The Philadelphia Squash Racquets Association honored William Strong tonight at the 2022 U.S. Open presented by Truist with the 2022 PSRA Service Award.
Opening the ceremony on the glass court at the Arlen Specter US Squash Center, Dent Wilkins, Chief Marketing Officer at US Squash, spoke about the enduring partnership between the PSRA and US Squash and thanked the PSRA for all its efforts growing the game in the region. Tim Dearnley, the President of the PSRA, then congratulated Strong on his deep engagement with squash in Philadelphia. “Bill Strong served as PSRA treasurer for seventeen years,” said Dearnley, “working under five different PSRA presidents.”
Strong thanked all his teammates and friends in the game, noting that he could never leave the area because of the vibrant squash community.
For decades Strong has been a leader in Philadelphia. Besides serving as PSRA Treasurer, he has long been a captain for league doubles teams at Berwyn Squash & Fitness Club.
Strong first started playing squash in the late 1960s at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, played at Middlesex School and then was No.7 on the varsity at Princeton his freshman year before turning to Tiger football fulltime. Strong has long been a gifted left-wall doubles player, well known for his sportsmanship.
One of the greatest high school squash coaches in U.S. history, Strong was the varsity coach at Haverford School for the 1979-80 season and again from 1989 to 2009. During that time, Haverford captured ten Inter-Academic League titles and finished off an unmatched scholastic streak where the Maroon & Gold went undefeated in league play from 1977 to 1994, winning 104 straight dual matches. Strong also was a founder of the Mid Atlantic Squash Association; MASA now boast more than seventy high school and middle school girls and boys teams. Strong guided the school when it built a new squash facility in 2000.
After stepping down as varsity coach, Strong helmed the middle school team for a decade, including guiding them to a national title in 2014. He taught middle school history at Haverford for thirty-two years.
The world’s oldest squash organization, the Philadelphia SRA—originally called the Philadelphia Association—was founded in 1903. Previous winners of the PSRA Service Award include Molly Pierce (2013), Ken Jaffe (2014), Frank Reidy (2015), Bill Lane (2016), Andy Nehrbas (2017), the Hand/McIntosh Family (2018), Nick Lepore (2019) and Bill Rux (2021).