Paying Attention to Junior Squash

 

I used to ignore junior squash. Sure, when I played in the juniors, I knew who all my peers were, but once I moved on, I paid no more attention. Part of this, I guess, is human nature; whenever we graduate from one level to the next – be it from high school to college, from junior varsity to varsity, or from junior to open-level squash – we tend to forget about the path that got us there.

               But I can’t pin everything on human nature. I was also cocky. I didn’t need to pay attention to the juniors, I thought, because none of them could touch me. That’s why I was so excited when I saw my opponent in my first match for the USA in the 1991 World Team Championships.

               I had sat out the first two matches that we played, and I was about to jump in at the number-three spot against Scotland. A few months before the Worlds, I had played against their #1 player, Mark McClean, and though I had lost, I had performed well. I was confident I would do well against their number-three man.

               Someone pointed him out to me while he was warming up with one of his teammates. I was startled when I saw him, for I thought that he might be as young as twelve. I was told he was sixteen, but he was so slight of frame that I wondered if Scotland might be exaggerating his age. My confidence continued to grow.

               As I watched him warm up, I couldn’t help but notice his youthful exuberance and how red his cheeks got. Two more good signs, I thought, for his inexperience and his lack of conditioning would help me. I began to think how nice it would be to win the first match for the US.

               And I did win – the first point. I think I even may have gotten another point or two, but the mach was over so fast, I have to confess that I’m not sure. I got hammered by the baby-faced killer.

               When I got off the court after the fifteen or so minutes that I managed to keep him out there, I protested to my less-than-sympathetic teammates that this kid was good. I told them that the teenager had the potential to go a long way. I tried to convince them that I hadn’t choked, but that the young Scot had some talent.

They laughed it off, but it turns out that had I been paying attention to junior squash, I would have heard of him, for he was already runner up in the World Juniors and he seemed to be showing the kind of potential that could take him far.

               Had I been paying attention to junior squash, I might have noticed that his constant smile and innocent appearance were hiding an almost sadistic pleasure that he took in beating his opponents. Like a group of hyenas preying on an unlucky antelope, his style of play was to take a nip here and there with precision-like strokes and use his superior speed and defense skills to prevent his opponents from regrouping enough to get their bearings.

               Had I been paying attention to junior squash, I would have known that the match the he played against me was no fluke. I would have known that he had been showing the kind of potential that would someday take him to #1 in the world. I would have known the name Peter Nicol before he crunched me.

In a strange way, I’ll be at the World Juniors to exact a kind of revenge on Mr. Nicol. This year, you see, I’ll be paying attention. And this year, I may see the player that will someday sneak up on Peter and steal his number one ranking. I wonder if Peter pays attention to the juniors…