W. Squash finds new head coach

James Martel, Penn's new women's squash coach, was recruited by the Quakers 28 years ago.

As a hockey player.

Eleven years later, Martel -- who was hired as Demer Holleran's replacement on August 22 -- picked up a squash racket for the first time. His sports had always been hockey and baseball, in that order.

As for squash?

"It was a fluke," said Martel, who holds the all-time hockey scoring record at Northeastern. "I sort of went away on a holiday and people there were playing, so I picked up a racket and I've been playing ever since."

And he's been playing it well ever since. Martel, a native Canadian, was ranked No. 3 in his home country in the over-45 age group in 1997. He was also a captain at the 1998 Toronto and District Men's A Team Championships.

But Martel has made a name for himself more as a coach than as a player. He was the professional squash coach at the Glenway Country Club in Newmarket, Ontario for six years, ran camps at Dartmouth, Atlantic City and Philadelphia and directed the last three Canadian Junior Open Squash championships.

Now he comes to Penn under vastly different circumstances.

"At Glenway, we had seven courts, 380 players," Martel said. "It's going to be a lot different coaching just nine players."

And the only one of those nine he has even met is fellow Canadian Runa Reta, who hails from Ottawa, Ontario.

"It's going to be hard at first because I don't know the talent yet," Martel said. "I'll be getting a feel for the level of play."

Martel, only the third women's squash coach ever at Penn, has the challenge of following in the footsteps of Holleran, who helmed the Quakers for nine years and led them to a national championship in the 1999-2000 season.

But Martel has been pretty busy with other challenges. It took him a month and an immigration lawyer to obtain his visa, and he was frantically searching for a place to live in the Philadelphia area earlier this week.

At least the campus seems vaguely familiar to Martel. Although he ended up choosing Northeastern over Penn, he played against the Quakers in all four of his collegiate years.

And two of Martel's friends from Canada, Steve Siba and Dietrich Gyetko, played hockey for Penn.

Still, hockey wasn't Martel's only collegiate sport. He played baseball at Northeastern, was a member of the 1982 world champion Canadian national team and was offered a pair of tryouts with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

But Martel never attended those tryouts.

"I thought I was going to be a hockey player," Martel said.

And he almost was. Martel was drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1977 and went to two training camps. Each time, the Maple Leafs wanted to send Martel to a lower minor league club; each time, Martel decided not to go.

But Martel had no problem deciding to go to the United States as a squash coach. After hearing about the job from a couple of Ivy coaches he knew and talking to men's squash coach Craig Thorpe-Clark, he applied.

But why didn't Martel come to Penn in the first place, back when the Quakers recruited him?

"I felt Philadelphia wasn't a hockey town compared to [Northeastern's home city,] Boston."

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