By Ken Hesselbacher
Sadly, on June 30, the majestic White Plains Y on Mamaroneck Avenue closed its doors after almost 100 years. Ever-rising expenses made it just too difficult to sustain the building.
Deep within the building, another final event took place.
The White Plains Lawn & Squash Club at the Y conducted its final in-house squash tournament for members of the club. Actually, two tournaments took place; the first was the standard black softball and the second was the red hardball version.
Red hardball is a much livelier ball and helps the more mature squash player who no longer has the ability to run around the court, but nevertheless retains the competitive spirit of their younger days. As chairman of the club and approaching my 77th year, I welcomed the return of the red hardball version of the game.
The final tournament took place over two days on The Allan Demaree Championship Court, which happens to be the only squash court in the building. The fact that we only have one squash court makes running the tournament difficult; the fact that our squash club has only four members makes running the tournament easy!
All four members elected to enter both tournaments. One good thing about a small tournament is that, no matter what, you can always say, “I got knocked out in the semis.”
The opening match of the hardball tournament was Friday evening with Adnan Yunus playing Ken Hesselbacher in the semi-finals. And what an exciting match it was! Hesselbacher came back from a deficit in the third and deciding game, winning 12-10.
Yunus is an up-and-0coming player with many great squash years ahead of him. After the match, he asked Hesselbacher why, at this stage of his career, does he play so hard on every point? Hesselbacher simply replied, “The Yankee centerfielder Joe DiMaggio was once asked a similar question and he said that he would just imagine that there was a father taking his son to his first baseball game and telling him to watch the great DiMaggio.”
Well, I did not have to imagine there was a father taking his son to his first squash match. The father was my son, Ed and his 3½-year-old son, Eric. And that may just have been the deciding factor in the match. Eric’s smiling face was beautiful during and after the match.
The tournament continued Saturday morning with more exciting matches. In the blackball semi-final Sherif Ibrahim beat Yunus and Bruce Demaree defeated Hesselbacher. Demaree then won the redball semi-final over Ibrahim.
The redball Championship match had Demaree playing Hesselbacher, and Demaree was not to be denied, beating Hesselbacher in two games. Demonstrating good sportsmanship, Hesselbacher granted Demaree a 10-minute respite before Demaree had to face Ibrahim in the blackball championship match.
And what a terrific match it was. Two great players and neither one giving an inch – fantastic shots, fantastic rallies and fantastic retrieves. But when it was over, destiny prevailed and Demaree was the champion of both the red and blackball tournaments in the last matches to ever be played on the legendary Allan Demaree Championship Court.
Yes, Demaree is Bruce’s father and two years ago he played his last match on this court, which was then named in his honor. And, finally, the time had come. The four players stood in front of the court for a final photo and then walked out one by one, with Bruce being the last player, who ceremoniously “turned out the lights.”
In case anyone noticed and was curious about what was above the squash court door, it was the club lawn. In order to include the name “Lawn” into our title, we had to have a lawn. This was the lawn and it left with us as we go forward looking for another squash home!
Editor’s note: The White Plains YMCA was purchased by a Tennessee development company who plans to turn the Y into market-rate rental apartments. The YMCA of Central and Northern Westchester decided to sell the property last year due to exorbitant maintenance costs
