Women in Squash
By Jennifer Gabler
How do you make squash your life’s work? Is the ultimate achievement to coach a national championship team? How do you venture outside the comfort zone of your native land and make a home in a foreign land? How can we get more women to play squash as adults? Jane Parker’s multi-faceted squash life provides answers to all of these questions.
Jane has made squash her life’s work by combining numerous roles within the squash community. She was a WISPA playing pro in the 1980’s, playing through knee troubles and attaining a #16 ranking in the U.K. and #32 World ranking. As early as high school, she was drawn to teaching and coaching. She taught many of her friends to play the game she grew up playing with her family. Jane has also been an administrator, coach and organizer for England Squash, Bermuda Squash and U.S. Squash. She has actively supported U.S. Squash’s focus on providing coach certification courses, moving a significant number of people through the certification process during 2007.
Jane has always coached players across the spectrum of the game, from beginners to world level competitors. Back in her native England, she coached club, county, regional and national teams. When she moved to Bermuda in 1994 to take the position of Director of Squash for the Bermuda Squash Racquets Association, she took on the challenge of increasing squash participation on this tiny island. During her tenure from 1994-2000, Bermuda Squash membership rose from 230 to over 500 members. The junior program went from around 20 to over 150 participants, primarily due to her efforts that increased school based squash programs. She advanced the playing abilities to such a degree in Bermuda that she was able to take full teams of juniors to the Caribbean Championships and a boy’s team to the World Championships, each on two occasions during her tenure. She built a solid base for squash, which enabled her successor to bring the Men’s World Championships to Bermuda in 2007.
Jane has been the men’s and women’s coach for Vassar College for the past eight years. She has concentrated her efforts on recruiting experienced players while at the same time introducing new players to the sport to make up the numbers on the team. This approach has made squash a better known sport around campus, and encouraged students to make it a part of their lives while at college and in the future.
In terms of college coaching, Jane has moved the Vassar women’s team nationally from the bottom of the college rankings to as high as #13. Last season they won the third division of the Howe Cup team championship for the second time in the last eight years. The men’s team at Vassar has faced challenges in building its program, as the number of colleges fielding squash teams has increased, significantly thinning out the number of recruitable athletes. The men’s team finished last year at #32 and Jane is concentrating on building more strength in the coming years. Most importantly, Jane has focused on creating good camaraderie on the Vassar teams.
When working with college players, Jane wants to help them improve, achieve their competitive goals and when they leave college still be motivated to play and give back to the sport. Jane is particularly proud of two recent graduates, one in 2006 and one in 2008, (who in fact was introduced to the sport at Vassar.) Both will be working full-time at Street Squash, the urban squash program in NYC. They have made squash a central part of their lives and are focused on sharing their passion and growing knowledge of the sport with others. As Jane said, “If we are going to continue to increase the health of the sport of squash in the U.S., these are exactly the type of people we need to solidify the base of the U.S. squash pyramid.”
One of the primary vehicles Jane uses to increase participation in squash at Vassar is through PE classes. Each year her beginner level classes introduce the sport to at least 50 newcomers. Most have never heard of squash, but they almost immediately catch the squash bug due to Jane’s infectious enthusiasm for the sport she loves. Furthermore, her intermediate classes develop technical and tactical skills for the more experienced players some of whom even go on to join one of the Vassar squash teams.
Jane was able to utilize the generosity of the son of an alumnus by supporting elite women’s squash. Since 2001 she has successfully directed seven WISPA tournaments held at Vassar. She is currently planning the annual Vassar Summer Squash Camp for juniors. In just its second year, the camp is already sold out. Her outreach extends also to those less fortunate as she played a key role in 2003 in the launch of an urban-style after-school program for kids from the city of Poughkeepsie.
Jane sees the cost of belonging to a private club as one of the primary barriers for college graduates to continue playing post-college. She feels the way to get women involved in squash is through offering more adult clinics, instructional DVDs that feature top female players to demonstrate good form and more coaching certification courses targeting women. She also advocates developing a mixed ranking system, which would grade women and men together. This would allow everyone to play in skill level and handicapped tournaments, regardless of age or gender and would give women a greater pool of opposition. This system was highly successful in Bermuda and actually increased the number of tournament entries from a struggling 32 to in excess of 100.
How many more squash players lives will be positively influenced by Jane Parker? What other ways will Jane help to grow college, junior and women’s squash? We are looking forward to having Jane answer these questions for many years to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment