Squash: A History of the Game
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The first comprehensive history of squash in the United States, Squash incorporates every aspect of this increasingly popular sport: men's and women's play, juniors and intercollegiates, singles and doubles, hardball and softball, amateurs and professionals.Invented by English schoolboys in the 1850s, squash first came to the United States in 1884 when St. Paul's School in New Hampshire built four open-air courts. The game took hold in Philadelphia, where players founded the U.S. Squash Racquets Association in 1904, and became one of the primary pastimes of the nation's elite. Squash launched a U.S. Open in 1954, but its present boom started in the 1970s when commercial squash clubs took the sport public. In the 1980s a pro tour sprung up to offer tournaments on portable glass courts in dramatic locales such as the Winter Garden at the World Trade Center.James Zug, with access to private archives and interviews with hundreds of players, describes the riveting moments and sweeping historical trends that have shaped the game. He focuses on the biographies of legendary squash personalities: Eleo Sears, the Boston Brahmin who swam in the cold Atlantic before matches; Hashim Khan, the impish founder of the Khan dynasty; Victor Niederhoffer, the son of a Brooklyn cop; and Mark Talbott, a Grateful Dead groupie who traveled the pro circuit sleeping in the back of his pickup. A gripping cultural history, Squash is the book for which all aficionados of this fast-paced, exciting game have been waiting. The New Yorker Something about squash -- the white walls, the cloistered courts, and the cruel ring of a tinned volley -- inspires eccentricity. Zug, a former collegiate player, excels in describing the game’s outsized personalities and how they won clubhouse fame and infamy. (Drilling the ball at your opponent’s back used to be a common tactic.) But his account is hindered by an affection for bureaucratic detail -- court construction, organizing committees, secondary tournament results -- and he buries some of his best material in the footnotes. Still, squash fans will appreciate Zug’s history of the game’s complicated origins among English schoolboys at Harrow in the eighteen-forties, where it was a novice’s version of the medieval game of racquets. The book also serves as an epitaph of sorts, the North American hardball squash on which Zug focusses having been rendered obsolete by the softball version which now prevails in international competition.
CONTENTSForeword by George PlimptonPrologue1. The Joints Trembled on the SpitThe origins of racquets sports with real tennis and racquets; the invention of squash at Harrow School in England2. Heaven's Heaviest ArtilleryThe birth of squash in America at St. Paul's School in 1884; infancy in Philadelphia; the strange and sad history of the game of squash tennis; the saga of standardization and why North American squash developed the narrow court and harder ball.3. Don't Keep Late HourHarvard's squash dynasty, 1922-1937; Harry Cowles, genius coach of seven national champions.4. Hollow-Eyed and SqueakyThe start of women's squash; Yale and intercollegiate squash; squash on the Titanic; a tour of squash cities and tournaments in the 1920s and '30s.5. Send for the Drama CriticThe Merion Cricket Club juggernaut; the Diehl Mateer/Henri Salaun rivalry of the 1950s; the start of the U.S.Open and the arrival of the Khans.6. A Clam in Mud at Low TideVictor Niederhoffer; the game expands across the nation; women, juniors and colleges in the 1950s and '60s; Harvard dynasty redux under Jack Barnaby.7. Sex, Scandal and CelebritiesPublic squash in the 1970s — the great explosion.8. Box of RainThe North American professional tour of the 1980s.9. 18-16 in the Fifth Mark Talbott versus Jahangir Khan, November 1984. 10. Bait and SwitchThe tortuous change from North American to international standards.11. The Infinitely Greater GameA short history of squash doubles.12. This MollycoddledAgeSquash in the twenty-first century; rebirth and expansion; dreams of Olympic gold and a new generation of players.AcknowledgmentsBibliographyNotesAppendix: Record of ChampionsIndex
