Last week, I sat down with men's squash players Luke Lee '12 and John Canning '14 to discuss life as a squash player, the team's December training trip to Palo Alto, Calif. and the upcoming season.
When did you first start playing squash?
JC: I first started playing when I was eight or nine. My mom, Annabelle Brainard Canning ['81], played squash at Dartmouth and wanted to expose me to the game. She played three sports at Dartmouth, and squash was her favorite. I tried it out and fell in the love with the game. I started playing competitively at a young age and have played ever since.
LL: Growing up in Korea, I wasn't exposed to squash until I went to a boarding school at Phillips Exeter Academy. I had played tennis throughout middle school and didn't have a winter sport to play at Exeter. I liked tennis, and since squash was a racquet sport, I tried it and just really got into it.
I hear you've been known to dabble in other racquet sports as well, what do you think contributes to your all-around success?
LL: Not too sure, but it might be the natural hand-eye [coordination]. I'm also very competitive and always want to win. Since racquet sports are individual sports, I tend to want to beat the other person. It also helps that being good at one racquet sport tends to translate to some degree of success in other racquet sports. But in the end, racquet sports depend much on hand-eye [coordination], and that's pretty much why I beat Peter Weinberg ['12] all the time.
John, you joined the team this year as a walk-on. How has the transition from nonner life to the life of a varsity athlete been?
JC: The main change is the amount of structure it adds to my day. I walked on in the fall and started practicing with the team right away. I had a great transition in the fall as a walk-on because the guys on the team welcomed me whole-heartedly. In the fall, we were playing and training almost every day, so I had a lot less free time than before. We also had a lot of morning practices, in which I really had to push Zog [Alex Kurth 13] to keep up with the pace. Playing on the squash team has really made me more productive and has given me a great group of friends that I can have fun experiences with and share memories with.How was your training trip in Palo Alto, Calif. last month?
LL: We probably have one of the best training trips of all the teams at Dartmouth. I think this is not only because we have the most amount of fun, but we also work really hard. Squash is a sport where short, focused practices are more productive than just mindlessly spending hours and hours on the court. The warm weather and some fun thrown in there keep our spirits afloat and make us push harder and smarter during practice.
We have a great group of guys and girls that know how to have fun and that definitely makes the training trip an unreal experience. We have some great traditions on our training trip, such as "The Day Off," volleyball, football and other fun activities that we look forward to every year. Having coaches like Hansi [Wiens] and Busani [Xaba] that love to push us but are also very flexible and receptive to players' needs makes the training trip and playing for Dartmouth squash in general an enjoyable experience.
John, as a player outside the starting lineup, how do you help contribute to the team?
JC: Being outside the lineup, the obvious goal is to make the lineup, so I push myself every day and try to push Weinberg, who pushes our complacent freshmen, who push Barrett to push the starters in our lineup. There are challenge matches every week where you can move up or down the ladder, so that produces a great competitive environment with monumental matches. We all want to win against each other and other teams, so that system works as a way to keep the ladder and team competitive.
Looking forward to the upcoming season, what can we expect from Dartmouth squash?
LL: Our captains Nick Sisodia ['12] and Brian O'Toole ['12] have been phenomenal at motivating the team and keeping it a cohesive unit. We've already had a really close match that we won against [Franklin & Marshall College], ranked eighth nationally, without our No. 3. We trained really hard this fall, so mentally and physically we are very strong and prepared to take on any fight. A lot of these teams that are ranked ahead of us are very beatable and we could potentially finish top five in the country if we keep up the good work and continue to push each other.
The squash team opens its season with an important first match against Princeton University next Saturday, Jan. 14 at 12 p.m.
