From: The Squash Club of Kenyon College
To: allstu@kenyon.edu
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 1:53 PM
Subject: KENYON RANKED 44 BEST IN COUNTRY!

As of 11/18/03, Kenyon is ranked the 44th best school in the country; this list includes both liberal arts colleges and universities. Screw U.S. News and World Reports.

Check it out:
1 Trinity
2 Yale
3 Harvard
4 Princeton
5 Penn
6 Dartmouth
7 Cornell
8 UWO
9 Brown
10 Williams
11 Amherst
12 F&M
13 Hobart
14 Bates
15 Bowdoin
16 Navy
17 Denison
18 Colby
19 Tufts
20 Rochester
21 Wesleyan
22 MIT
23 St. Lawrence
24 GWU
25 Hamilton
26 Vassar
27 Cal-Berkeley
28 Stanford
29 Virginia
30 Northwestern
31 Haverford
32 Conn. College
33 Middlebury
34 Columbia
35 Colgate
36 Utah
37 Penn State
38 Fordham
39 Bard
40 Ohio Wesleyan
41 Illinois
42 Duke
43 UNC
44 Kenyon
45 Air Force

Alas, this ranking is for squash. And yes, evidentially our ranking of 44 is out of 45 (perhaps because our stomachs can handle turbulence better than the 45th school)

The Squash Club of Kenyon College voyaged this weekend to Northwestern where we were unvictorious and vomited Sunday morning against Northwestern and University of Illinois. To prepare for our match, some of us mistakenly over-hydrated on Chicago tap water the night before at "Prairie Moon" (1502 Russell Sherman Avenue Evanston, Illinois--recommended but don't drink their water); Chicago tap water is, evidently not as suitable for our patrician, East coast digestive tracts as even Knox County water is as we suffered from--as in the Exorcist--convulsions, head spinning, and projectile vomiting against our unholy opponents.

The Squash Club of Kenyon College journeys to Granville tomorrow, Wednesday afternoon, where we shall confront #17 ranked Denison and expect to collect another unvictory.

To learn more about the Patricians and The Squash Club of Kenyon College, go to:
http://squash.kenyon.edu/

Also, check out this Chicago report on city water and cities with "water at risk" from the National Resources Defense Council:
Chicago report: http://www2.nrdc.org/water/drinking/uscities/pdf/chicago.pdf
Tap Water at Risk: http://www2.nrdc.org/water/drinking/uscities/pdf/chap07.pdf

Traditional East Cost Game comes to the Midwest, Gambier wonders whether squash will become varsity

By Jay Helmer

Sports Editor, The Collegian

There is a new kid on the block in the Kenyon sports scene: the Squash Club. Senior Andrew Simmons started the club last spring and this year, it has grown to 69 members, 11 of whom played in high school.

Simmons, the team's captain and president, sent an email last February to all students inquiring about the level of interest at squash at Kenyon. Said Simmons, "Several students replied and expressed interest in playing inter-collegiate matches. Setting up matches with other schools was remarkably simpler than I expected--that is I slightly inflated the level of our team's competition to the coaches who enthusiastically replied with their support in arranging a match against us." The club traveled to play three matches in November--Northwestern and University of Illinois, both played at Northwestern outside of Chicago, and Denison in Granville--and is scheduled to play Princeton JV, Duke, and UVA next semester.

The game is played in an enclosed court similar to racquetball. The two players hit a hollow rubber ball about the size of a ping-pong ball against a wall with racquets a bit slimmer than tennis racquets. The sport received its name because of the action it takes. Unlike other racquet sports, a squash ball's bounce is not true. Squash has an elitist reputation partly as a result of its origins in the British public schools. The sport is played today at many independent schools, predominantly in the Northeast. Says Simmons, "The construction cost of squash courts is high, often limiting courts to clubs and private schools; this perhaps helps explains why the sport has an elitist reputation." Seven of the top ten programs in the nation are Ivy League schools, and two others--Trinity and Williams--are New England liberal arts colleges. One Midwestern school that recently a squash program was Denison. In just six years the Big Red have built their program into the top 20 in the country.

It appears that squash is going to remain a part of Kenyon's future. The Fitness, Recreation, and Athletic Center, now under construction and scheduled to be completed in 2006, will have eight squash courts and ample gallery seating so that Kenyon will be able to host tournaments. Players have raised the question whether squash will be a varsity sport at Kenyon. Simmons says, "Considering that Denison has built a cut-throat program in a short period of time, I don't see why Kenyon can't accomplish this." Other players in the club see varsity status for squash in Kenyon's future. Said junior Barrett Bohnengel, "If we keep doing what we're doing--yes, squash will become a varsity sport at Kenyon."

Agreeing, said freshman Chris Fennell, "Eight courts is a lot more than [any other school outside of the Northeast], which to me means that Kenyon is serious about eventually creating a successful varsity program, ideally, I hope, in the near future." There are, however, several obstacles. One is Title IX, which requires that colleges grant equal varsity sports opportunities for men and women.

For now, the members of the squash club are simply looking to have gain a little more recognition. Although funding is a significant problem, said junior Geoff Nelson, "The goal for the club is to establish itself as a team and begin to develop a reputation and a consistent schedule of matches with teams around the country. As a team, we want to play competitively with anyone we step on a court with. We're an extremely deep team and have the potential to beat a lot of other schools." The only detriment so far from the club's success, Simmons commented, is that "it's recently been a bit difficult getting court time."