Members of Brookline High School’s squash teams find their way to the sport in myriad ways.
Frederik Schreiber-Wacnik discovered the game through his childhood friend, Marty Shapiro, who took to the sport after watching his older brother thrive. Eva Forman discovered squash while living in Bermuda.
Now, all three are co-captains of Brookline High School’s varsity squash teams and looking forward to “the capstone event of the season,” in the words of coach Steve Lantos. Both the boys and girls teams will compete in the 2025 U.S. Squash High School Nationals in Philadelphia from Feb. 21-23 at the Arlen Specter U.S. Squash Center and UPenn.
“It’s really fun because it’s competitive match play,” said Forman, a junior. “It’s just a good time because you’re with people you spend the whole season with.”
In squash, two players compete in a four-walled court. Opponents alternate hitting the ball until a player is unable to return it over a line known as “the tin.” Typical Brookline varsity matches feature a seven-player ladder that shifts throughout the season based on internal challenge matches.
Celebrating its milestone 10th season, the Brookline boys team, which won the 2022 Division VI national championship, expects to field its most competitive team yet. The girls team, which began a year later, hopes to impress on the national stage.
Squash isn’t a typical high school sport. It isn’t sanctioned by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, the state’s governing body for high school sports. Instead, the Warriors compete in roughly 16 matches per year against public and private schools and clubs, mostly in Massachusetts but sometimes in surrounding New England states.
The Warriors practice on weekday evenings using five courts at the nearby Winsor School, just across the Riverway from the town’s border with Boston.
“There’s a big mixture” of participants said Schreiber-Wacnik, a senior who also plays soccer. “Some people have played the sport since they were little, and then some people take it for the [physical education] credit and learn to love it.”
Lantos, the girl’s coach and Ron Rubin, who coaches the boys, are longtime friends. They started the teams together, a long-term goal after teaching their sons the sport when they were four or five years old.
Their sons played on the first Warriors teams and later in college, David Rubin at Dartmouth and Joey Lantos at Hobart. Long after their children graduated, Steve Lantos and Ron Rubin keep coming back.
Rubin, a scientist and entrepreneur by trade, played varsity squash as an undergraduate at Princeton and is a former Massachusetts state champion.
Lantos, a chemistry teacher at Brookline High School since 1985, graduated from Brookline in 1980. He competed in varsity wrestling and played on the school’s first ever rugby team as a senior. Since 2023, he’s served as Commissioner for Public School Squash in Massachusetts and helped start high school teams in Wellesley, Cambridge and Arlington.
He sees parallels between the evolution of rugby, which began under former drama teacher and head of performing arts, Iain Ryrie, and the growth of squash. Later on, as colleagues, Lantos and Ryrie played squash in the basement of Tappan Gymnasium during free periods.
“You get hooked,” Lantos said.
Each team rosters 15 players between varsity and junior varsity teams.
Players are responsible for getting their own equipment — racquet, eye guard and non-marking court shoes — but the program gets funding for court time, uniforms and registration for the national tournament. They conduct a fundraiser for other expenses, like travel to and meals at nationals.
When they were freshmen, Shapiro invited Schreiber-Wacnik, his classmate and childhood friend, to try squash at Harvard’s Murr Center. A senior, Shapiro played recreational squash for most of his life. His brother, Sam, a 2019 Brookline graduate and former member of the high school team, introduced him to competitive play and recommended he play.
“I’ve made a lot of new friends and gained new skills,” Shapiro said. “It’s just a really good time.”
Nationals participants must play at least four U.S. Squash matches to qualify. More than 200 teams from across the United States compete at the world’s largest community squash center in the city’s University City neighborhood. Competition remains the focus, but visiting sites like the Liberty Bell, Reading Terminal Market and Rocky Steps is also a highlight of the trip.
“Schools just converge on Philadelphia and you see them all over town,” Lantos said. “The kids are so excited to be able to be there and represent Brookline High School.”