I just talked with Julie Oddy Inglis, the American-based niece of Michael Oddy, the Scottish champion who just died at the age of seventy-nine.

Michael Oddy’s older brother, Julie’s father, is Roland Oddy. A part of an earlier wave of British squashmen coming to the U.S.in the 1950s, Roland was a pro at New York Athletic Club and then Manhattan Squash Club on 42nd Street. He was a top singles and doubles player. “Stamina and determination are the hallmarks of his game,” wrote Doug McLaggan. Roland was the president of NY Squash from 1973-75, the first teaching pro to run a major squash association in America. Roland, born in 1934, now lives back in England.

In their 1978 book Squash: How to Play, How to Win, McLaggan and Laura Torbet interviewed Oddy.

He said: “I believe that squash is the outstanding game, not an outstanding game, because you can get a lot of exercise in a limited period of time and during that limited period have a great deal of enjoyment…..It takes some time to learn it to a certain level, but if you’re in good shape, and you can run, and you have good knowledge of strokes—not necessarily fabulous, but good knowledge of strokes—then it does come down to one aspect: it is desire, just the desire.”