Just 20 years ago, Tufts had one of the best men's squash programs in the nation. But now, following weekend losses to Wesleyan, Connecticut College and Hamilton in the NESCAC Championships, the No. 25 Jumbos will almost certainly fall out of the College Squash Association (CSA) top 24 for the first time in more than 10 years and will most likely finish ninth or 10th in the NESCAC at the end of the season.
Tufts has only finished that low in the conference twice in Coach Doug Eng's 15 seasons in charge of the program, a fact that sits poorly with him.
"Everybody in sports wants to be on a winning team," Eng said. "We have been historically very solid and have competed with top teams. It is only this year that we are really struggling because we lost most of our team to graduation, so we are very young and inexperienced."
Eng fondly remembers the glory years of Tufts squash.
"Tufts was very strong in squash in the '80s," Eng (E '84) said. "We were at one point top four in the country. We beat Trinity and Dartmouth and were usually No. 2 or 3 in the NESCAC."
Now, more than 25 years later, the team finds itself at 4−15 overall.
The Jumbos have had to rely even more on younger players after two veteran starters abruptly left the team more than halfway through the regular season. Juniors Chris Mutzel and Will Salisbury, both of whom started several matches for Tufts this season, decided that they would not continue playing after winter break.
"It was a great team and my teammates are great guys, but I felt like I had some other things that were more important to me," Mutzel said.
For Salisbury, the time required to participate on the team proved too steep.
"We're both pretty pressed for time," Salisbury added. "We have to travel 25 to 30 minutes one way just to get to the courts [at Belmont Hill School] for practice. It takes up a lot of time."
Tufts is currently the only men's varsity squash program in the country that lacks regulation courts on campus, according to Michael Bello, executive administrator of the College Squash Association.
"What Tufts has on its campus is American squash courts," Bello told the Daily. "The American squash game was more a game of speed and placement with less focus on moving. However in the '90s, a lot of colleges began converting to international courts. Today, everyone is pretty much converted. All new squash courts built these days are international."
The American squash courts at Tufts' Cousens Gymnasium, built almost 30 years ago, are a few inches narrower than the international courts used by the CSA and the rest of the country. In addition, the tin — an area of the front wall that players are not allowed to hit during play — is significantly higher up the wall at Tufts. Both of these factors make it difficult for Tufts to play on international courts after spending most of their practice time on the American courts.
"Practicing on an American court and then having to play on an international court is definitely challenging," Bello said.
This puts the Jumbos at a disadvantage relative to every other collegiate squash program. Without international courts on campus, the team travels to Belmont Hill School five days a week for practice. In the offseason, players must either go to Belmont Hill or Harvard just to hit around on regulation courts.
For Salisbury and Mutzel, the lack of proper facilities played a major role in their decisions to leave the team.
"Because we don't have facilities, a lot of people don't know the team exists," Salisbury said. "Recruits look at the squash courts here and immediately get turned off. Nobody wants to travel to Belmont Hill or Harvard."
Mutzel believed that not having regulation courts on campus reflected insufficient backing for the program.
"There's not a lot of support for squash," Mutzel added. "We don't have any courts, which doesn't bring in any crowds. I'm surprised that we're able to compete at the level we do. There are some teams ranked 40th in the country and some club teams that have better courts than we do. I think it's amazing that Tufts squash is able to do what it does."
For other veterans of the program, the squash facilities still remain a contentious issue. While no promise was made that courts would be ready for this season, there was still some belief among players that they would be ready by 2010.
"I was really hoping for [international courts] to be built within my four years," senior captain Alex Gross said. "However, the Tufts gym needs a lot of renovations, so expecting new courts during this recession is a little unreasonable. It is just hard to recruit players without the necessary facilities, so for Tufts to have stayed as competitive as it has is really impressive."
Former squash player Zach Bradley (LA '10) agreed that talented recruits are difficult to attract to Tufts when the team does not have sufficient facilities for them.
"With the courts the way they are and no solid understanding of when real courts will come, Tufts is unfortunately not viewed as a legitimate squash program anymore," Bradley said. "You can see how much Tufts is struggling in the NESCAC, and a lot of that is because the top−tier players in high school aren't going to come to Tufts."
Bradley, now a high school squash coach at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, mentioned one of his talented players who hoped to play squash in the NESCAC but was immediately turned off by Tufts' facilities.
"She visited Tufts and loved the campus, loved the academic part, but she saw the squash courts and immediately knew that she couldn't come to this school," Bradley said.
For any collegiate program, bringing in top recruits each year is the only way to consistently compete at a national level. Due to the lack of collegiate squash teams in the country, all teams compete at the Div. I level. Eng has the challenging task of convincing top squash players to come to Tufts despite the facility deficiencies and lack of funding relative to many other schools' programs that, unlike Tufts, are allowed to take university−funded trips outside the country for tournaments.
"I'd say I could get one very good player to come to Tufts every other year [with international courts]," Eng said. "With those players, we'd probably end up finishing around fourth in the NESCAC consistently."
Salisbury doubts that changes will come any time soon.
"I love Doug, and he loves the team, but there's only so much he can do for the team in recruiting when he doesn't have the financial support from the school or the facilities," Salisbury said. "I don't think [University President Lawrence] Bacow has ever been to a squash match in the last three years, and we're also not given money for uniforms or travel."
Tufts Athletic Director Bill Gehling acknowledged that the current facilities are "subpar," and that there were plans to build new courts around this time. Due to the economic recession of 2008, however, the funding was not available to start construction on renovations to Cousens, and new courts won't be ready for at least a few more years.
"We've faced some very serious economic challenges simply trying to figure out how to function," Gehling said. "But the momentum is moving forward again, and I'm confident that in time, we'll be able to solve this problem. I would hope that our coaches now are not just selling the sports program but the entire university as well."
While Tufts may never again reach the elite status of the '80s, all parties agree that the addition of new courts would be an immediate boost. For now, though, Eng and the Jumbos continue to practice off−campus while waiting for their new courts.
Eng remains unsure of exactly when that will be.
"It's going to be up to the new president and the administration to see what the priorities are," he said. "So we're just going to have to see."
