(1919-2006)
One of the longest, most loyal and most influential leaders in the American squash scene, Bill Ketcham known as Treddy has stamped his heart and soul on almost every important tournament and player in the U.S. Raised at the Rockaway Hunt Club, Ketcham was a class of 1941 at Yale and awarded the Navy Cross after fighting in the Marines on Iwo Jima. He won a record seven national senior doubles titles, with Jimmy Ethridge in 1965-1966, 1968-69, Howard Davis in 1970, Vic Elmaleh in 1973 and Newton Meade in 1974, and in 1965 he captained the winning New York side in the national team champi¬onships. Off-court Ketcham gave his energies to running tournaments and sustaining and developing the game. He served as U.S.S.R.A. president from 1965-67 and was the only man to serve in all four Association leadership posi¬tions: as secretary, treasurer, vice-president and president. He was president of the Metropolitan Squash Racquets Association from 1959-61, he ran and gave the cup for the national intercollegiate doubles tournament, he helped start and run the Bigelow Fund for junior development and the US Squash endowment fund, and he has for decades been president of the Friends of Yale Squash. Since 1960 he has been tournament director of the Gold Racquets at Rockaway, the oldest singles and doubles tournament in the world. In 1966 he donated the trophy for the President’s Cup, which he received himself in 1969. He has led the U.S. branch of the Jesters Club for the past twenty years. With his fervent love of the game and his irrepressible enthusiasm for its past, present and future, Treddy Ketcham embodies the highest ideals of squash.
