(1896 – 1989)
Women’s squash began at Boston’s Union Boat Club in 1926 when Margaret Howe organized the first bona fide women’s squash tournament in the country. She won it. A year later she launched the Massachusetts states. Sixty women entered and Howe again won it. With a perfectly placed lob serve, smart court positioning and the instinctive ability to adjust her game to exploit any opponents’ weaknesses, Howe won three National titles. In the third victory, she came back from an 8-3 deficit in the fifth game to win 15-10. She went on to capture a record seven Massachusetts state titles. A mainstay on the U.S. Wolfe-Noel squad, Howe reached the quarter-finals of the British Nationals while on tour in 1934, and in 1937 she clinched a 3-2 victory with an upset win in New York. The inter-city Howe Cup was given in honor of her (and her twin daughters), and in 1973 Margaret Howe donated the trophy for the intercollegiate Howe Cup.
National Champion 1929, 1932, 1934
