HSRA Interview with Dave Matthes

Dave Matthes is widely regarded as the “father of Houston squash”. Dave entered the Houston squash scene in 1972 when he moved here from NYC.  He played here pretty regularly for the next 27 years – a Houston squash scene presence exceeded only by that grand old man of squash, Bill Millman.  During that time Dave was President, Secretary, Treasurer, VP of Membership and Editor of the HSRA NEWSLETTER.....holding all positions simultaneously for a few years!  We thought it would be interesting to pick Dave's brain for his squash memories.

HSRA: How did you happen to start playing squash?

Dave:  I heard it was an elitist sport and being an elitist, it was an obvious choice.  No, seriously, in order to avoid the draft, I signed up to go into Navy OCS and I'd heard an offhand comment from somebody at one time that US Naval Academy midshipmen were required to play squash as part of their PE program.  The way life-changing decisions get made is amazing!

HSRA:  Where and when did you start playing?

Dave:  I was living in Detroit in 1964, working for Ford.  Not knowing anybody or having anything in particular to do, I figured learning to play squash might serve me well in the Navy.  I joined the Downtown Detroit YMCA and bought a racket and a ball – few will recall that the squash ball (hardball) used in North American squash at that time was about the size of a golf ball and about as hard (talk about hickeys); the rackets were very sturdy, heavy wood jobs with little round heads.  An old guy at the Y saw me flailing around on the court the 1st day and offered to show me what the hell I was supposed to be doing – technique and rules-wise.  Joe Finn was his name; he was in his 50's and owned a chain of gas stations, but mostly spent his time around the Y playing squash.  For the next 8 months, until I had to leave to go into the Navy, I played almost every day (the Y was closed Sundays…..…apparently something to do with the C in YMCA!).  In addition I played for the Y in the City league.  One of the teams we played was the Detroit Athletic Club where Hashim Khan was the pro; it was during Hashim's years at the DAC that he wrote his famous (“keep eye on ball”) book which you all should read if you haven't already.  One of the teams we played had for a home court a private court in one of the players back yard; it wasn't heated except for a radiator in the back gallery area which did absolutely nothing for the court temperature; it was brutal in the winter; you'd have to put balls on the radiator in back and every game you took a hot one to play that game with.

HSRA:  So, did you get to play in the Navy?

Dave:  I sure did; my ulterior motive for learning to play squash paid off!  First, at OCS in Newport, RI, we got Sat. afternoons and Sundays off, so I'd go over to the courts by the Naval War College, which was on the Naval Base and all the players were high ranking officers; never did me any good professionally but they were all good sports and it was fun for a non-entity to whip up on a rear admiral (maybe that's why these squash encounters never enhanced my career).

After 6 months in Navy Supply School in Athens, GA (80% of my class was from the Academy - Roger Staubach was in the class behind me), where there were no courts, I reported to my ship home ported in Long Beach, CA.  The Naval Base there had 6 really nice courts.  And two of the other officers on my ship had gone to the Academy and played squash.

For the next 3 years, the 3 of us played round robin matches in Long Beach, Subic Bay Naval Base (Philippines), Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.  It was in Hong Kong that I first played with the soft ball – the only ball we could buy.  At Subic, the round robin loser would have to buy a bottle of champagne which we would immediately go to the Officers Club to consume; the one bottle was rarely the end of the night's drinking; when martinis were ten cents (beer – San Miguel – twenty five cents) and a great free buffet, it just made economic sense to “max out”.  Besides you might wind up dead the next week, so what the hell.

HSRA:  What did you do for squash after the Navy?

Dave:  I went to work for Arthur Andersen (R.I.P.) in NYC and played at 3 venues:

•   A fraternity brother from RPI was a resident at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital which had 6 nice and rarely used courts, so I played with him once a week;
•   I had access to the Columbia Club as I had gone to school there and as a fairly recent graduate dues were cheap; the courts were on the top floor of the building and tended to be the same as the outside temperature; they weren't used at all in the summer but in the winter it was tough to get a court, so I didn't play there too often;
•   Finally, I “got religion”; I joined St. Bartholomew's Church, which is on Park Ave. on the block north of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel; they had 2 squash courts in their basement next to the boiler room.  I played about twice/week and played in a City league for St. Barts.

HSRA:  Didn't you move to Houston from NYC?

Dave:  Yes.  Exxon moved me down here in 1972 but I was in a semi-transient status with my family and didn't get into squash.  However, after 6 months here, we moved to Singapore for a 1+ year assignment.  After about a week in Singapore, I joined the Tanglin Club which had 4 courts; the courts had roofs but the back and sides above the out lines were open to the air; Singapore weather is about the same as Houston in the summer, but it's like that year round; I remember coming off the courts and going into the (non air conditioned locker room) and pouring a couple of ounces sweat out of my sneakers.  The courts had one overhead fan; about the only place you could feel any effect of the fan was on the T (another good reason to always return to the T), so between games, the players would stand on the T; there was a counter weighted pull down ladder that you used to get into and out of the courts – but to save strength, you tended to just stay in the court on the T.

While in Singapore, I played, literally, every day but for a 3-4 day period during which I had the flu.  I played in the very active league, however, I didn't play for the Tanglin Club – they had very strong teams; the Club had the top players in the country as members.  So, I played for the Chinese YMCA; it was lots of fun as after each match, the team would go out to a local Chinese restaurant.  Leagues were very big in Singapore; results were published in the Straits Times (the local newspaper) and teams all stayed around and watched/refereed the other team matches and went out for dinner/drinks afterward.

I played in the annual Singapore Open the year I was there, which was held at the Tanglin Club.  Top amateurs from Pakistan and Australia came in for the tournaments as well as teams from England representing the Royal Army, Royal Navy and the RAF.  My first match was against the #3 on the RAF team; I won the 1st 3 points (the English visitors were completely thrown off by the speed of the ball on the hot courts); my opponent won the next 27 points! 

HSRA:  How did you pick up squash again when you returned to Houston?

Dave:  Upon my return in 1974, I was having withdrawal symptoms from not playing for a couple of weeks.  I found a fairly active squash group at the Downtown YMCA; there were 2 courts which had tins hinged in the middle so you could take them on and off the court (the courts were also used for handball when the regulation handball courts were fully occupied – this was before the invention of racquetball!)

The players were mostly ex-pats (England & Australia) so we played with the softball, which was fine by me since I'd been using it exclusively for the past year.  One of the players – Will Hodgkins – was the commercial attaché at the British Consulate and threw some terrific parties to which he always invited the squash players.  One of my frequent competitors was Mike Westmacott, on a temporary assignment with Shell; he had been with Sir Edmund Hillary on the first successful climb of Mt. Everest and had some really interesting stories if you could get him to talk about it.  Mike lived just outside the loop and biked to work at One Shell – one tough old dude!

The Met opened in, I believe, 1975; I moved my membership over there in 1976 as I was getting tired of dragging the tin in and out of the court and playing on non-regulation sized courts.  Again, many of the players were ex-pats.  All the courts were the N. American size and there had just appeared a ball called the 70+ which was somewhere between the old hardball and the international softball.  Everybody played the 70+ ball except in the summers when many switched to the softball.  [Which is kind of ludicrous when you think about it since the courts were air conditioned and approximately the same temperature all year round.  It reminds me of people who order margaritas with salt and them drink them through a straw....but don't get me started down that road.]

Anyway, I played a couple of times a week and usually in tournaments – with little success, until I started playing in age groups where I was a perennial 2nd to Mike McCord who was a year younger than me and beat me in more age group finals than I can count.

There were some memorable characters on the Houston squash scene in the late 70s/early 80s (in no particular order):

•   Bill Millman who was the 1st president and a founding organizer of the HSRA; Bill, who's still playing well into his 70s, was a world class racket smasher; this has abated somewhat in recent years – not due to a change in temperament but due to a change in racket construction materials; Bill has had some success in his age group in the nationals
•   Charlie Perkins was another founding organizer and subsequent president of the HSRA; Charlie worked with the USSRA to bring the 1st softball nationals to Houston in 1985 [Houston went pretty much exclusively to the year round softball in 1985]; Charlie built wooden back walls for the Y courts so that they would at least be the correct length; not only did the wooden back walls have an energy absorbing effect but they had no doors to get in and out (ladders were used); it was feared that an “age group” player might not be able to get out after a tough match; Charlie was known for his conversations between points – he took more time between points than most people take between games; to Charlie, continuous play was measured in geologic time; it was actually a ploy to endure – his knees made the Yugo automobile look like a work of engineering genius;
•   Jack Roberts – the most despised and disagreeable man in the history of Houston squash; Jack was a professor of mathematics at Rice and a decent player; but he would argue about anything at the drop of a shot....and continue to bitch long after the match was over; Jack died prematurely (I use the term actuarily, in his early 50s) and for the next year some players feared it was only a rumor;
•   Hussein Meguid showed up around 1980 having been a junior national champion in his native Egypt; Hussein was a terrific organizer/promoter in addition to being superb player; he injected new life into the HSRA, arranged for a couple of US Opens to be played in Houston and was the driving force for getting lots of players involved in leagues and tournaments; he (in addition to a day job) acted as squash pro at the Met and later the Texas Club; Hussein was president of the HSRA for a few years including the year one of the 4 nationals was played in Houston; he also won some national titles;
•   Mike McCord was president for a few years in the late 70s and was responsible, along with Hussein, for bringing a couple of US Opens and the nationals to Houston; Mike was a fairly decent player in his own right....very intense; some would say too intense; Mike tended to forget the score and rules in close matches; the book on “no-clear McCord” was “get a referee for your match”;  all the more amazing as Mike was a perfect gentleman off the court; Mike never traveled much to out of town tournaments – I suspect there was non-appearance  money behind the scenes!
•   Peter Morse was an elite soccer player and generally superb athlete; he was a primary tournament/league organizer at the Met; he and Hussein had some fierce matches, one of which deteriorated into a screaming, name calling affair such that the referee defaulted both of them and suspended them from HSRA tournaments for a period of time; Peter won some national titles; unfortunately for Houston squash, Texaco sent him to Venezuela and then Nigeria; hopefully, he'll return some day
•   (Dr.) Denny Bourke was a nationally ranked player who was a true eccentric; he'd wear long, white flannel pants and a cable knit tennis sweater on the court; he primarily played Peter Morse; after matches, Denny would go to the locker room and have a couple of shots and a few cigarettes!  Denny had spent some time with the Navy in Antarctica (pre Houston) and I think some of his brain cells never thawed out; but he was talented and had a good sense of humor;
•   Ken Rothstein was president of the HSRA between Mike and Hussein; being a weight lifter, Ken had an unusual swing – he had to turn his whole body to move his arm – it worked!  I always liked playing Kenny as I had his number – he could beat people who could whip me, but I don't know if I ever lost to Ken; the nadir of his squash career was at a tournament in Austin; after a big breakfast at Katz's deli, he played me in a match and didn't score any points; his psychiatrist refers to it as the “bagel incident”
•   Rishad Alikhan took over as HSRA president in 2000 after as short stint by Lee Spencer (who took over from me for a year); Rishad was not a very good squash player when he first came to Houston – he mostly played tennis and table tennis at the Met; he started to play squash again (after a long layoff) in 1990 and improved incredibly quickly (his brother Diniar was ranked #1 in the US one year) and the rest is history; Rishad has been an extremely active president, getting several men's and women's pro events to Houston, getting the Met Club to put in five (5) glass backed international softball courts and becoming a certified national level referee; his only failure has been to find a suitable successor.…...a hard act to follow!

HSRA:  How did you find a successor as president?

Dave:  Well, the HSRA was a bit of a mess when I took it over, e.g., the Treasurer was someone Hussein had sweet talked into the job who didn't even play squash, belong to a club or know anyone else who played squash; months of membership dues checks were sitting around his apt. - a few here, a few there; membership was at an all time low.  I couldn't stand the mess, so I spent the next year performing all the functions and gradually turned over various jobs to Rishad (Membership), Lee (League) and Phelps McKee (Treasurer) (“you don't want members to wind up with knees like Phelps” was the line Rishad used to convince the Met to install suspended floors on the new courts instead of just laying them on cement); anyway, the infrastructure was well organized and I managed to convince Lee Spencer that the president's job didn't really require that much time unless you wanted it to (which was true whatever Lee says now!)

HSRA:  How come you don't play squash any more?

Dave:  For most of the 70s, 80s and 90s I played 4 or 5 days/week and by the early 90's had worn off most of the articular cartilage in my left knee.  Arthroscopic surgery cleaned out a lot of the crap floating around in there and gave me a couple more good years, but finally it was beyond repair and had to be replaced with a titanium knee which is great for walking around but cannot take the pounding squash would give it.  [It could, but it wouldn't last long and you don't want to go through the knee replacement ordeal more often than you have to.]

It was tough having to stop playing but I have no regrets.  Squash has been a big part of my life and an important source of friends and fun.  The competitive aspect has been a great source of personal satisfaction. 

Dave recently retired after spending the last few years working as a consultant. He now spends half the year in Prince Edward Island in Canada, and returns to Houston in the fall, where his older son (and active squash player) Mark lives and works as in house counsel for a large insurance company. Younger son Andrew is a school teacher in Austin. Dave is also an excellent golfer. He has hundreds of interesting little anecdotes that he’ll share with you on the golf course, or any other social setting, and in all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never heard him repeat a story. With a sense of humor that is unmatched, Dave is one of the best things to have happened to Houston squash and has left very large shoes to fill. Dave is currently engaged to Diane Dorris – we wish them both the very best.