Squashing Limits

It’s been another hectic month with recruiting, preparing for the summer camp as well as running my professional tournament in London. I am glad to report that the Super Series Finals went off without a hitch. Anthony Ricketts and Lee Beachill put on a thrilling final which also saw a bit of controversy around the rules to add a bit of spice. In the end, Ricketts played a tougher match to win his first ever Super Series title.

Since returning from London, I’ve been busy working with my assistants to devise practice cards for our men’s and women’s teams to conduct their own practices during the season. This will hopefully lead to a more complete training program and one where the students can take greater responsiblity for themselves and rely less on the need to have playing partners during the long summer break.

Recruiting for the men’s team is at the top of my agenda and is taking up a large chunk of my time in order to cultivate admissible candidates for the class of 2011. The recruiting on the men’s side – class of 2010 – has not been as fruitful as I would have liked, however the women’s was highly successful with four freshman joining us this fall. Hopefully the admissions committees will see the urgency to view the squash program for the tradition that it has at Harvard and will facilitate in ensuring that the men’s deficit is made up this coming year.

For now, the summer squash camps at Harvard takes priority as I and my staff work to provide the most comprehensive teaching and playing experience for the youngsters that attend this summer. Check out our website www.css-sport.com or pass it onto a friend who may want to try out squash as a new sport or improve if already playing.

For most squash coaches, April (spring) is considerered to be a downtime however this is not the case for me. There are several things on my plate to keep me busy. Namely, recruting for the class of 2011, going to London for the Super Series (now in its 11th year), a professional tournament featurning the world’s best 8 players and upon my return organizing and conducting the summer squash camp from July 9 – 28th. Somewhere in all of this time, a time will be made available to take a family vacation before the fall comes around and the whole process starts again.

Harvard Men’s and Women’s team matters continue also, holding exit meetings for outgoing captains, conducting student evaluations, staff performance reviews, not to mention meetings for incoming captains, preparing them for leadership roles for next year. Aspects such as “what makes a good captain?” are discussed while interacting with them to find out how they plan to lead their peers.

These are just a few things that go in my so called “off-season”. My goal is to put everything into action, let it flow and hope it all comes together in the fall. More importantly, making it all happen while giving some time to family and friends will be an art that I seem to be getting better as each year comes around. I guess the best judge of that will be my wife, but we won’t go there will we?

March has been a busy month with a wide of activities that I’d like to share with you.

Firstly, the Men’s and Women’s squash teams each won Ivy League
Championships. The Men’s team had a 3 way tie with Princeton and Yale
while the Women’s team were the outright winners defeating Yale in a
nail biting 5-4 win.

Secondly, I’m extremely proud of Lily Lorentzen, the first woman to become a National Intercollegiate Champion under my tutelage as a college coach. What made the final even more special was that she played Kyla Grigg, a fellow Harvard team-mate for an all Harvard final. Furthermore, Siddharth Suchde made it a hatrick of final appearnaces by Harvard players in reaching the Men’s Intercollegiate Individual finals. He had a formidable opponent to contend with and therefore ended the season as the 2006 men’s Intercollegiate Runner-up.

Thirdly, the traditional end of season banquet for both the men’s and
women’s team was one of the most noteworthy ever. The warmth and team
spirit on display was tremendous and reaffirmed my passion for being a
college coach.

Lastly, I was pleased to preside over the first ever Kidsquash
tournament, an event for our community squash participants to wrap up
their season. The tournament would not have been a success without
Renato Paiva and Tariq Mohammed who were both instrumental in
organizing the event. In addition Squash Talk published an article on Kidsquash to further raise its profile.

All in all its been an exciting month and I hope to keep the momentum going.

Dear Friends,
Watch this space as I bring you into my squash world and help overcome challenges by……
Squashing Barriers.
Squashing Limits.
&
Squashing Poverty
.