Vassar Quarterly - Spring/Summer 2017 - 38

Beyond Vassar

Can Squash
Be a Gateway
to College?

WHEN ISSEY MOORE was in the sixth grade,
one of his teachers asked him whether he
was interested in joining a squash program.
"I didn't know how to answer her because
I didn't know what squash was; I'd never
heard if it," says Moore, now a 10th grader
at Thurgood Marshall Academy in Harlem.
Katie Siegel '06, Director of Operations
at StreetSquash of Harlem and Newark, says
Moore's story is pretty typical. "Wherever
we go to recruit new students, we get those
blank stares," Siegel says. "But once we get
kids engaged, there's plenty of enthusiasm."
Moore can attest to that. Three days a
week during the school year and more
often in the summer, he joins dozens of other
middle school and high school students at
the S.L. Green StreetSquash Center on 115th
Street in Harlem. He says he's learned a lot
about the game over the past four years, but
playing competitive squash is only part of
the reason he's there. He sees StreetSquash
as a good route to college.
All students enrolled at StreetSquash
spend as much time on academics as they
do on the court. High school students
participate in workshops on how to search
for the best college, how to study for the
SAT and ACT tests, and how to apply for
financial aid. And they participate in group
discussions with social workers and other
professionals on such topics as money
management, nutrition, current events,
sex education, and healthy relationships.
Siegel says the goal at StreetSquash is
to meet whatever needs their young clients
have, "and if we see a gap, we try to fill it."
Fifteen-year-old Zeinab Bukayoko, who
also lives in Harlem, says she hadn't heard
of squash either, but when she was recruited
in seventh grade, she quickly "fell in love"

38

SPRING/SuMMER 2017

with the game. She values the lessons she's
learning off the court as much or more than
the fun she is having playing the game. "We
get real help with academics-not just the
work itself but study methods and time management," Bukayoko says. "The staff lets you
know that education is your future. That
comes first and squash is second."
StreetSquash is part of a nationwide
movement that began nearly 20 years ago
in Boston. It's been duplicated in more than
20 cities since then, and over the past few
years, Vassar alums have been playing key
roles in urban squash programs across the
country.
Siegel, who played on the Vassar squash
team from 2003 to 2006, coached at StreetSquash in 2010 and 2011 before taking over
another program in Minnesota's Twin Cities.
She returned to StreetSquash in 2015. Meg
Taylor '12 runs the program in Hartford, CT,
and Hope Blinkoff '10 is deputy director of
a budding program in Baltimore. Kate Frost
'11 took over as program director of Seattle
Urban Squash last year, and Emilie Kraft '10
and her husband, Anshuman Beri '08, are
volunteers at MetroSquash in Chicago. Last
fall Jane Parker, who had served as head
squash coach at Vassar for 16 years, joined
SquashSmarts in Philadelphia, where she
oversees programs for high school-aged
youngsters.
Tim Wyant is Executive Director of the
National Urban Squash and Education
Association, the umbrella organization for
23 programs across the country that enroll
more than 2,000 young people. He says,
"Vassar really stands out as one of the
colleges whose alums have been the most
committed to this movement at both the
staff and volunteer level. We bake academics

"We get real help with
academics-not just the
work itself but study
methods and time management. The staff lets you
know that education is your
future. That comes first
and squash is second."
-Zeinab Bukayoko, a 15-year-old
student enrolled in StreetSquash



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vassar Quarterly - Spring/Summer 2017

Contents
Vassar Quarterly - Spring/Summer 2017 - Cover1
Vassar Quarterly - Spring/Summer 2017 - Cover2
Vassar Quarterly - Spring/Summer 2017 - Contents
Vassar Quarterly - Spring/Summer 2017 - 2
Vassar Quarterly - Spring/Summer 2017 - 3
Vassar Quarterly - Spring/Summer 2017 - 4
Vassar Quarterly - Spring/Summer 2017 - 5
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Vassar Quarterly - Spring/Summer 2017 - Cover3
Vassar Quarterly - Spring/Summer 2017 - Cover4
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