Squash teams relies on foreign talent

The men’s squash team at Trinity College resembles a model UN with players from a dozen countries: Colombia, Jamaica, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Malaysia, Sweden. The coach started in 1995 and there were no international players, but today half of the players are from other countries. Today they’re practicing for a match with their rival. The team’s #1 player is a lanky sophomore from Pakistan. Pakistan has produced perhaps the two greatest players of all time. The game has unlikely origins, from British prisons. It spread to countries where British forces were stationed and today is a truly international game. The Pakistani player says it’s very competitive and people push themselves harder than Americans do. Close to a thousand fans come to the match with Princeton, the #2 team. As much as these fans adore the athletes, the coach has received criticism for recruiting so many international players, that American children are being denied the opportunity to play. The coach says we need to raise the expectations for US athletics. Squash has been played in America since the early 1990s, and now foreign students make up 10% of all squash players at American colleges and universities. Access to squash is greater internationally says the coach.