If You Build it, Will They Come? Private Squash Court Owner and Rancher Scot Mortimer is Giving Squash a Start in Wyoming

By Tim Wyant

Photographs by Ken Ball

Scot Mortimer

In standard three, New Zealand's equivalent of sixth grade, Scot Mortimer and his classmates were assigned a project to design their dream homes. Putting pen to paper, they let their imaginations fly. Predictably perhaps, many of the students' drawings were of mansions with swimming pools, vast lawns, ocean views and the like. But Scot's sketch had an undoubtedly unique feature: a squash court. His teacher, Mr. Bayliss, was not pleased, and to the 12-year-old's frustration, he made Scot redraw his design, explaining that squash courts were built in clubs, not homes.

Although it took about 25 years, Mortimer eventually proved Mr. Bayliss wrong. In November 2000, six months after construction began, the first squash match was played at Scolly Downs, the Mortimer family sheep ranch in Casper, Wyoming. Remarkable as it is that Mortimer actually built a court in his house--there are only a few dozen private courts in the country--it is even more noteworthy considering that his home is in, of all places, Wyoming, where only a handful of people play the game and, excepting Scolly Downs, there is not a single international court in existence.

All this may be cause for squash enthusiasts to celebrate. Wyoming and the surrounding states provide ample room for squash to grow. Besides the court at Scolly Downs, there are only two courts in all of Wyoming, both of which are hardball and rarely used, housed as they are in rec-centers where there is no pro to teach or promote the game. Out of the 7,500 USSRA members nationwide, Mortimer is only one of two who live in Wyoming (New York State, by contrast, boasts more than 1,000 members). And while Colorado, the jewel of the Rocky Mountain region, has 84 members, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming combined have a total of just eight people registered with the USSRA.