Now, nearly 40 years later, Donahue is giving back to the squash program by endowing the head squash coaching position, effective next season.
The endowment, rather than the College, will now fund the head coach's salary, which will provide a secure source of funding for the team, according to deputy athletics director Bob Ceplikas. This frees up money to be reallocated to enhance the program in other ways.
"Dartmouth is all about excellence," Donahue said. "Excellence in the classroom, community and in athletic programs. It's all a combination of these things. I hope that by helping the College in this way, I can contribute to sustaining that excellence."
A well-supported athletic program attracts competitive, high-level student athletes to the school, Donahue said.
Once a commitment of donation is made, the donor is given up to five years to complete the donation. For this reason, impact is not immediately felt.
"Once fully funded, a new fund provides financial support in perpetuity, which has tremendous value to any program," Ceplikas said.
Donahue is a member of Dartmouth's athletic advisory board. He said he decided to endow the team after attending a squash reunion last fall that commemorated 75 years of men's squash and 40 years of women's squash.
"It was great fun and reminded me of how important Dartmouth athletics have been to the experience at the College," Donahue said.
Two other coaching positions were endowed along with men's and women's squash women's golf and men's and women's swimming and diving thanks to donations from a total of five alumni of the College.
Dartmouth will now have six endowed coaching positions, placing it sixth in the Ivy League. Cornell leads the pack with 27, but this is because they accept smaller donations, starting from $500,000, Ceplikas said. Dartmouth requires $1-2.5 million to endow a coaching position.
Brown University and Harvard University have also endowed their squash coaching positions.
Athletic endowments make up $60 million of the College's $3.5 billion endowment, mostly from individual funds set up through alumni donations.
Big Green men's head squash coach Hansi Wiens said the endowment is an honor and will help pay for travel and recruitment of more top-level athletes as well as equipment and online game streaming.
"Hansi Wiens and his athletes now know that Dartmouth's squash program will benefit from a significant financial underpinning that most sports are not fortunate enough to have," Ceplikas said. "The endowment gift represents an extraordinary degree of support and generosity for that particular program."
Squash player Sarah Loucks '13, who counts Donahue as a family friend and squash partner at their Boston squash club, said she is thrilled he funded the endowment.
"He is a great, generous guy," Loucks said. "The love of the game and love of the College is what gets alums to support us so much."
