Albert G . Molloy, Jr.

(1928-2000)

The beloved coach at the University of Pennsylvania, Al Molloy was the amiable but tough mentor who made the Ringe Courts at Penn one of the meccas of American squash. The son of a longtime teaching pro, Al was born in Brooklyn, raised in Westchester and studied at Virginia Military Institute before joining the Marines. He went on to work in Montreal and then the Tennis & Squash Club in Buffalo and was good enough to twice reach the finals of the Tournament of Champions. In 1959 he came to Penn to coach the men’s squash and tennis teams. Upon retiring in 1990, he had garnered a 215-101 record, with his team winning three Ivy League titles. He coached three national intercollegiate champions (Howard Coonley, 1966; Palmer Page, 1971; and Ned Edwards, 1979) and dozens of future squash stars and leaders. For fifteen years, he directed the Hunter Lott, making the tournament the most prestigious on the junior circuit. Ahead of his time, Al was the first college coach to embrace weight training, to make an instructional film and to actively recruit overseas players. He was also a proponent of softball, using the ball for off-season training, and often took his teams to England for holiday tours. Al authored two seminal books on squash and never failed to be an advocate for the youth and the inexperienced in the squash world.