WESTFIELD – Pat Cosquer knows that look.
Players
from Yale, Harvard and other institutions of higher learning flaunt
these "this-will-be-easy" expressions as they file into the squash
facility at Bates College.
And while the rustic
campus of this liberal arts college in Maine with a student population
of about 1,600 seems as charming as a Rockwell painting — students are
probably skating around frozen Lake Andrews right now — Cosquer and his
players don’t exactly extend a lot of small-town warmth.
Cosquer,
in his 10th season as the men’s and women’s squash coach, has always
implored his players to rise up and take down these foes from bigger,
more celebrated schools. The Division III Bates Bobcats aren’t afraid to
welcome to their Clubhouse powerhouses such as Duke and Stanford — even
if these Division I schools offer scholarship money to squash players.
You
wouldn’t expect anything less from Cosquer, a relative latecomer to
squash. He was a teenager growing up in Westfield when he discovered the
sport. He always felt like an underdog and an outsider, even after he
graduated and became captain of the team at Bates. It pushed him to play
harder, and his mission is to imbue his teams with that scrappy spirit.
So,
when the matches are done and the echo of the last straight drive has
finally faded, those visiting players might board their buses and head
back to their ivy-covered schools with a victory. They usually aren’t,
however, taking their overconfident countenances with them.
“Teams
will think of us as an afterthought and then we push them and then they
say, ‘Wow, you guys are pretty good’ after the match,” Cosquer said.
“It happened last year. We lost, 5-4, to Princeton. Princeton was the
ninth-ranked team in the country and we were 16th and we could have won
the match and probably should have won the match. After the match, the
kids were surprised, like, ‘Hey, we almost beat them. We could have
beaten them.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, we should have.’”
Against
all odds, Cosquer has built a flourishing squash program at Bates
College, which competes against the likes of Trinity, Williams, Amherst,
Bowdoin and Middlebury in the New England Small College Athletic
Conference. He been the conference coach of the year several times, and
his men’s team reached the NESCAC final the past two seasons before
losing to Trinity — which has never lost a conference match.
In
a sport in which competitors are confined to a box roughly 30 feet long
by 20 feet wide by 19 feet high, Cosquer has found success by breaking
down barriers.
While most college coaches look for
the next blue-chip prospect among the white-collar world of Northeast
prep schools, some of Bates’ best players have come from far-flung
locales. Ahmed Abdel Khalek, a native of Egypt, was the NESCAC player of
the year from 2013-16 and won two national player of the year awards.
His countrymate, Ahmed Hatata, was the conference player of the year
last season. On the women’s team, three of the best players are Luca
Polgar (Hungary), Vicky Arjoon (Guyana) and Kristyna Alexova (Czech
Republic).
Cosquer,
who is African-American, has been equally successful mining overlooked
urban hubs such as Chicago and New York for talent. So, when he says
“the complexion of our team is different from others,” you can’t be sure
if he’s alluding to the racial diversity or the style of their play.
Maybe both.
“The NESCAC conference is one of the
toughest conferences in squash with Trinity being the best squash
program in the country and Amherst and Williams being the best liberal
arts colleges in the country,” said Amherst coach Peter Robson, “so for
Pat to be able to recruit and convince some of the best squash kids in
the world to come Lewiston, Maine is amazing and speaks volume to his
charisma.”
Charisma and competitiveness — Armand
and Dolores Cosquer said their son demonstrated these traits from his
first Little League game through his four years as a star shortstop on
the Westfield High School baseball team. Dad may have introduced him to
squash, but Son set out to become great at it.
“Whereas
I never liked lessons and I would never practice, he would get onto the
court, even by himself and just put into the practice that which he had
just learned,” Dad said.
If there ever was one
moment that demonstrated Cosquer’s drive to succeed, it came during a
Division III tournament showdown against Vassar some 20 years ago. He
was matched up against Vivek Nayar, an old friend from their days of
training under Geoff Mitchell at the Chatham Club. Nayar always seemed
to come out on top, but with the teams splitting the other eight
matches, Cosquer, Bates' captain, was not going to let his team down.
“He
played the best in that match when the game was on the line that he’s
ever played against me,” Nayar said. “Other times in the past I had his
number, but it wasn’t on that grand of a stage.”
Rising
to the occasion, striving to improve, believing in yourself — this is
the mind-set Cosquer is trying to instill into another group of players.
His teams are off to good starts, but their schedules begin to heat up
in January. His players would be well-served to play with some of his
fire.
“It’s a cool place to be as a coach because
you know every day they show up, they want more,” he said. “They want
you to push them. They’re not soft, they’re going for it. They get it.”
Or,
as Arjoon puts it, “In the midst of our own stresses of schoolwork, our
social lives, and the pressure that comes along with competing at the
collegiate level, he encourages us to fully maximize our potential on
and off court. From my first year on the team to now, Pat has always
reminded us that we're here to play for Bates, play for our team, and
most importantly, here to play for ourselves, and enjoy the experiences
of being a Bates student-athlete.”
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