Player Profile - Mark Froot
Written by Trevor McGuinness

Mark Froot The most passionate, enthusiastic and talented player on the team hails from outside Boston [Sudbury, Mass] where he has trained for the past several years. Mark catapulted to the top rankings in junior squash shortly after taking up the sport and has never looked back. His success in regional, national and international squash events uniquely qualify him as a leader who brings a wealth of experience and depth to the team.

This year, he added a string of victories to his impressive resume of wins including a convincing touncing of all his opponents at the highly competitive Princeton Juniors selection tournament in the spring. This victory added sufficient points to qualify him for one of two automatic berths on the team that he will captain Mark trains at Harvard University with Mohammed Ayaz who Mark describes as his mentor as well as his coach. He played the first position on his Belmont Hills High School team leading an impressive squad that included top ranked teammate John Fullam, who was recently closen for the US BU23 Squad.

Mark also excels off the court winning as many scholastic awards as squash titles. He is a 2005 Boston Globe All Scholastic winner, ISL MVP and New England Interscholastic Winner. He is a gifted and renown writer and essayist, but probably is best known in his hometown as a "DJ" who knows current music and composers better than most others. Mark was highly recruited by all the top college squash team coaches, but chose the world famous Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania where he will begin studies in September.

Mark is expected to land a top position on coach Craig Thorpe-Clark's team and will join All American Gilly Lane, another BU 23 Squad player, in mounting a formidable challenge for the 2007 Intercollegiate title. Before capturing that championship, Mark aims to achieve a personal best result in New Zealand in both the individuals and team competitions.

Domestic Selection Tournaments

2005 Hunter Lott U19, Finalist
2005 US Junior Closed Championships U19, 5th Place
2004 Junior US Open U19, Quarterfinalist
2004 Hunter Lott U19, 3rd Place

Other Domestic Tournaments:

2005 Boston Globe All Scholastic : ISL MVP and New England Interscholastic Winner

International Tournaments:

2005 German Open 33rd
2005 Dutch Open 35th
2004 Scottish Open 12th

Other Tidbits from Mark

Hobbies/Interests: Music, Spinning records, Making beats, DJing (Revolutionary DJs and Team Funk), snowboarding, running,

Favotite Athlete:Muhammad Ali - He could say everything and back it up. One of the most dedicated and talented athletes of all time. "It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe."

On the Game: Make it painful. Nicks.

Thank you: My family who supported me through my ups, downs, wins and losses. Everyone I ever trained with and let me drag them onto the court when they did not want to play. All my friends and those who never yelled at me when I blew them off to play or waited up for me. Everyone who ever upset me or didn't believe in me, it helped me work harder. And thank you to Mo, Iíve been with you for 6 years now, and you probably disagree with the fact that I'm even taking the time to write info out for this team, but you're not a squash coach, you are a mentor. I just want to make you all proud.