Saying they need $20,000 to operate beyond this winter season or that the entire program will fold, the founders of the New Canaan High School Squash Team and participating students on Monday night called for district officials to find money to support them.
Squash is an increasingly popular, fun and character-building sport that serves both boys and girls, and for the eight years that New Canaan High School’s program has been running—now with varsity club status—it’s been operated by volunteer parent Liz Schmidt, she said.
Members of New Canaan High School squash came out in full force at the Nov. 3, 2014 Board of Education meeting, held in the Wagner Room at NCHS. Credit: Michael Dinan
Schmidt told the Board of Education at its meeting Monday that she is retiring after this season and that funds are needed to pay a coach and keep it going. No funding “means an end to the program” and “lower-than-requested funding is understandable, but would require us to cut down on the number of kids that we can admit to the program.”
“We understand that there have to be parameters on how and where money is spent,” Schmidt said during the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School and attended by dozens of the 80 students who play on the Rams teams, as well as several squash parents.
“However, we would like to respectfully suggest that perhaps the parameters for funding New Canaan High School sports be looked at. We hope that in light of our number of players, our longevity, our success and our ability to offer a safe, easily accessible winter sport option for boys and girls, that some new parameters can be put in place, or another area of the budget can be looked at to create funding for a large athletic group, like squash, that competes in the name of New Canaan High School. We would like to respectfully request $20,000 for the 2015-16 year to pay a stipend for coaches to run the programs and to offset the cost of the programs.”
Schmidt’s daughter, a squash player and 2010 NCHS graduate who started the program in 2006, addressed the school board, as did captains for the both the girls and boys varsity teams—Sami Marcus and Will Gruseke, respectively.
Though the school board only takes up for discussion items posted to its meeting agenda, Chair Hazel Hobbs commended the group for its accomplishments, thanked those who spoke and assured them that the matter will be taken up formally at a future meeting.
“We have definitely taken note of your being here,” Hobbs said.
She added: “It’s a wonderful thing and you all deserve to feel proud of what you’re doing.”
Squash is not part of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, or CIAC, because not enough public high schools in the state have a team.
That often relegates a sport to private funding only in New Canaan, because it means the district’s Athletic Department cannot offer funds, and the bylaws of the New Canaan High School All Sports Booster Club only allow disbursement of funds to CIAC sports, Schmidt said.
Yet other towns in the same position, including neighboring Darien (which this season produced the second-best field hockey team in the FCIAC), find funding for their own programs, Schmidt said. The Darien High School program gets about $20,000 plus a stipend for its varsity coach and transportation costs, she said.
Hillary Schmidt said the team she helped launch eight years ago had nine players, most of whom had never picked up a squash racket. The program today counts about 80 NCHS players in its ranks, playing on varsity and JV teams that compete around the nation and are “respected and recognized.”
“Now NCHS students are applying to some of the best colleges in the nation for squash,” Hillary Schmidt said. “We have come a long way and I really hope that the sport will continue to grow here.”
Marcus, a senior, has been playing for all four years at the high school. She said she was one of only two girls on the JV team when she started “and now to have a team of all girls it’s such an exciting thing.”
Gruseke said the squash players he met when he took up the sport in middle school rank among his closest friends today.
“In addition to forging great friendships and learning a new sport, squash has helped all of us grow in other ways,” he said.
“As an example, players are responsible for scoring and [refereeing] their own matches. This is unlike any other varsity sport that I know of, and I feel it has been a tremendous growth experience in terms of our sense of fair play and sportsmanship. Especially since we cannot afford a coach to be present at matches with us, we all have to rely on one another to support and encourage each other with peer coaching. Though we each play on the court alone, we realize that we are part of something bigger for ourselves, we are part of New Canaan High School squash. While squash began as a fun activity, it has become something more to all of us. We have put in many hours, dates and years into this program, and while we are proud of what we have accomplished so far, we are here tonight hoping that you will help us to secure the future of NCHS Squash.”
Liz Schmidt said she was “very grateful to [Athletic Director] Jay Egan for granting us varsity club status.”
“This allows us to honor our players as NCHS athletes with varsity letters for their work, their success and their dedication to their sport,” she said.
New Canaan Squash would like to thank Michael Dinan for writing this fabulous article and also a big thank you to the Board of Education for listening to us. We (the players, the families and the Board of New Canaan Squash) appreciate this support from our community!