Yesterday at the 2026 U.S. Open Squash Championships presented by Comcast Business, Dominic Hughes received the 2026 Robert W. Callahan Sportsmanship Award. The award was presented by Mollie Marcoux Samaan, US Squash CEO.
“I knew of the legend of Bob Callahan when I was a student at Princeton,” Samaan said, “And then had the honor to get to know him and his amazing family when I returned to campus as athletic director during the last years of Bob’s life. He was truly one of a kind. He believed that developing character was important than developing champions. Bob’s ethos is central to US Squash. We ask our competitors to play with honesty, to respect both their opponent and officials and to handle victory and disappointment with grace and integrity. Tonight I am delighted that this year’s recipient of the Callahan is Dominic Hughes. Through coaching, leadership and enthusiasm, Dominic has helped generations of players discover squash, develop as leaders and find a lifelong community. Tonight we celebrate the example he sets and his lasting contributions—a fitting reflection of Bob Callahan’s legacy.”
Josh Hughes, Dominic’s son, then spoke: “My father—who was my first coach—has always been my role model for how I should try to play the game as a competitor and a sportsman. A squash pro’s impact can be measured by the culture they create at their club. At Berwyn, it’s about the love of the game and clean, honest squash—a direct reflection of my father’s ideals.”
Dominic Hughes is a legendary masters player. Born in Winnipeg, he grew up in Sheffield, England, became the national coach of Bermuda and then coached in Canada before moving to Philadelphia to run Berwyn Squash & Fitness Club.
He has had an extraordinary masters career in both singles and doubles that is unprecedented in U.S. squash. He has won the U.S. national title sixteen times in singles: the 35+ in 1997 and 1998; the 40+ in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006; the 45+ in 2007, 2009 and 2010; the 50+ in 2012, 2014 and 2015; the 55+ in 2018 and 2019; and the 60+ in 2023 and 2024.
Playing the left wall in squash doubles, Hughes has an equally impressive record with ten national age-group titles: with Rich Sheppard, he won the 45+ in 2007; the 50+ in 2012, 2014 and 2015; the 55+ in 2018 and 2019; and the 60+ in 2022 and 2023; and then the 60+ in 2024, 2025 and 2026 with Bart Sambrook. No one else has ever won masters titles in both singles and doubles in the same season as often as Hughes (six times).
To read more about Hughes and the history of the U.S.’s oldest public squash club, Berwyn Squash & Fitness Club: https://squashmagazine.com/2013/11/berwyns-40th-birthday-public-squash-reaches-milestone/
The Robert W. Callahan Sportsmanship Award was started in 2014. Previous honorees include Ed Chilton, Rich Sheppard, Richard Chin, Mark Talbott, Chris Spahr and Jay Nelson. 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 for collegiate sportsmanship than any other college in the nation. He founded one of the world’s oldest squash summer camps, and in 1998 he directed the World Junior Men’s Championship, the first world singles championship to be hosted in the U.S. Bob Callahan was inducted into the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame in the Class of 2011.
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