General Philosophy

The program has remained faithful to its basic philosophy over the years, which is to provide an opportunity for local children engage in a sport, have a chance to exercise and to learn to play squash. The program provides a mix of coaching, drilling, intramural match play, and more formal matches with other programs. Over the years, the balance of these activities has changed in response to what the co-directors have felt were the wishes of many of the children in the program. The change has been mainly in the direction of providing more coaching along side the already existing program (private or semi private lessons) and more opportunities to play and compete. PJS however is still focused on providing a program to introduce the sport to children and help grow the game of squash.  

Program Schedule

The majority of the PJS program is a Fall-Winter session which comprises provides 45-50 sessions. It starts in mid October and runs through the first two weeks in March. Ideally, this session consists two to three meetings each week (one session on the weekend and two weekday evenings). Princeton University kindly allows PJS the use of their varsity facility, Jadwin Gym at the corner of Faculty and Washington Road. The needs of the PU varsity teams limits PJS's access to the courts during the height of their season so some weekends we are unable to hold our sessions (as our schedule reflects).

Additional Programs:

PJS also offers a Early Fall session of (about 5-6 weeks meeting 3-4 times a week) and a Spring session starting in mid March and ending the end of May.  Other programming may also be available depending on interested. PJS does not offer any formal session between June and September at this point in time but Princeton University Squash Camps offer 6 one week squash camp sessions if there is interest in playing more.

The Sessions

The Sessions are one hour in length and generally geared to age groups.  The first hour tends to be 8-12 years, the second hour is 12-14 year olds and the third hour are the 14-18 (senior in high schools) age kids.  Within each hour, the children are divided into workable skill group as mush as possible also taking into consideration the students age if possible. Please realize it is not possible to always have your child play with kids better in skills level we try to keep a balance of who plays with whom and try to distribute kids equally and fairly.  Each session will vary in the amount of instruction, drilling and match play/practice over the course of the 45-50 sessions.  The ratio of students to coach will be anywhere from 5 to 1.  Generally we will average 4 to1 student to coach ratio. 

Individual instruction is also available to PJS participants.  Please contact Gail Ramsay (ramsay@princeton.edu) or Gavin Johnstone-Butcher gjbutcher@gmail.com if you are interested in additional instruction.

Coaching
The program relies primarily on four to six adult coaches, some with top national and international playing and coaching experience, others with local programs at either a varsity or junior varsity high school level. The program also has some of the Princeton University team players (men and women) help coach when their schedules allow.

Status

For many years, the program had no formal institutional status, and carried on as a branch of the CNJSRA. Around 1997, PJS became independent from the CNJSRA, and took responsibility for its own financial affairs. In 2001, the necessary legal steps were taken for Princeton Junior Squash to become a New Jersey nonprofit corporation.