It’s 7:30 a.m. on Labor Day morning. A stream of New Havenites have pinned numbers to their chests to run, walk, or strut their way through the New Haven Road Race. Also in attendance are staff members, volunteers, parents, and kids involved in Squash Haven, a non-profit organization that partners with Yale to mentor kids through squash and academic enrichment.

Now in its fourth year, Squash Haven teaches kids from New Haven middle schools how to play squash, and also provides them with focused academic and personal guidance. For the most part, students enter as fifth graders with no experience playing squash, and finish the program as ninth graders—and often as quite skilled squash players as well. Graduates continue to receive support from the program both academically and personally.

Currently Squash Haven has a team of approximately 50 players. In January 2011, the U15 girls captured the National Urban Squash Education Association (NUSEA) tournament championship.

Julie Greenwood is the executive director and founder of Squash Haven. Direct, dynamic, and approachable, she strides around the fountain on the New Haven Green, weaving through runners while she talks and laughs with her Squash Haven family. She’s eager to run with her kids.

Greenwood started as a squash and tennis coach, serving for almost ten years at Williams College, where she also received her bachelor’s degree in history and psychology. At Williams, Greenwood also did administrative work and worked in admissions.

“I had always kind of known I wanted to be involved in education more broadly, and over time at Williams I became interested in a couple of different things,” she said. “I first became interested in working with a less privileged population. Second, I became interested in working sort of outside the exclusive realm of academics and in a more academically-minded workspace [and] doing work that was potentially still involved with athletics.”

Greenwood cited a “long-standing though under-realized” interest in urban
education issues—she wrote her thesis on the history of black inner-city sport in
America—as a catalyst to her decision to leave a comfortable position at Williams in order to run a non-profit start-up in New Haven.

“While I really loved coaching, I knew I didn’t want to coach forever, and there were aspects of more administrative work in conjunction with student development work that were interesting to me,” she explained. “For me, the opportunity to come here was really the perfect storm.”

But why squash?

Participants in Squash Haven are typically from less affluent backgrounds, and, if not for the program, would unlikely ever be exposed to a sport typically reserved for the wealthy elite. Squash is popular among many of the northeast’s top colleges, such as Vassar, Williams, Yale, and Harvard. By playing the sport, kids in the program are exposed, at least indirectly, to these kinds of universities.

Additionally, squash is an indoor sport. No green space is required, which is always tough to find in an urban setting.

Greenwood also believes that squash, because it has components of both individual and team sports, is a positive influence for kids. “One of the things I always loved was the joint aspect of really having a kid learn what it is to be self-reliant in a competitive context, but also having the support of being part of a team,” she said. “I think we have the best of both worlds, in terms of what developmental lessons kids learn from the sport of squash.”

Squash Haven’s success is a product of the time and commitment it demands from the kids and their parents. All families must be actively engaged in the program. There are practices three times a week from 3 to 6 p.m., which is split between homework help, often from Yale students, and academic and athletic mentorship from Squash Haven’s staff members.

Recently, the program has started to require parent interviews as part of the selection process for Squash Haven participants, creating an admission system that focuses on the attitude and commitment of the family as a whole.

Once they are accepted, the kids enter a rigorous program of athletic and intellectual development. Christi Elligers, the academic and community service director for Squash Haven, is known for her ability to motivate students who seem complacent about their schoolwork. “It’s a combination of trust and high expectations, so my expectations and Squash Haven’s expectations for the students are very high,” Elligers explained. “We want them to be on the same academic plane as kids coming out of very privileged schools. In order to do that, we sometimes have to push them a little bit harder. And until that level of trust is there between us and the kid, they’re not going to believe that education can be power.”

Squash Haven is atypical in its approach to urban education. The program focuses on kids in the New Haven area, so that time and resources can be utilized efficiently. Short-term goals and close guidance, coupled with the commitment of all parties involved (kids, parents, coaches, tutors), have so far led to the actualization of the long-term goals of the program. Team members have gone on to attend college prep schools and play competitive squash in high school.

Ultimately, the hope is that they will continue on to attend four-year universities.
Aaliyah Davidson, one of Squash Haven’s original members, has become
one of the program’s most talented participants. A member of the aforementioned U15 NUSEA tournament-winning team, Davidson also placed second in the individual competition portion of the tournament.

Along with her teammate and friend Alanis Perez, Davidson will be enrolling in a
college-preparatory boarding school in just a few weeks.

The girls are two of three Squash Haven pilot group members who will be attending boarding schools this fall. Squash Haven helped each student through the application process, providing transportation
to interviews as well as test preparation. The organization even arranged for a representative from Choate Rosemary Hall to come and talk to the kids about transition and adjustment.

Notably, Squash Haven does not push all families onto the prep-school path, but rather aims to give them access and support if prep-school seems like the right choice.
Derek Lawrence, a Squash Haven student and now a ninth grader at the Sound School in New Haven, is one of those students for whom the program in conjunction with public schooling made the most sense. He and his parents, Roberta and Haywood Lawrence, became involved when he was recruited to play squash at Edgewood Middle School, despite having never played before. They have been pleased with the effect Squash Haven has had on their son. “He’s physically fit, and his leadership abilities have improved,” said Ms. Lawrence, who, along with her husband, sported a Squash Haven t-shirt at the Labor Day race.

Lawrence will not be attending a prep school as he enters his freshman year of high school, but instead will continue to attend Squash Haven sessions throughout the year, in which he will receive educational assistance, squash instruction, and personal mentorship, working towards his goal of attending a four-year college after his high school graduation.

Squash Haven is itself partnered with a four-year university: Yale. The University does not support Squash Haven financially, but it does provide the program with courts, office space, classrooms, and volunteers. Squash Haven uses the Brady Squash Center at Payne Whitney Gymnasium for practice space, and Yale’s trophy room doubles as a study space for the younger kids in the program. One summer, Squash Haven staff taught its students how to debate and held the proceedings in the trophy room.

For Yale students interested in community service, Squash Haven provides an opportunity to do something both tangible and meaningful for kids like Davidson
and Lawrence, who benefit from the instruction and mentorship from students who are already a part of the higher education system. Volunteers Emily Graham, DC `13, and Joshua Gordon, GRD `11, were exposed to a very local, very effective organization that they could be intimately involved with while at Yale.

Graham is currently the president of the Dwight Hall group that recruits Yale students to volunteer for Squash Haven at the Dwight Hall Bazaar and other outreach programs associated with their respective residential colleges. Gordon was singled out by Greenwood herself at the Dwight Hall Bazaar he attended more than four years ago. Along with a few other Yalies, Gordon started a student organization at Dwight Hall for the new program, which continues to recruit for and promote Squash Haven at Yale.

In addition to volunteers like Graham and Gordon, members of Yale’s men and women’s squash teams are required by Head Coach David Talbott to spend at least one hour per week coaching and tutoring Squash Haven students. Talbott was instrumental in starting the program and remains an adamant supporter of and contributer to Squash Haven.

More than anything, Squash Haven is committed to development as a holistic process, seeking to enhance the academic, athletic, and social skills of its participants. It’s important to the Squash Haven staff that their students gain exposure to a way of life that will compel them to think seriously about their education and their ability to contribute to society within and beyond their community.

The organization hopes to set long-term goals for the kids in the program and offer the guidance and discipline to ensure that they are met.