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Who would guess that playing squash, racing up and down the length of a narrow rectangular court, bouncing a small squash ball off the walls with high-powered swings of a racket, is helping inner-city school students improve their grades and put them on the road to college?
Yet, by combining the sport of squash with tutoring and community involvement, StreetSquash, based in Harlem, New York City, is doing just that. Thanks to StreetSquash, two teens are finding that future here in Lancaster. Melissa Sandoval and Elizabeth Gatling attend Franklin & Marshall College and agree that StreetSquash was instrumental in getting them there.
When Sandoval, 19, was in seventh grade, representatives from StreetSquash came to her class and gave a presentation.
"I signed up, and I fell in love with StreetSquash. It is a family. Everyone is very welcoming. And I think academic enrichment, combined with squash itself, is just such a great opportunity," she said.
"StreetSquash is the organization that involves playing squash and academics together," said Gatling, 18, another StreetSquash alumni. "It has nothing to do with the vegetable, which is what a lot of people think. What it basically does as a goal is to help kids in Harlem with academics and also athletics together."
Founded in 1999, StreetSquash works with middle and high school students ages 9 to 18.
"The program's goals are: to improve academic performance; to develop an ethic of hard work and commitment; to boost self-confidence; to increase school attendance," according to the StreetSquash website.
The program accomplishes this with a combination of sport, study and community service. Attendance of all events is expected to be 90 percent. Students participating in the program attend twice a week after school and on Saturdays. During the week, half of their time is spent studying and the rest of the time playing squash.
"We have two sessions. We have the academic session first and then we have the squash session. So there's a pretty good balance there," Sandoval said. Saturdays are reserved solely for playing squash, traveling, educational field trips and community service projects.
"The program all together is like a whole new, different family away from home. Because, like I said, you're there almost every day," said Gatling.
Sandoval explained that having a positive environment is beneficial for many students and gives them a place to concentrate on their studies, away from troubles they might otherwise face in their neighborhoods.
"It gives you an outlet for your creativity and your energy. A lot of times, from the neighborhoods that we're from, being home is kind of stressful and just having a certain amount of time every day where you can have another outlet, it is very conducive to your academics and things like that," she said.
The sport of squash serves as the initial hook to interest teens in the program, and later to encourage them to study.
"Academics is first but a lot of the kids who are part of the program, they always want to get on the court so it drives them to do good in school in order to get on the court," explained Gatling, who described herself as an "average student" when she first joined the program. She said that as she became better at squash she wanted to play more, and that drove her to do even better in school.
"Because you couldn't play squash unless your academics are good," she said. "There's a correlation between the two."
Sandoval describes squash as "intense." Similar to racquetball, squash matches are played between two players who use rackets to hit a small, black squash ball, in a narrow court enclosed by four walls.
"You can hit (the ball) off of all four walls. It's like constant motion all the time, darting from the front of the court to the back of the court," Sandoval explained. "It's very psychological as well as athletic," she said, explaining that a large part of a squash match is spent trying to "psych your opponent out."
The StreetSquash team travels regularly to play against other urban squash teams in cities such as Boston and Philadelphia, as well as Universities such as Yale and Princeton. They have visited Lancaster in the past and played against the Lancaster Country Day squash team.
Traveling is not limited to competition, StreetSquash also organizes educational field trips and college visits for students.
"The first time I actually started visiting colleges was with StreetSquash," Sandoval said. In the end, she ended up visiting more than 30 different college campuses thanks to the program.
In the StreetSquash program, college preparation is a major focus for high school students. They receive support studying for the SAT or ACT tests, and are tutored in essay writing by professional writers. Gatling remembers that when it came time to apply to colleges, students in StreetSquash were well prepared. Ties to the program and the opportunities it offers don't end once a student graduates.
"Even now I send over applications to have somebody at the office look over, and they get back to us right away. They're always communicating with us. It's pretty cool because we're always connected to them," said Sandoval.
Both teens agree that StreetSquash has been instrumental in helping them get to where they are today.
"I have to say. Without StreetSquash I don't know where I would be. I don't know if I would have found this school, I wouldn't have been into squash," Gatling said.
"Actually going out, taking risks, getting the exposure, and building really promising careers and having great jobs, great experiences, that's what StreetSquash has done," said Sandoval.
In New York StreetSquash is expanding. In 2008 they completed construction of the $9 million Stephen L. Green StreetSquash Community Center which will allow them to extend their programs to more students.
"You have to want greater things to be in the program," Gatling said. "You don't have to be really great at squash, you don't have be a professional, or you don't have to be the smartest kid in the program but as long as you stay with it it's gonna help you."
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