t be competing for the mantle of top team in the country at the weekend-long national championship, which awards titles in each of several 16-team divisions split by ability. But the Panthers have a top four seed in their division, high enough to spark hope of a trophy win.
That the Panthers will also be making history as the first Black team to play in the championship wasn’t on anyone’s mind at first, Muhwati said, adding that he preferred to celebrate the team for their individual successes. But the occasion is not lost on him.
“Walking into that facility for the first time with those kids is going to be the biggest squash achievement I’ve ever had,” Muhwati said.
For now, talk of history has faded as the team — and its growing fan base — focuses on the tournament ahead. An entourage of parents and teachers plans to drive south to Philadelphia to support the Panthers, Sandye Johnson said.
“I’m in my 70s,” the former principal said. “I’m getting up at five o’clock in the morning to make sure that I’m there on time on Saturday.”
John Johnson is looking to the future. The surge in interest in squash that the team sparked has him hopeful the school will be able to replace the seniors leaving the team and start a girls’ team, too.
“We don’t want this to just end here,” he said. “We want this to continue and continue and continue and continue forever.”
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