Ball’s In—Remembering Hurley, Welsh and Stewart

Three recent deaths just after Christmas, all within hours of each other, have highlighted the backbone of squash: ordinary guys who just love the game, who play with passion and humor, who help at the local level. Two might have not been the most well-known guys in the nation, but they had a huge impact in their clubs and cities. And the third was at the heart of the game internationally in the 1970s and 1980s.

Drew Hurley died on 26 December 2010 of a heart attack. He was forty-nine. He played at the University Club of Boston. He was an avid left-wall doubles player. He steamed before he played, ran sprints to warm up, pointed to spots on the front wall like Babe Ruth calling a home run and to start every game, as his friend Brian McGrory said at his funeral, “he’d hold the ball high in the air between his thumb and index finger and declare, ‘Ball’s in’ as if he was letting the thousands of people know who were following us on TV.”

He had a nickname for everyone. He played all the time. He was a board member for the Massachusetts Squash Association. He won the 1992 and 1998 U Club’s C/D singles; with Doug Lifford, he won the club’s 2002, 2003 and 2009 A/B doubles.

“The wind has been taken out of Boston’s squash sails,” said Ed Serues in an email to me after Hurley’s passing.

(See:http://www.boston.com/yourtown/newton/articles/2011/01/06/drew_hurley_was_popular_personable_salesman_at_49/)

 

In Philadelphia, people were likewise shocked by the death of Dick Welsh. Just one day after Hurley, Welsh died of colon cancer at the age of sixty-nine. Like Hurley, Welsh was a legendary figure at the Racquet Club of Philadelphia.

He was full of what came to be called “Welshism,” classic lines he’s utter at any and all times. When departing company, he would, like a true Marine, say, “post and orders remain the same.” After a tough match, he’d head to get a beer with the line, “How about a little sugar for your horse.”

(see: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/philly/obituary.aspx?n=richard-t-welsh&pid=147487837&fhid=4609

 

 

We also lost a third person at the same time. On 26 December, just eight days after his eighty-sixth birthday, Ian Stewart died in Toronto. He was a former president of Squash Canada and of the Badminton & Racquet Club in Toronto. He also was a vice-chair of the World Squash Federation and thus far and away the most influential Canadian in the history of international squash administration. An early proponent of softball, he helped bring the U.S. and Canada into the international fold.

http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/Deaths.20110108.93253119/BDAStory…

 

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