Sunday, October 11th, 2009
New squash courts spice sports menu at Buffalo Seminary

By Charlie Garfinkel - The Buffalo News

On Oct. 2 at approximately 3:30 p. m., Helen Marlette, the dean of students at Buffalo Seminary was beaming as she witnessed the opening of the school’s beautiful new two-court squash facility.

“Two and a half years ago we realized that our old gym needed to be upgraded,” Marlette said.

“The board and I spent many hours trying to decide how we could best utilize the space. We arrived at a decision that we wanted to provide a sport that our students could enjoy and utilize as a life-long sport. We also wanted a sport that could also serve both Buffalo Seminary and the community. After considerable research and investigation it was decided that squash would be the best choice for our present and long range plans.”

Marlette stressed that squash was an excellent choice for the school. The game provides a great workout for two people in a small area, requires great sportsmanship, competition and fun. The racket looks somewhat similar to a tennis racket and is much lighter. The ball stays in play, giving each player a chance to return the opponent’s shot, which leads to long rallies. The bounce of the ball also leads to relatively quick success in keeping the ball in play. Equally important, the sportsmanship that the game commands is second to no other sport.

Fortunately, Buffalo’s own Gordon Anderson is one of the leading builders of squash courts in the world. Anderson, who was once ranked No. 3 in the world and is still one of the best senior players in the world, was magnanimous in lending his time and expertise in helping his company build the Seminary facility and its large viewing area.

The Bassett family was instrumental in offering a lead gift to help with the building of the courts. Other donations followed and the facility became a dream come true.

Seminary has 15 girls on its team, playing in a league with Nardin, Nichols, and an independent team.

“The game of squash has really taken off throughout the country, especially at the high school and collegiate level,” Marlette said. “This past year’s Junior National Championships was the largest youth tournament of its kind in the world.”

At the college level, Trinity College of Hartford, Conn. has won the National Team Championships an unprecedented 11 years in a row. About a year ago Sports Illustrated wrote about Trinity’s success and the fact it had won over 200 straight matches, one of the longest streaks in any sport.

Trinity coach Paul Assaiante was the featured speaker at the Buffalo Seminary opening and conducted a clinic with Anderson for both the Buffalo Seminary and invited Tapestry Charter and St. Monica Scholars students.

In the upcoming year, Seminary will be providing the courts to Tapestry and St. Monica studentsat least an hour a week. This will give these students a chance to play a sport that they otherwise might never have played.|

In addition, each student that is eligible will be getting an hour of tutoring in reading at least once a week. Buffalo Seminary is also hoping to expand its program to other schools in the community in the future.

Squash is offered as an elective at Buffalo Seminary to get as many students as possible involved in the program.

“Although squash is a fun sport, it is also played at an extremely high level as exemplified by all-time local greats such as Anderson and Rev. Bob Hetherington,” Marlette said.

Marlette hopes many of the girls who take up squash will eventually follow in the steps of other local women who went on to star at various colleges.

These players include: Molly Anderson, Trinity; Phoebe Anderson, Brown; Mattie McQueeney and Monica Wlodarczyk, Bowdoin; Julie Drury, Dartmouth; Laura Lynn Drury, Penn; Erin Hart, Blake Carbone, and Sarah Kreiner, St. Lawrence; Betsy Bloom and Sarah Bassett, Colgate and Courtney Leous, Hobart/William Smith.

Published by The Buffalo News: http://www.buffalonews.com/291/story/824445.html