Retired Coach Honored in 'History of 'Wick Squash'

A History of Squash at Brunswick School, a new book written by Rob Dinerman, chronicles the rise of the school’s squash program under longtime coach Jim Stephens.
 
Dinerman has written about squash at the high school and college level, including histories of squash at Harvard, Princeton, Episcopal Academy, Deerfield Academy, and St. Paul’s School. He has published two squash-anthology volumes and wrote Chasing the Lion, a prep-school memoir about his years at Phillips Exeter Academy, and co-authored The Sheriff of Squash: The Life and Times of Sharif Khan.
 
“I had been wanting to write a book about Brunswick squash, but people at the school felt it would be better to wait until Jim Stephens retired,” Dinerman said. “He was such a unique coach in that he was not in any way authoritarian toward his players. He is very even-keeled, very patient, but what I most see in him is his basic decency.
 
“This book is dedicated to him and is really a tribute to him.”
 
Stephens was a recipient of the 2014 U. S. Olympic Committee National Coach of the Year Award and was a NEISA 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award honoree. He retired last spring after serving as Brunswick’s squash coach and as a math teacher from 1985-2020.
 
The 117-page book details the rise of the Brunswick program from a program lacking their own facilities to the national power it is today.
 
Along with the written history, the book contains team photos, photos taken by Greenwich Time and other news outlets, and an Appendix of Brunswick squash statistics.
 
Anyone wishing to obtain a copy of A History of Squash at Brunswick School should contact Libby Edwards at ledwards@brunswickschool.org.