Squash Magazine

Full Interview With Kevin Klipstein, USSRA CEO
(Excerpts Printed in February 2005 Publisher's Note)

Kevin Klipstein
USSRA CEO

Jay Prince: What’s your vision for the USSRA?

Kevin Klipstein: Excellent question. I envision the USSRA as playing a critical and central role in coordinating all of the groups interested in growing the participation in the game. Taking that a step further, facilitating everything from our core functions such as ratings and rankings and serving our members’ needs, to facilitating communication among local SRA’s and communication with the USSRA, in addition to supporting the teaching pros and then all of the volunteers who dedicate time supporting all that’s involved in promoting and running squash tournaments and events.

J: What are some of your short term goals with the teaching pros?
K: Short term, it’s really quite simple. We want to reach out and make sure they understand that we want to set ourselves up as an organization that can help support them. We know that everyday they are on the frontlines of selling the game, and promoting it, and fostering interest. And we want to do whatever we can to help provide them the resources in order to do that—the materials, the shared learnings. So that we can not only break down barriers for them to enter the profession but also to make the profession a longstanding one, and one that continues to be valued in the squash community.

J: In materials, you’re talking about things to be able to run tournaments and so forth? Or...
K: Tournaments, starting clinics, best ways to advertise, how to effectively run a pro shop. Another role that I think we will look to continue to provide is there are great advantages to centralizing a lot of communications. What we can do as an organization might be very difficult for teaching pros. So, in terms of coordinating them from a communications standpoint, we can serve as that central point of contact so that they can be resources to each other.

J: You talked about doing some focus groups when we met at the US Junior Open. Are you looking to try doing some focus groups with the teaching pros, perhaps at the US Championships?
K: I’m not sure at this point what we’ll formally do at Nationals. But, I do intend to go out and visit as many if not all the local organizations in the May and June time frame. Which also means meeting not only with the SRA boards but also with as many teaching pros as possible, either in group settings or one on one to get a sense of what they’re looking for from the USSRA.

J: How would you respond today to players who don’t feel there has been enough value to warrant joining the USSRA?
K: Well, having been a customer of the USSRA—I refer to it as customer because I think that’s the point of view that we would like to take as an organization on our membership, because we don’t want to take anything for granted—for over 20 years, I can certainly understand that perspective and point of view. There are certain core things that the USSRA should and must provide, including a ratings and rankings system that is timely and accurate, and that is one of our top priorities right now. In addition, we need to provide a national championships tournament structure that engages as broad a base of players as possible. And, finally, we need to serve as a resource across all levels on squash, participation, and how to grow the game. If we can focus on delivering those core value propositions to the members, then I think we’ll take some great steps forward. You know, the USSRA (it should not be forgotten) plays a lot key roles that aren’t necessarily front and center to the members including insurance coverage for member clubs, insurance coverage for events that are sanctioned. Also, we play a vital role in engaging with the USOC on our elite athlete and national team programs. So there are a lot of things that don’t necessarily directly provide benefits to the members but serve to promote squash within the US.

J: When you refer to the National Tournament structure, what are you getting at there? Are you talking about expanding the events that are out there, creating a qualification system, or what?
K: Well, the first thing we need to do is deliver ratings and rankings on a regular, timely and accurate basis. And then that will be the main foundation for where we can take the tournament structure from there. Where we go from there is sort of up for consideration. There have been a lot of discussions in terms of what could and/or should be done from a tournament perspective. From a structure view, right now we have a lot of US Championships—the skill levels, age groups, US Open [pro] which is really the pinnacle, the US Open which is closed (the SL Green Men’s and the women’s), the US Men’s Team Championships, the US Women’s Team Championships which is also known as the Howe Cup, Men’s Doubles, Women’s Doubles, Junior Doubles, Mixed Doubles, US Junior Open, US Junior Closed. So that is currently the National Tournament structure. Looking forward you can easily see a time where we’re helping the local SRA’s coordinate state championships, where regional championships perhaps feed into nationals so that we’re able to have more people compete on a national basis for our national championships. How that all fits together we’ll want to consider over the next six months.

J: The ratings and rankings haven’t been updated for over a year. How soon can the membership expect to have that changed?
K: I would like to point out that the junior ratings and rankings are current and are real-time in the sense that they are updated as information comes in. With that, it provides us with the experience to go and do what we need to do to make sure the adult rankings are accurate and updated. But all of the foundation work is done, and I expect us to have that completed certainly prior to nationals in order to enable us to [make] more accurate seedings. So I expect the adult rankings and ratings to be updated and out before Nationals in March and available on the web through the RailStation system.

J: Short term, what are you focusing on immediately? Sounds like adult ratings and rankings is one.
K: Yes. Also putting on successful national championships;and increasing or enhancing the performance and useability of RailStation. Those are the three short-term focuses.

J: How would you define successful national championships? Are you talking numbers or other things?
K: Well, everybody defines what is a positive tournament experience a little bit differently. From my perspective, I’m not defining success in these events by the number of people who participate. But, in the sense that people leave the tournament with the feeling that it was a well-run event, that they themselves had a positive tournament experience and that they can begin to expect even more from USSRA-run events, then I think that’s a positive step.

J: Do you perceive down the road the USSRA playing more of an active role in the actual work leading up to, and the amenities available for, national championships?
K: That’s an interesting question in the sense that we have to go through some prioritization for where we want to focus our time as an organization. Clearly there need to be straightforward and defined roles and responsibilities. And moving forward, we’re going to do a better job at defining those. But we’ll always partner with the local SRA’s to pull off nationals. Whether the USSRA takes over these events from a staff perspective or whether we engage local SRA’s on a contractual basis, is something we’re going to evaluate coming out of this year’s nationals. One thing we will be striving for is a more consistent tournament experience. How that’s arrived upon hopefully will be part of the background instead of the foreground.

J: RailStation has been in the works for nearly a year now. What can you tell us about how its development is going, what capabilities it has today and what the ultimate goals are with RailStation? Can you give a timeframe on some of these things?
K: It’s important to keep in mind that RailStation is a lot more than just the ratings and rankings. It’s an integrated network-based system to fulfill many needs that the organization has. Membership processing, information management, league and ladder management, tournament management, ratings and rankings. And the benefits of it are just huge. The system will truly transform the organization, not only from an internal process point of view, but also from how members experience the organization. It will allow us to generate timely ratings and rankings. It will facilitate for tournament organizers the ability to do online registration for tournaments, setting up tournament draws based on ratings and rankings and seedings, and then ultimately enabling quick reporting of tournament results, all this in addition to a host of functions that the USSRA organization will be able to do internally. So there’s a whole range of benefits for the system.

I think it’s a little bit unfair to say that it’s been a year in rolling out. Unfortunately, the system was put under a lot of pressure to deliver every aspect that I’ve just described all at once. As a result, progress has been slow at times. I can say that certainly the ratings and rankings for the juniors is being delivered, and adults will be delivered very soon. While there are performance and useability issues, which we’re going to be addressing—by performance, I mean slow—but at the same time I really want to underscore that very high expectations for all of the systems were placed on it immediately and in some cases we didn’t provide enough time in order to pilot and test some of the functions. And as a result, again, it wasn’t set up to succeed in that way. The challenge at this point is to make sure everybody understands how to use the system, why it’s important, and ultimately I just ask that people recognize that there are benefits to squash over all the US to be patient as we complete the transition to the system.

One thing I can say is that moving forward we will be regular and consistent in our communications about the system and what people can expect from the system and when. And I think that that’s very important. More information is to come.

J: Do you get the sense that there is little in the way of cohesion among the various entities in the squash community? If so, how might you go about developing a more tightknit squash community?
K: Well I think there’s a big opportunity to bring all these groups together to work more closely to promote squash in general. And as I said before, I see that as a very important role that the USSRA can play.

J: What do you think the potential for the USSRA and the sport of squash is in the US? There’s a lot of speculation about how many players there are in the US. Some numbers that get kicked around are upwards of 200K, 300K, some people think less than 100K. The sport has not been surveyed in so long, but if you take some of those figures the membership percentages are pretty low in terms of the overall potential members [The USSRA currently has approximately 8000 members]. Is your expectation that the USSRA can become something that would be a benefit to every player, or would people expect that it would still be something for people who are playing competitively, whether it be leagues or local tournaments or nationals, and so forth?
K: Right…it’s a long question with a lot of aspects to it. One of the first things that we need to do, and something that the USSRA should do on a regular basis, is have a sense for how many people are playing the game and how regularly, and when we have that type of information it will be a lot easier to get a sense for how many are members.

To the question of who should membership target, I think different levels of players have different expecations from a nationall organization, and membership could be in some ways tailored to that, so that’s always a possibility as well. My vision of membership is that the benefits one receives are readily apparent as a member; in addition so are all the things that the USSRA is doing to promote and increase participation in the game, and therefore any squash player would want to support that mission.

J: There are a lot of people who play – let’s take at my club for example – who are not members, but who are there 5 days a week playing, so obviously they’ve got a lot of passion for the game just like people who like to play tournaments but maybe their needs are just different. Maybe they don’t play tournaments, maybe they just like the workout, the social aspect, whatever. Do you think it’s likely, or are you trying to do more research and trying to figure out whether there’s value (or could be value) for a membership for those types of players as well? Maybe that has more to do with relationships with the clubs themselves and less with the players.
K: Again, after the USSRA has delivered on the core value proposition that we offer in terms of ratings & rankings, tournament structure and ongoing communications with regards to squash and what’s going on with squash in the US, then we can sort of look beyond that and say what are things that we should be doing within the squash community? I view the USSRA’s role as not only just serving our members but serving the squash community as whole in the US.

J: In terms of problems to be solved by you as a CEO, what do you see as the most pressing and how do you plan to approach them? RailStation – getting that out and bringing some of the functionality that you’ve just been talking about -- is obviously pretty high on your priority list. What are a couple of the others? Is there anything in particular that you see that’s got to be addressed now and are putting a lot of emphasis on? Or is that a difficult question to address given that the USSRA is now in the throes of all their 8 or 9 national championships over the next couple months?
K: I think it’s a really easy question -- I really don’t see any problems with the USSRA and US squash; all I see are opportunities. All the raw materials are there in order to make the organization a better one, to better serve the membership and to better serve the squash community as a whole. Squash is in a very fortunate position to have so many passionate people who want to see the sport succeed and to see participation grow, and these people are willing to dedicate themselves and then commit a lot of time in order to do that.

In addition, the game ultimately really sells itself. It’s a great game because it’s a great workout, it has tremendous social aspects, and it’s a lifelong sport. So once we get past some of the very basic issues of delivering on our promises to members, it’s really nothing but opportunities in terms of doing what we can in order to promote the game. I don’t see any major problems. Which is not to say there aren’t things that we as an organization do need to deliver on.

If I can continue on with that answer in terms of problems, again there’s nothing but opportunities. There are a lot of things that we can do, organizationally, in order to promote the game. In terms of making ourselves more attractive, to sponsorship dollars, in terms of marketing ourselves more effectively as a brand and as something to get involved in, in terms of marketing ourselves and targeting different segments of potential players, bringing in companies and other partners such as Squash Magazine and other groups interested in seeing the game succeed. To my point about the need to bring everyone involved in promoting the game in the US together, there are a lot of creative things that we can do in the traditional sports marketing standpoint that really haven’t yet been tried for squash and I think once we’re set up in order to be able to take advantage of those opportunities, then you’ll really begin to see the game grow quickly.

K: You asked me sort of who I am as a person. Before I answer that, I just wanted to say, to thank Palmer [Page] also for his service for over a year in this role. He has done a tremendous amount to re-energize the organization and it’s important to acknolwledge everything that he did contribute.

As far as me as a person, describing it, I would just call myself fortunate. It’s an honor to be in this position, that I’m in. I’ve received a lot from the game throughout my life and have through squash in my life, and it’s a privilege to be able to serve in this capacity. From everything that I’ve heard of Palmer I’m sure that he feels the same way. I’m also fortunate in the sense that I had Fred and Carol Weymuller who brought me into the game in Rochester, and of course very fortunate to be married to a wonderful woman -- that sort of wraps up about me!