SQUASH : Orange County Finds One Variety to Satisfy Appetite

You’ve heard of squash, the only sport on the planet named after a family of vegetables--the sport they play on a racquetball-like court with a badminton-like racquet. You may even know that squash hails from the hallowed halls of Ivy League schools such as Harvard and Yale.

Beyond that, any way you slice it, getting a handle on squash is enough to drive you out of your gourd.

For starters, squash--like the vegetable variety--comes in more than one flavor: Naturally it’s the faster-paced “hardball squash” that has shot its roots deep into Ivy League tradition. The far more popular “softball squash” is the kind that’s just starting to blossom here. The softball itself is more like a small racquetball than a golf ball, which means the game can be played at a pace more suitable to laid-back Southern Californians.

Softball squash shares much with racquetball--playing environment, rules, skill requirements and scoring system are all about the same. The heart and soul of the sport, however, defy description. That’s because squash players embrace a weird blend of unrelenting optimism, secret-society terminology, upper-crust gentility and Down Under humor.

Squash dudes and dudettes routinely describe a bad shot--one that is made after the ball has bounced twice--as “not up” instead of “down.” The best shot in the game, one that is better even than a “Double Boast” or a “Philadelphia,” is called a “Nick Boast” whatever that means. And, because genteel squash-heads take offense at the racquetball term “kill shot,” they insist on describing an irretrievable shot as “hitting to length.” Finally, instead of muttering “loser’s serve” at the end of a game, they blithely exclaim “mugs out!” in the ear of a vanquished opponent.

“Mugs out” represents a whole host of Australian influences on the game. Australian transplant Grantley Pinnington of Huntington Beach says that squash is every bit as big as tennis in Australia. “Everyone plays,” says Pinnington. “I learned how to play from an older brother at age 7 and I’ve been playing ever since.”

As the No. 40 ranked player on the World Professional Squash Assn., Pinnington is, far and away, the best squash player in Orange County. He recently proved it by dominating the first-ever Orange County Squash Tournament, held at the Sports Club/Irvine in early April.

After skunking 19-year-old Brazilian transplant Amauri Foates in all three games of the tournament’s open class finals, Pinnington said to an awed gallery: “It was a tough match, and I’m sure he’ll do much better next time.” Foates could only reply: “Uhh--right--thanks for the lesson, Grantley.”

Paul Moses, president of the Orange County Squash Racquets Assn., says that lessons are a good idea for anyone interested in taking up squash. “The sport is harder to learn than racquetball,” says Moses, “but not as hard to learn as tennis.”

Moses and Darwin Kingsley, U.S. Squash Racquets Assn. executive director, agree that squash offers two key advantages over racquetball.

“First,” says Kingsley, “it’s much better aerobic exercise because rallies between equal players of any skill level typically last 30 or 40 hits instead of just a few like in racquetball.”

Squash players must hit the ball off the front wall at least 17 inches up the wall. There aren’t nearly as many “kill shots” or “roll outs” as there are in racquetball where players are permitted to hit the ball off the front wall as low as possible.

“The other thing about squash is that it’s more of a mental challenge than racquetball,” says Moses. “Since you can’t really kill the ball, you have to think in terms of placement and strategy with the idea of gradually maneuvering your opponent into a bad position.” It’s “kind of like chess,” adds Kingsley.

As recently as five years ago, there was only one squash court in Orange County--in the warehouse of Alexander-Roberts, an Irvine company that imports sailboat equipment from Australia. “I couldn’t always get on there,” recalls longtime squash player Stephen Larkin, 44, of Capistrano Beach. “For 10 years I drove three times a week to a squash club near the intersection of the Harbor Freeway and the San Diego Freeway in Los Angeles.”

A recent infusion of enthusiastic squash players from the East, coupled with the decline of racquetball over the past five years, has led to a big increase in Orange County squash.

“When I moved out here from Boston just a few years ago, I was afraid I’d have to take up tennis,” says OCSRA president Paul Moses. But Moses, who coached squash at Harvard for two years before moving here, found a hard-core group playing squash on three converted racquetball courts at University Athletic Club in Newport Beach. It was the first local health club to convert unused racquetball courts to squash courts in a surprisingly successful effort to attract new customers.

Sports Club/Irvine has four squash courts, Rossmore Athletic Club has two, and one facility--at the McGloughlin Development Building in Newport Beach--has Orange County’s first “convertible” squash/racquetball courts.

A court conversion cost between $5,000 and $10,000.

The bottom line, according to Moses, is that there are now “about 13 squash courts in Orange County with more on the way.”

Moses adds that the April tournament attracted more than 100 participants, both pro and amateur. “You need 50 members to qualify as a local chapter of the USSRA,” says Moses. “The tournament put us over the hump so now the OCSRA is official.”

“Nationally, squash has been growing at the rate of 2% or 3% a year ever since I can remember,” says the USSRA’s Kingsley. “But the Orange County group has just about tripled in the last year and a half.”

As for Grantley Pinnington, the local bloke from Down Under, he swaggered up to San Jose for a tournament this past weekend and politely kicked tail on his way to yet another championship. Like a proper squash champion, he eschewed gauche “kill shots” in favor of “hitting to length.”

For more information about Orange County squash, call Paul Moses at (714) 644-9009.