The Barbados squash community is as small as the 166-square-mile island, so Cheri-Ann Parris quickly heard about a U.S. college coach trying to schedule matches for the team\u2019s winter training trip. The coach wasn\u2019t getting anywhere, which didn\u2019t surprise Parris, then 16. \u201cIt\u2019s the Caribbean,\u201d she says. \u201cWe have in our heads that things just happen as they happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Cultural realities notwithstanding, she felt the coach\u2019s pain \u2014 the prospect of a team traveling 2,300 miles to play among themselves. \u201cNow that would\u2019ve been kind of pointless,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m glad he talked to me.\u201d<\/p>\n The coach she helped was Pat Cosquer \u201997<\/a>. At the time, in 2007, he was director of squash programs for StreetSquash<\/a>, a community youth-outreach center in Harlem. He had volunteered to help with the Bates trip after head coach John Illig decamped for Middlebury in August.<\/p>\n And at the time, Parris was an emerging Barbadian squash standout. In fact, when the Bobcats visited Barbados in 2008, she was on another island, Great Britain, competing in the Scottish Open.<\/p>\n “Once I love something, I just go for it.”<\/p>\n Today, of course, both Cosquer and Parris are at Bates, each coming off accolade-filled 2010 seasons. Appointed women\u2019s and men\u2019s squash coach in May 2008, Cosquer won NESCAC Coach of the Year honors in 2010, while Parris, Bates\u2019 No. 1 player from the start, was named NESCAC Rookie of the Year.<\/p>\n For her, Bates is part of a trajectory. The better she got in squash, and the more international tournaments she experienced, the more she wanted to test herself. \u201cOnce I love something, I just go for it,\u201d she says. \u201cI have to have some sort of goal. With squash, I wanted to play in college and represent squash to the best of my ability.\u201d<\/p>\n Parris met Cosquer face to face when she visited campus in September 2008, arriving straight from a tournament in Ecuador. She hasn\u2019t been fazed by going to college in a country famous for its busy-ness and scheduling. \u201cI prefer to be on a schedule and stick to it,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be up in the air. I would rather have planned stuff to do. It\u2019s a bit hectic, but it\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n Growing up, Parris was also an accomplished chess player, and although that interest waned, she clearly enjoys one-on-one competition that rewards strategy and mind games.<\/p>\n \u201cIn squash, like chess, you need to think about this shot and the next one,\u201d she says. \u201cYou think about how to place a shot so the opponent can only make his shot based on your shot. You have constantly to be thinking about what to do, how to retaliate, how to put your opponent out of position.\u201d Same as chess, she says. \u201cIf your opponent moves a pawn to near a bishop, you know the next moves, the squares where they can go.\u201d<\/p>\n
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