Cornell University graduates Sivasangari Subramaniam and Veer Chotrani have recently highlighted the success of this Ivy League squash programme.

Veer Chotrani, from India, was recently crowned the 2024 Mens National Individual Collegiate Champion, beating Mohamed Sharaf of Trinity Collge in the final, (2023 Champion).

Veer had a stunning 23-24 season, remaining unbeaten and also being awarded the prestigious 2024 Skillman Award, for maintaining sportsmanship and a high level of play. Previous winners include World No.1, Ali Farag, whilst a student-athlete at Harvard. Veer will now be a full-time squash professional after graduating this Spring, and hopes to continue to climb the PSA World Rankings.

Another name synonymous with success is the Malaysian player Subramaniam, current World No.13 and recently crowned the 2024 London Squash Classic Champion, beating the World No.1, 2 and 4 along the way.

Whilst this was recent success was an amazing feat, Sivas college career was also nothing short of inspiring. Siva was the 2022 National Individual Collegiate Champion, and the runner-up in 2023. This last result after surviving a serious car crash that took her 6 months to come back from. It showed her fighting spirit and her will to reach the pinnacle of the womens game.

The recruitment of Siva and Veer to the Cornell programme was a major breakthrough for David Palmer and Mark Burke, head and assistant coach respectively, who worked tirelessly to attract them, travelling to major events around the world to recruit them and beat off the competition from other Ivy League and top college programmes.

Quite often with such success, the work that goes in day after day, behind the scenes over many years, can easily be forgotten. 

The programme has been consistently climbing the rankings in the last five years and now stand as a consistent top eight team, finishing seventh and eighth respectively for the men and women, in the 2024 College Squash Association competition.

Palmer, former World Champion, needs no introduction and has been head coach at Cornell since 2016 and the programme has risen from 16th position during his tenure.

Lesser known, Burke, also from Australia, is a former Top 100 PSA player and was in Pamers stable of training partners for three years, during the time he won the World Open in 2002. 

Burke joined Cornell in 2019, after a successful four years as national coach of Luxembourg. After retiring from professional play, he married his Belgian wife and started a successful club programme and academy in Belgium producing some of the best juniors on the European scene during his 13 years there. After marrying, and receiving dual nationality, Mark also represented Belgium at the European Teams Championships in 2010, 2011, and 2012.

The story of these two coaches coming together at Cornell started in 2019. David, who was based in Belgium during his career, reached out to Mark, a former training partner from that time and close friend, to see if he would be interested to come and volunteer at Cornell, to assist him in the Spring of 2019.

Since then, after having come on full-time shortly after, they have formed a formidable partnership during the last five years, combining to recruit, train and nurture the programme that produced the likes of Subramaniam and Chotrani. After having completed a MAppSc in Sports Coaching from University of Queensland, his knowledge of sport science is especially beneficial to the advances in training and performance seen in recent years in the programme.

There is a lot that goes into coaching these college programmes. The coaches are responsible for recruiting players from the US and all over the world, attracting them to come and study at Cornell and play squash as a student-athlete. When they arrive its a daily regime of training and academics. The training alone could be seen as more or less full-time, as most players are training twice a day during season.

Palmer and Burke can be seen in the mornings doing individual sessions with the players, working on technique and tactics and in the afternoon, the teams coming in for two hour sessions each, to work on their physical preparations for the gruelling college season which starts in November and finishes in March.

The search continues for the next Subramaniam and Chotrani, who have followed in the footsteps of other notable graduates from the US College system, Ali Farag, Victor Crouin and Amanda Sobhy. 

Coach Burke will be hitting the recruiting trail again soon, travelling to all the major junior tournaments worldwide to continue the recruiting success and find the next National College Champion.