Switching To Softball

WHY did five of the John W. Berry Sports Center's seven squash courts need a $340,000 facelift a mere seven years after completion? Renovations were made necessary by a recent vote of NISRA—the National Intercollegiate Squash Rackets Association—which requires that all college teams switch from hardball squash, which is found almost exclusively in North America, to softball a more rigorous game that requires wider courts. Moreover, squash will probably become an exhibition sport at the Olympics in the year 2000, and the United States wants to be competing on the same playing field.

"When we brought international guests over, they took one look at hardball and said, 'What's this?'" says men's and women's squash coach Chris Brownell '87. "And the junior competitions are all softball now, so that kids were getting to college and having to learn a whole new game."

They don't call itsquash for nothing.Soft, yielding newball on the left; hardold ball on the right.