By Kevin Klipstein
Before we look ahead to the upcoming season and make major announcements, we have some remarkable achievements to celebrate for the 2009-2010 season. The first to mention, and perhaps the most significant, is Amanda Sobhy’s recent World Championship. With the support of her mother, coaching from her father and Junior Women’s Coach Jack Wyant, and the backing of U.S. SQUASH, she managed to accomplish her dream of winning the 2010 Junior World Squash Championships this June in Germany. Congratulations Amanda!
Amanda is among a growing group of elite athletes setting a new tone for our National Team programs, now led by U.S. SQUASH National Coach Paul Assaiante. The US now has six players in the top 50 professionally, a full year ahead of our goal. Our junior development program has set a great foundation for continued excellence and participation at the junior level increased 19% this season. Fostering closer relations among top junior, collegiate and professional players, as well as encouraging regional collaboration will be central themes to our elite player development moving forward. Helping us achieve this will be our strengthened partnership with the College Squash Association (CSA).
At our core, we are a membership organization, and are therefore extremely proud of the 19% increase in membership this season. Our membership is at an all-time high of just under 14,000 active members. Contributing to this growth was our ability to cut our lapse rate in half this year to 14%, one of the lowest among our peer National Governing Bodies, and there are now 4,600 members registered to be automatically renewed each year. Other factors are our continued partnerships with the CSA and the National Urban Squash and Educational Association (NUSEA), as well as growth in middle school and high school squash. In the 2009-2010 season alone, the number of middle school and high school teams in sanctioned leagues grew by 50%.
This season we introduced several new membership benefits including an online “Find a Match” feature which links players with members who meet the criteria they specify, as well as the Life Time Fitness “Be Our Guest” Program which allows current U.S. SQUASH members a free “guest pass” to Life Time Fitness Clubs when traveling outside of their home region. The newly introduced PLAY SQUASH program offers players an engaging way to enjoy squash regardless of their skill level through in-club challenge ladders and box leagues, along with club championships and club rankings.
From a communications standpoint, we are devoting more attention to our online presence offering new networking tools to communicate with squash lovers throughout the world via social media accounts and increased use of blogging. This new content helped attract 684,000 visits by more than 164,000 unique visitors, for a total of nearly 8 million page views on ussquash.com during the season.
We re-launched the U.S. Open in style, hosting it in front of sellout crowds at the stunning outdoor Pioneer Plaza venue on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, and attracting record live online viewership. Players participated in our National Championships in record numbers, with 5,161 competing in 20 U.S. Championships, a 22% increase over last season. We have also experienced a 20% increase in play at the local level, particularly in areas that participate in the PLAY SQUASH program offering in-club box league and ladder competition.
Financially, the organization reduced its operating deficit by more than $200,000 this year. For the most part, contributions to our Annual Fund and Junior Development Campaign fill the current estimated $350,000 operating deficit. One of our main goals in the next year or two is to break even operationally, allowing all contributions to be directed to new programs and services.
Looking ahead, we expect the 2010-2011 season to bring even more success and plan to make major announcements focused on continuing to improve our programs and services, including adjustments to our rankings, additions to the adult league structure and updates to our regional championships. There has never been a more exciting time to be a member of U.S. SQUASH.
