Chris Spahr To Receive Callahan Sportsmanship Award on Character in Sports Day

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Chris Spahr (center, left) won the 2016 Father & Son Open title with his son Carson (left) against Timmy (center, right) and Bob Brownell

The fifth-annual Character in Sports Day will be held at the 2018 U.S. Open on Tuesday, October 9. Chris Spahr will receive the 2018 Robert W. Callahan Men’s Sportsmanship Award. Register for Character in Sports Day here.

Spahr is the squash director at the University Club of Boston. The son of the late national champion Kit Spahr, he grew up in Philadelphia and played on undefeated teams at Haverford School. At Franklin & Marshall, Spahr was a three-time All American and two-time captain, helping lead the Diplomats to a No.2 national ranking. Spahr has captured two masters titles in doubles, the 40+ in 2007 and the 45+ in 2012, both with fellow Bostonian Doug Lifford. He has also played in every Can-Am Cup since its inception in 2008. After ten years as the head squash pro at the Field Club in Greenwich, he has spent the last eighteen years at the University Club, coaching hundreds of juniors and running dozens of tournaments each year. He and his wife Catherine are the parents of two squash playing children, Dartmouth’s Carson Spahr with whom he has won seven U.S. Father & Son titles, and Caroline Spahr, who is presently in India competing for Team USA in the World Juniors.

Character in Sports Day calls attention to the importance of sportsmanship in squash. It welcomes all past recipients of national sportsmanship awards including the Callahan, Feron’s Wedgwood, the DeRoy (for junior players), the Skillman and Richey (collegiate individual awards) and the Sloane and Chaffee (the team awards). The Robert W. Callahan Sportsmanship Award was started in 2014. Previous winners include Ed Chilton, Rich Sheppard, Richard Chin and Mark Talbott. Bob Callahan was the men’s coach at Princeton for thirty-two years before he died in January 2015 at the age of fifty-nine. His teams won three national titles and more Skillman Awards than any other college in the nation. He founded the world’s oldest squash summer camp and in 1998 directed the World Junior Men’s Championship. He was inducted into the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame in the Class of 2011.