SQUASH

Court sport a challenging game of strategy

Say "squash" in the Lowcountry and most folks will think of the ubiquitous bright yellow vegetable of summertime.

Or maybe what you do to a palmetto bug.

But for a growing number of local residents, squash is a challenging game of strategy, a cardiovascular chess match, that's worth putting some money into.

Squash most often is compared to racquetball because it is played with rackets on an indoor court with four walls. Squash is older and upper crust, while racquetball is more popular and middle class. Squash is popular in Europe, especially in Great Britain, and Asia. In the United States, it has a stronger tradition in the Northeast and at Ivy League schools.

Charleston Squash Club

Local squash, the game, got its biggest boost in the Charleston area last year when the newly formed Charleston Squash Club opened in an unlikely location — a nondescript warehouse on Upper King Street.

Once you pass through the combo locked doors, the squash club is another world. Compact, luxurious but not stuffy. The club has three courts, a lounge with a bar, a small workout area and locker rooms with steam rooms — not to mention a mascot, a friendly golden retriever-poodle mix named Yankee.

Yankee actually is part of the package for what many consider the club's biggest asset, squash professional Richard Millman and his wife, Pat Millman. Both teach lessons and arrange matches and tournaments, not only at the club but at courts on Kiawah Island and the Medical University's Harper Student Center.

The Millmans, who moved from England in 1993, own the Westchester Squash Club near New York. Richard has coached at Cornell and been an age group national champion in singles four times and a doubles national champion once. Pat is an accomplished squash player who leads clinics at the student center.

Within a year, the Charleston Squash Club has gone from 35 founding members to 54, not including spouses and "junior" players. The facility's carrying capacity will top out at about 65-75 members. That may not sound like many members, but considering the club cost $7,500 to join ($5,000 of which is an equity fee that is refundable if the paying member leaves) and $1,560 for an annual fee, it's no ordinary membership.

The game's lure

If a game motivates people to spend that kind of money, there must be something to it — a similar draw that attracts the affluent to golf, tennis and polo.

The driving force behind the club is Charles "Buddy" Darby, chief operating officer of Kiawah Development Partners and avid squash player. Like many who stick with squash, Darby is an enthusiast because it is challenging physically and mentally.

"It's one of the few sports that when you're done playing, you're spent," says Darby, who first played squash about 12 years ago and became avid after joining the MUSC wellness center. "Besides being great exercise, it's a thinking man's racquetball because there is so much strategy involved."

When Darby built squash courts at Kiawah a few years ago, some scoffed. Now, he's the one doing the laughing.

"Squash people are pretty fanatical," Darby says, noting that Kiawah draws from the Northeast, where squash is more popular. "They will vacation and buy property based on whether squash courts are available."

The squash club, Darby adds, was born out of frustration with the sometimes crowded MUSC courts, which are not the dimensions of the international standard for squash — 21 feet wide and 32 feet long. (Even American squash players are moving away from the North American version of squash played with a harder ball on courts that are 18.5 feet wide and 32 feet long.)

He and four of his squash buddies raised money, then borrowed some, to build the squash club facility. It opened in September 2006. But they needed one key ingredient.

"I knew the fate of the facility rested on having a good pro," says Darby. "We not only got a good pro, but we got a great pro."

The Millmans were successful squash club owners in Westchester, but they were tired of the hectic pace and long winters of New York City and longed to live in the South. (They lived two years near Atlanta while working at Concourse Athletic Club in Sandy Springs.)

The 'animators'

Richard Millman says that squash "lives and dies by the animators who run each program." Animators?

The Millmans have an infectious enthusiasm for their sport. Talk to them for 30 minutes and anyone with a lick of adventure would be willing to get out on the court.

Richard insists, however, that people who are drawn to squash tend to be busy professionals. He actively calls and e-mails people, setting up games and play times. He adds, "People have actually thanked me for arranging a squash game for them."

The Millmans have aspirations to get a junior program — including one for underprivileged children similar to one Richard helped in the Bronx (citysquash.org) — in the Charleston area. Right now, they are working with children of members, such as 14-year-old Reynolds Ball.

Reynolds, who is being home-schooled currently but had attended Porter-Gaud, started playing 10 months ago, has played in several tournaments and is ranked 174th in his age group in the country.

"Socially, it (squash) is a lot of fun. You have to strategize to move the other player around the court. ... I just got hooked on it," says Reynolds, who now plays an average of 10-12 hours of squash a week.

Pat Millman notes that she tells members: "If you want to beat Reynolds, you better do it now." She predicts that in two years, he'll be one of the best squash players around, if not the best.

A family affair

Reynolds' enthusiasm is partly due to the fact that his father, allergist Dr. Bruce Ball, also has taken to the sport.

The elder Ball played it first as a child in Charleston on a court behind the Nathaniel Russell House and then a few times as a student at the University of Virginia. One of his motivations for joining the squash club was because the Harper Student Center won't allow people under age 18 in the facility, and he wanted to play with his children.

"We're all rookies in a major way, but we're having fun with it," says the 53-year-old Ball. "I have a lot of years to potentially learn the game and get better."

Some local squash players have mixed feelings about the opening of the squash club.

Squash player Donald Sparks, also 53, first started playing it while he was a graduate student at the London School of Economics. As a Citadel economics professor, he likes squash because it is an international game. He's played it in England, South Africa, Egypt, Holland and Austria.

Sparks says that while it's easier to get a court at the Harper Student Center, he's having a harder time finding people to play.

Before this story was finished, Millman had e-mailed Sparks a list of players in the area.

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Squash 101

Here are a few rules of the game:

-- A match is the best of five games. Each game is to nine points.

-- Points are scored only by server.

-- For a service to be good, it is served directly onto front wall above the service line and below the out line so that on its return, unless volleyed, it reaches the floor within the back quarter of court opposite to the server's box.

For a complete list of rules, visit worldsquash.org

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Validation on hold

Squash suffered a blow in 2005 when the International Olympic Committee failed to add the sport to the 2012 Olympic Games in London, which happens to be the birthplace of the modern game.

Supporters hoped that their time had come. The IOC had voted softball and baseball off the 2012 program and had been considering squash along with karate and golf. In a close vote (63 of the 70 votes needed), squash was not added as a replacement.

Many people, including Charleston Squash Club co-founder Charles "Buddy" Darby, think that squash needs the international exposure to stir interest in the sport. Darby suspects that squash is so fast-moving that it may be difficult to capture for television broadcasts.

The Olympic committee's decision sent a wave of disappointment through the international squash community, especially in Britain, where some squash courts are being closed to make room for fitness clubs.

Reach David Quick at 937-5516 or dquick@postandcourier.com.