Squash Magazine

Peter Briggs Concertmaster By James Zug 2003 Photo by Mac Carbonell

“You decided to put your ego in your back pocket.” That sentence, written by Jack Barnaby in 1984, has meant more to Peter Briggs than anything else he has ever read. Barnaby, his Harvard coach, was referring to Briggs’ decision to quit Wall Street and start up his own Three-Wall Street dot-com: the www.ballfeedingangryparentfendingoff-countlesshoursondarkwinterroads.com job of coaching young squash players. But it also clarified that ego pocketing, a delicate thing for men born with silver racquets in their hand, would be the idee fixe in the symphony of the life of Peter Briggs. Briggs won back-to-back national intercollegiate titles and captained Harvard his senior year to a national title. He had a solid singles career and excelled on the doubles court. The legacy of Peter Briggs, though, might be with juniors. He coached the new men’s varsity team at Cornell. He had a successful four years, putting Cornell into the top 10. In June 1988 he took the baton of head squash professional at Apawamis in Rye, New York, where he now works with names like Joseph Raho, number one ranked under 15 boys and Lily Lorentzen, just 16, a national two-time junior champion. (The full profile of Briggs can be found in March 2003's edition of Squash Magazine.)