I first met Julian Benello in my freshman year at Yale, and I didn’t much like him. Part of it was undoubtedly because we were rival freshmen on the Varsity squash team, but part of it, too, was that Julian and I approached squash – and our lives – very differently, and he was constantly trying to convince me that his approach was better.
I was very serious and single-minded. I could tell that I had some potential in squash, but that I would have to work very hard to maximize it.
Julian, on the other hand, wanted to experience life in all its forms. Make no mistake, Julian also wanted to be a good squash player (and he was), but he also felt that it was not worth sacrificing the rest of one’s college life to excel. Whereas I felt that if you had prepared hard enough, you could overcome your opponent by outworking him, Julian wanted squash to be more of an intellectual battle.
Julian was very smart, and he enjoyed debate and problem solving. Julian also was passionate, and this sometimes got him in trouble; Julian often found himself involved in heated arguments instead of intellectual debate. One time, a debate with another member of our team continued onto the squash court, and this opponent, frustrated by Julian’s continuing monologue, shoved Julian against the wall, stuck his squash racquet under Julian’s chin, and told Julian to knock it off.
Julian’s view of me was not very flattering. He didn’t understand why I would be so willing to miss out on much of college life to pursue a game so passionately. He constantly confronted me about my true desires and about whether I wasn’t overcompensating for something lacking in my life. By being in my face all the time, he forced me to look at myself in not-so-flattering ways, and I resented the hell out of him for it.
I also was frustrated that Julian could compete with me so closely. He understood early on that my game was so grooved on patterns that if he could break those patterns, he would stand a chance. He also saw that I was fragile psychologically, so he constantly talked to me during those matches. And we had some battles. Luckily for me, one or two people always separated us on the ladder, because he regularly beat me in practice matches.
After four years of being teammates, though, Julian and I had begun to respect each other. I began to understand that Julian truly had a desire to understand what made people tick and to help friends experience as much of life as possible. It made complete sense to me that soon after graduation, Julian decided to teach high school.
After some confusion in my own life about whether I would continue to focus on squash, I too found myself teaching (I taught grade school). Julian and I didn’t run into each other often, but over time, we found ourselves actually enjoying each other’s company. I think we both found it somewhat amusing that we had taken two such different approaches and yet found ourselves in two such similar places.
A few years after graduating, Julian and I played a couple of “friendly” matches and went out for dinner afterwards. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about how he challenged some of his students. Not surprisingly, his method of teaching was very different from mine, but I couldn’t help thinking how stimulating his students must have found him.
In Europe, there is a long-standing tradition of taking your opponent out for a drink after a match. For some reason, we don’t so it as much in the US. This is too bad, because I think many of us miss out on the opportunity to discover how similar many of us are with our competitors.
The last time I saw Julian alive, we were having dinner, and I told him that I would have enjoyed having him as a teacher. I think he liked that. Less than six months later, at the age of 25, Julian was killed on Pan Am Flight 103.
This past December – the ten-year anniversary of the bombing – I found myself thinking about Julian again. (He kept popping into my head, uninvited. Typical.) As I thought over the past ten years, I realized that even with a National title to my name, the more important things that squash has given me are most of my closest friends.
So, Julian, you were right. I had a lot to learn. But I was also right. You were a good teacher. Now, please, get out of my face.
