Sports are like women. Just when you think you're in shape for a big conquest, something goes wrong and you lose the struggle; maybe lose your pride, and gain a bit more experience, though less than you'd hoped for. But when you do win, it's so good that all your past heartbreaks don't seem so important. You've got what you've been sweating for; you're the champ.

Whether you really believe that sports are that romantic depends, of course, on where your romantic interest lies, but everyone admits that a string of sports conquests deserves recognition of some sort.

Forty years ago Harvard's squash team had that string of conquests, but ironically they haven't received the acclaim they deserve. Anil Nayar '69 has just cleaned up collegiate squash with victories at the Canadian and U.S. Intercollegiates. He lost at the U.S. Nationals. Under Harry L. Cowles, Harvard's first and greatest squash coach, Crimson players won the National Singles title everyone of the thirteen years Cowles coached, and won National Team titles in 1925, '26, '27, '31, and '32. No other college team reached that pinnacle again until 1951, when Harvard took it once more. In 1950 the Yalies grabbed it, but the Crimson won again in 1963.

When Harry Cowles came to Harvard in 1922, there were eighteen squash courts in the old Freshman Gym between Holyoke and Dunster Streets. The Linden Street building housed a melange of all sorts of old walled games like court tennis, but by 1924 they had all been replaced with courts for squash, the most popular game, and Harvard had the space for its future champions.

The first of the Cowles' all-stars was W. Palmer Dixon '25. Cowles didn't have a set of magic rules. He picked out a player's strongest point and worked on it. He taught Dixon, who had an uncanny ability to sense shots, a strong position game. Able to intercept and return anything thrown at him. Dixon was nearly unbeatable. He took the National Singles title in 1925 and 1926.

Herbert Rawlins, Jr. '27 was a stylist, a player whose grace made him a pleasure to watch. Jack Barnaby '32, Harvard's present squash coach, wrote of him: "It was his pleasure to thwart the crude bludgeonings of sluggers with the rapier thrust of restrained but perfect accuracy." Rawlins took the National title in 1928 and 1930.

A pair of brothers, J. Lawrence Pool '28 and Beekman "Beek" Pool '32, put on a show of power that hasn't been equalled since. Lawrence's strength literally wore his opponents down, and the National title fell to him in '29 and '31.

But it was his younger brother, with a forearm like a mutton chop, who was the greatest slugger of all. Beek was shorter and chunkier than Lawrence. Cowles persuaded him to keep hitting harder and harder until his services were so fast that opponents were sometimes hit by the rebounding ball before they could move. Sweeping the American and Canadian Intercollegiates, Beekman added the National Singles in '32 and '33.

Finally there was Germain G. Glidden '36, an artist whose portrait of Harry Cowles hangs in Hemenway Gymnasium. Picking out Glidden's lightening speed as his greatest asset, Cowles, with inspired genius, gave him a tricky three wall shot, the "boast," that only an extraordinarily fast player could risk using. Glidden's matches were always played at a blinding tempo, and he captured the National title in '36, '37, '38, and retired undefeated from national play.

Cowles produced great players--many more stars than those listed above. But he was also devoted to Harvard. He turned down more lucrative offers elsewhere to go where athletics and sportsmanship went together. Cowles was responsible for a rule change which made squash less of a contact sport and more of a test of skill.

Early in 1937 Harry Cowles was struck with mental illness that kept him in institutions for a decade until surgery restored his sanity. In December, 1960, he died, leaving behind a legacy of a consummate skill and gentlemanly spirit that represents the best in Harvard sports.