Coach's Corner

However, unlike his father and grandfather, Mark bypassed college on his way to extraordinary professional squash success. The Wakefield, R.I. native first played squash on a court in the Dayton, Ohio house his grandfather built and in which his father grew up. After a semester of college, he turned pro at 19 and reached the No. 1 national singles ranking a few years later. Talbott kept the top spot from 1983 to 1995, when he stopped playing singles competitively; then, without missing a beat, he and partner Gary Waite attained the top ranking in doubles, which they still hold.

As a coach, Talbott will continue to compete in "enough tournaments to keep the No. 1 ranking." However, he plans to slow down his professional play, and he feels that competing less while coaching a college team will be "a nice transition for [his] career."

Talbott has previous coaching experience as founder and director of the USSRA (United States Squash and Racquet Association) national training center in Newport, R.I. He was also the national junior men's team coach from 1992 to 1996.

Despite never having coached college squash before, Talbott has great knowledge about the junior squash game because of his experience as a coach. "I know the junior players probably better than anybody in the country," he said. " Some very strong young 14- to 16- year-old girls are coming up."

According to Talbott, Yale is well situated to attract these top young players. About Yale's new squash facility, to be completed by next fall, he said, "In a year from now, Yale will have the nicest squash facility in the world." He added, "Hopefully, with my name in the squash world, we are going to reach a new level never attained before in the history of women's squash."

--Carl Bialik

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