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Adrian Ezra: Remarkably Versatile College Squash Champion

Winner of Seven College Squash Titles, CSA Hall of Fame Inductee (2004)

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Feb 20, 2004, By Martin Bronstein © 2004 SquashTalk

Martin Bronstein interviewed Adrian Ezra in London this January, on the eve of his election to the CSA Hall of Fame.

Ladies and Gentlemen … the (nearly) unbeatable Adrian Ezra

Adrian Ezra carved out an admirable record in US college history: Unbeaten in intercollegiate team play in four years. In fact, in those four years he suffered just one defeat and that was in an individual championships ¬ and even now a decade later, he still has dreams about that one loss.

His record is all the more remarkable because although Ezra arrived at Harvard University in 1990 with an enviable squash background ¬ he trained with Jansher Khan ! ¬ his game was the international soft ball. The college game in the early nineties was hardball. Different ball, different court, different bounce, different strategy. Ezra responded by earning the number five spot on the Harvard team that first year and won every match that season. Ezra was passionate about squash. This likeable, compact man does everything with passion. When his time ended at Harvard in 1994 he joined Credit Suisse First Boston as a trader and the passion for squash was switched to trading. It is only now, nearly ten years later, that he is back on the squash court - somewhat broader in the beam - playing for a London club.

Ezra was born in Bombay in 1971 and although he made trips to England for the British Junior Open, he never moved there until he was 18. His gap year was spent mostly on a squash court in London, where he was surrounded by the best: Jahanghir was training in Wembley, Jansher could be found every day at Stripes club in West London - just a few miles from the Ezra home. Adrian was thinking seriously of a career in the pro ranks, but his father put an end to those ideas.

“He said ‘no way’ and of course it was the right to decision make,” Adrian recalls.

Adrian trained with Jansher ¬ but there was a cost. “Jansher never played you unless it was for money, say five pounds a game or best of three and he would give me seven start. If there was no money, you could beat him, so you had to put money down. I would win the occasional game but he won most of the time.

“Once I put a very good drop shot to the front left. I knew he could get it, but I was right behind him and I was in charge. But he got there and hit the ball so tight and it bounced a second time in the back corner.. And I thought to myself ‘that¹s why he¹s world champ’ .That¹s the reason, the ability to get out of trouble ¬ and the ability not to get bored in the rally.

“He just did everything so well. And at the end of his career he was a different squash player. And he had this ability to move so gracefully on the court,” Ezra says, the admiration still in his voice.

In that one year Ezra crammed in as much coaching as he could, first with Abbas Kaoud, then six months with Mohammed Yasin, Jansher’s coach, followed by time with Satinder Bajwa (now head coach at Harvard) and Danny Lee, now a leading junior coach in England.

It was Harvard coach Steve Piltch who persuaded Ezra to consider a Harvard education and Ezra still speaks warmly of his association with Piltch and how much that coach contributed to his success. In those year 1990-94 Ezra was to set a record that is still unequalled.

He claims that it took him about six months to feel at home with the hardball and he never lost a game playing for the Harvard team. In fact he suffered just one loss in four years of collegiate play.
“It was in the final of the intercollegiate individual and I lost to Jeremy Fraiberg, who was my best friend at the time. It was 13-all in the fifth and I got what I thought was a bad call and I could not get my head around it. I hit two tins and Jeremy won 15-13. To this day it bugs me. That was 1991. I still dream about it,” he says, half smiling, half wincing.

He admits that his first year at Harvard was ‘a nightmare.’ He had been used to a daily regimen in London of training seven hours a day and at Harvard it was just two hours a day.

“Steve Piltch was unbelievably helpful - I wanted to institute a routine of running in the morning so Steve would stay at the squash courts two or three nights a week to show up at seven in the morning on the track. He figured I if I was doing that he would get the rest of the team running. We would do 200 meter repetitive sprints in the morning and then we would be on the courts for two hours in the evening. At the time Harvard was easily the best we won all four years that I was there. But in the last year we won by the skin of our teeth It was 4-all and Tall Ben-Shachar won 15-14 in the fifth. The other colleges were gaining on us.”

Ezra also won softball title four years in a row and each summer would return to India to play in the nationals. He was the Indian champion six years in a row and came to an end when Ezra started work as a trader.

“By the end of the fourth year I had forgotten about being a pro player. The college experience opens you up to so many more things,” Ezra adds. “My major memory of the my time at Harvard was the camaraderie. No question. The team was a true team. For four years we hung out together, It was just fantastic. For me squash had always been an individual sport, but then it was all about the team.

“I must admit for the first year I had a big problem. Up to then it was all about you; if you won, it was you; if you lost, it was you. Then suddenly you are just one of nine. It doesn¹t matter whether you are the worst or the best, it all matters equally. You need five people to win to win the match. Also it was hardball, so I learned as much from the number nine as I did the number one.”

His trips to India were not all about him:

“I was doing a lot of work in the summer going to India and doing coaching camps with Raju Chainaini (the late squash journalist). Raju had developed a junior program and I wanted to put something back into the sport. Those programs are paying off with some very promising players.”

To the question, “How do you give up something that has been such an important part of your life?” Ezra is articulate in his response:

“Do you miss the adrenalin? I had that as a trader. For me, you put your mind to something and that becomes your life. So for a while squash was my life. Squash is now fun and I enjoy it, but it is not my life. You’ve got to find that buzz somewhere else and that¹s where you put your energy.”

That energy is being used running his own consultancy company in London although there is still some over for twice weekly sessions with a personal trainer and playing for the RAC club.

“I am enjoying the squash even though your body has no interest in what the mind is telling it to do. I am getting back into shape—all I have to do is stop eating.”

His time at Harvard still looms very large, especially the input he got from Steve Piltch, Bill Doyle and Dave Fish.

“I got to much from them. I used to bug Fish all the time. He was the best technical coach I ever came across. I really miss college squash; it was so much more fun than the other circuits. There¹s something about a team sport that really gets to you. The whole university thing in the States is just spectacular; the resources available to you are unreal.”

On his elevation to the Hall of fame, he is at a loss for words for a moment or two. And slightly puzzled.

“It’s a great honour, but other than playing well I don¹t know what I had done to deserve it. You would think that the Hall of Fame would be for people who did a lot more, and put more back into the sport, I guess I had better start doing that now.”

And when Adrian Ezra starts on that project, you can be sure he will do it with passion.

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