McQUEENIE CUP

Earlier this year, during a NACAD (North American Association of Club Athletic Directors) meeting that went deep into a Saturday night, inspiration was born. Our very own Athletic Director, Rob Barr, along with 3 of his counterparts were tossing around the idea of creating an annual squash event incorporating all of their respective clubs. Trying to keep it relatively straightforward to start off (and then in future years build on that success), it was decided that each club would put forth 8 man teams and each club would play against the other in 8 singles matches and 1 doubles match. To throw a little unpredictability into the mix, the team for each doubles match would be pulled randomly out of a ‘hat’. That meant, that from the 8 players on the each team, there was a 25% chance that the best doubles players would not get to play. Hmmm, devious…

And so, slowly, the McQueenie Cup was fashioned. The event is named after Jim McQueenie. Jim was a lifelong squash professional and a long time athletic director who worked numerous clubs in North America over his career, and in some positive way managed to touch the lives of the 4 Athletic Directors responsible of putting this competition together. Jim passed away in November of 2007.

The inaugural McQueenie Cup will be held at the DAC on November 13 and 14. Teams from the Toledo Club, the University Club of Chicago, and the Union League Club of Chicago will be competing for the beautiful trophy donated by the NACAD organization. The DAC team is being handpicked by Rob Barr and myself. We encourage all of our members to come down and watch, support, enjoy the competition on court, and push our competing members to glory… They will no doubt have their work cut out for them!