A few weeks ago I was down in Richmond for the Price-Bullington Invitational’s golden anniversary.
The PBI is one of the great under-sung squash institutions in the U.S. Founded in 1970 by Salty Hawkins and originally named the A. Holt Bullington Invitational, the event’s name also includes Ted Price who has presided for a half century. I wrote about the PBI last year, when it celebrated its fiftieth:
But the grand party was cancelled in 2020 and, due to the pandemic, the tournament in 2021 was necessarily subdued, so this year the celebration finally occurred. A fantastic contingent from around the world came to town. On the Friday night there was a special dinner hosted on two long tables out in a gorgeous garden. There was an all-star roster in attendance: current and former college coaches including Mark Allen, Wendy Bartlett, Wendy Lawrence, Steve Pitch and Gail Ramsay and multiple winners of the PBI like John Nimick, Reeham Sedky and the Ezra brothers, Adrian and Daniel.
It is hard to overstate what a bombshell the Ezras were in the 1990s. The boys from Bombay flashed across the American scene, crushing everyone in both hardball and softball. Adrian won three national intercollegiate individual titles (losing in the finals in the fourth) and Daniel took one title, losing three other times in the finals. They presided over a tremendous team run— with them at the top, Harvard captured every men’ s national title from 1991 through 1997 except when Princeton upset them in 1993.
At the PBI, Adrian won in 1991, 1992 and 1993 (and lost in the 1994 finals) while Daniel won in 1995 and 1996. Now living in New York and London, the brothers are playing more padel than squash but it was great to see them again after a quarter of a century.