'Phenomenal': The Rise of McCallie Squash Hits Its Zenith This Weekend in Philadelphia

When Division I play, the highest level of high school squash, begins Friday in the U.S. High School Team Squash Championships in Philadelphia, a lot of familiar scholastic squash powers will be among the 16 seeds. Names like Andover, Brunswick, Choate, Hotchkiss, Lawrenceville and Phillips Exeter, ivy-covered Northeast bluebloods all.

 

Then there is the 15th seed, McCallie, which has only been competing in the sport for five winters and has been playing in its on-campus, state-of-the-art Squash, Outdoor, and Fitness Center for less than two years.

 

“Phenomenal,” is how Wael El-Hindi, coach of top-seeded Saint Andrews of Boca Raton, Florida, describes what Blue Tornado coach Dan Sharplin and assistant Rodney Durbach have built in such a short period of time. “It’s crazy what Dan’s done. And how fast. This team has taken off like wildfire.”

 

El-Hindi knows a thing or two about the difficult task of building a powerful squash program south of the Mason-Dixon line. His Scots won the national championship in 2024. He brought his Saint Andrews team to the Scenic City this past December for the school’s Squash Invitational.

 

“Almost every squash power is in the Northeast,” he said. “But we’re proving you can build a squash program in the South. We just need to get more schools involved. When you have a facility like McCallie does, and what a fabulous place it is, that helps. It says you’re serious about growing the sport.”

 

Oh, how it’s grown. In both numbers and skill. The first year Sharplin arrived (the 2021-22 school year), less than 20 boys came out for the team. They practiced at the Scenic City Squash Club downtown near Finley Stadium. When it came time for that year’s national championships in the City of Brotherly Love, they were placed in Division VII, the lowest division in the tournament.

 

(Sidenote: A little like European soccer, you’re placed in the division that the high school association believes matches your skill set. If you do well in that division, you’re moved up the next year.)

 

By last winter, the Blue Tornado was finishing as the runner-up in Division II, which caused the move to Division I this season, just ahead of Phillips Exeter and just behind No. 14 seed Milburn High from New Jersey.

 

“I don’t know that I’m shocked that we’re ranked the No. 15 team in the country,” said Sharplin earlier this week. “We’ve got a lot of kids who have worked hard, who play all year if they can. But getting to Division I is hard to do. It usually takes a minimum of five years to build a program and that’s where we are today, but I don’t think we expected to be in Division I this soon.”

 

Sharplin tells a story about a traditional prep power that McCallie leapfrogged this year for the Nationals.

“When I was coaching in New England, Belmont Hill was as good as it got,” he said. “It’s a boys school, like McCallie, and they won something like 18 of 20 Independent School League championships. An amazing program. Well, Belmont Hill isn’t in Division I this weekend. They’re seeded fifth in Division II. That’s how far we’ve come.”

 

Sharplin is quick to praise the immense interest in the sport from the student body.  “We’ve been fortunate to have a lot of participation from the Middle School and in the JV program,” he said. “When school started this year we had close to 100 kids trying out for our teams. We’ve got 48 right now on the three rosters, Middle School, JV, and Varsity, and the competition for those spots is fierce.”

 

How fierce? On Wednesday, two players were in a challenge match for the eighth and final roster spot to go to Philadelphia.

 

This was McCallie Head of School Lee Burns’ vision for the sport when he decided to add it to the athletic department after strong encouragement from Michael Monen ‘92, who had built the Scenic City Squash Club.

 

“Squash is a sport that is accessible to all McCallie boys who want to play and commit to hard work,” Burns said. “The growth and excellence of our relatively new squash program is amazing on multiple levels. First of all, the number of boys who are playing squash for the first time is very high.  Second, several years of building this program have produced extraordinary achievements. All of this has exceeded my high expectations, and the best is yet to come.

 

He also saluted Sharplin’s role in building the program, noting, “Coach Sharplin deserves enormous credit for establishing this program and building it to such a high level in just a few years. He has a reputation as a world-class coach, and he is assisted by another world class player and coach in Rodney Durbach. Between our coaches and our new squash facility, we are meeting a very high standard of excellence, consistent with who we are as a school.”

 

When Monen first encouraged Burns to add squash, he expected no less.

 

“There’s no way to thank Lee Burns enough for his vision and the hard work he put into building this program,” said Monen, who will be in Philly this weekend watching his son Simon, a McCallie junior, compete for the Blue Tornado.

 

“When McCallie does something, it does it right. The Squash Center’s eight courts are the best in the South, just a tremendous facility. You can go anywhere in the world and mention Dan Sharplin and Rodney Durbach and hear experts in the sport talk about what world-class coaches and people they are. And Lee’s hope that the student body would take up the sport has been spot-on. It’s amazing how the students have embraced it. What’s maybe most impressive is the number of homegrown players who are falling in love with squash. It’s more than we could ever have imagined five years ago.”

 

Sharplin and Durbach will take eight McCallie students to compete in the nationals starting today (Friday), led by Durbach’s son, senior Hector Durbach. The rest of the traveling squad includes Patrick Gustafsson, Chapman Roedder, Nico Martin, Davis Whitney, Monen, Walker Wiebe and Ihit Srivastava. All but Durbach are underclassmen.

 

Between matches at the Arlen Specter US Squash Center, the traveling party may find time to check out the Liberty Bell or run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the Rocky Balboa statue. They may even sample the famous cheesesteak sandwiches at Sonny’s or Angelo’s.

 

But the fact that seven of eight players from this year’s nationals squad return next year brought about the following observation from Sharplin, as if the future for McCallie squash didn’t seem bright enough already.

 

“Finishing in the top 12 this year would be a great success for us,” said Sharplin. “But with so many underclassmen, next year is when we should really make some noise.”

Learn more about the Blue Tornado Squash program.

Click here to view photos from the 2025 McCallie Squash Invitational.