If you happened to stop by the squash courts last weekend, you might have seen a surprisingly big crowd and world-class squash down there. The professional tournament was a success in terms of both squash and showing the players a good time at UR.

As our team is very international, a lot of the visiting pros were friends of ours back from the junior days. This could explain the fact that although they were provided with families to stay with, most of them spent their nights here on campus in the dorms. We tried to offer them a full college experience within a weekend and from what I’ve heard, I think we did pretty well.

A lot of the pros are 18-21 year-olds and have been touring on the circuit for a couple of years now. Many of them witnessed the level of academics and squash here at UR, and we as a team hope that some of them will become interested in the school and the possibility of applying here. While the tour offers a great opportunity to see the world and compete at the highest level, college squash is slowly rising to be an alternative route for smart and young squash players.

While many of these pros didn’t choose the academic path initially, it’s never too late for it. And you don’t really have to do everything in a certain order — many of us on the team chose to come to school first and are now planning on playing the pro tour after college.