This program is open to any boy or girl sixteen and under who can hit the ball.It is sponsored and supported by the United States Squash Racquets Association and UNC.It is subsidized by generous gifts from Prince Racquets and The Crane Fund.

                     (4)  The National Ranking Program

                     (5)  The Trip North

                     (6)  Sanctioned Tournaments

    (1)  The Clinics for Novice Children are coached by Tom Generous.  They run for four weeks, usually  in October and again in April. The kids come for one hour on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, then for one hour on Sunday afternoon. On Tuesday and Thursday, they are taught something and then drill at it.  On Sunday, they play.  The emphasis is on fundamentals, and at the end of the month, all can play the game.

   (2) The Camps are coached by Ed Durand. 

        (a) One camp, for Novice-level players, is run for one week in mid-July.The kids arrive about 8:30AM, and are ready for pickup about 4PM every day, Monday through Friday.  There are breaks for juice, lunch and fruit, one hour of swimming, and there are tours of the campus at noontime.  The kids are taught the game so thoroughly that by week's end, they can play very well.

        (b) A second camp, for Intermediate-level players, is run for one week in late July.The training is much more intense and focused on what better players need, and some physical conditioning is required.The daily schedule is about the same as for the novices.
 

   (3) The Winter League is managed by Tom Generous.  Following the October Clinic, kids who want to continue to play regularly , have to sign up.  They must then come to the courts every Thursday afternoon for about 75 minutes, when they get a brief instruction, and then play a couple of matches.  Each player must also arrange one other match very week with another specified kid.  We sometimes divide the kids into divisions of similar ability.

   (4) National Ranking Program is managed by Ed Durand.  Beginning in September each year, those kids who want to work especially hard and try to earn a national ranking assigned by the United States Racquets Association (USSRA), sign up for a program that has yielded good results in past seasons.  These players commit themselves to coming to practice every Sunday afternoon, playing twice every week and going to at least four sanctioned tournaments.  The schedule of those tournaments can be found at <www.us-squash.org>, and then following the prompts.

   (5) The Sanctioned Tournaments, sponsored by the USSRA take place almost every weekend around the country.   One sanctioned tournament is here in Chapel Hill in mid-March, but a player who wants to qualify for a ranking must be a current member of the USSRA, must play in at least three other tournaments, and must pass a test to become a certified "club-level" referee.  None of these things are hard to do.   Over the past three seasons, seven different Tar Heel Juniors have won national rankings, some of them more than one, by playing well in such tournaments.
 

   (6) The Trip North.  This feature will not necessarily be a part of every year's program, but in January 2002, 2003, and 2004, the coach and an assistant have taken six or seven players to play on consecutive weekends in two tournaments up north.  The kids were away from home for 11-13 days, but missed only 6-7 days of school.  They accomplished more than twenty hours of schoolwork while on the trip, working in libraries at some of the nation's best boarding schools and elsewhere, and in most cases were actually ahead of their classmates when they got home.  In addition, they visited historic sites in New England, Philadelphia and Washington that most had never seen before.  In squash, in addition to the two tournaments, they played as a team against prep-school teams, sometimes playing more than one opponent in a single day.  By the end of the Trip, they were all quite accomplished players.

    In addition to the above official parts of the program, some parents have begun to bring their kids to the courts one or two nights a week.  Ask around and you'll find out how that works.
 
 
 

    To get involved, email is best: Tom Generous for novice players, and Ed Durand for more experienced players.