Dear Editor,
I'm a parent of two Tufts students who have played and served as captains on the varsity men's squash teams at Tufts. They love Tufts and so do we as parents. However, I can't let a comment by Athletics Director Bill Gehling in the Feb. 7 article "Lack of proper courts prevents Tufts from reaching elite status" go by without comment.
Describing the squash courts as "subpar" suggests to those unfamiliar with squash that perhaps the lighting might need improvement or the gallery area for viewing matches could be enlarged. "Subpar" is not an adequate descriptor of the squash court situation on the Tufts campus. An appropriate analogy, for those unfamiliar with squash, would be if all of the basketball courts at Tufts were 5 feet narrower and had baskets with the rims permanently set at 6 inches shorter than regulation.
Sure the players could practice some dribbling and passing on those courts, but no coach in his or her right mind would run a full-fledged practice on them. And no opponent would play a home game against Tufts on those courts. Every day, the basketball coach would have to pile the Tufts' basketball team into vans, drive to a court somewhere off campus for practice, and play the few "home" games the coach was able to schedule at an off-campus facility.
Imagine the difficulty that basketball coach would have in recruiting competitive players. Imagine the difficulty the players would face in maintaining their skills. And what do you think the student turnout would be for those "home" games? I'm guessing Athletics Director Gehling would ask that basketball coach to promote all the other aspects of Tufts that are so outstanding (and they are!) to prospective student athletes and just cope with the fact that the court is narrower and rims are shorter than every other regulation-sized court across the country. That's a lot to ask of a coach over a 10 to 15 year period of competition with teams that have regulation-size courts.
That's the "subpar" situation that the varsity men's and women's squash teams face at Tufts. In spite of this, the Tufts men's and women's teams have competed well enough to be ranked consistently in, or close to, the top 20 teams in the country (and that's not just Division III; that's all squash programs, Division I through Division III).
Now I understand that all college and university administrations have to prioritize directing limited funds across a slew of varsity programs. And I also understand that Tufts can't field teams ranked first in every sport. But being the only varsity squash program in the country without regulation-sized courts is a "ranking" that Tufts should be ashamed of.
Sincerely,
Michael Gross
