I would be interested to see the household income breakdown by sport. My sense is that it varies quite a bit.
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Yeah, I bet sailing would be super high
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On a couple visits, when we got to the athletic stop on the tour and the guide finished their standard talk and asked for questions, my S24 asked about squash courts.
In fact he plays squash, so OK. But the LOOKS he has gotten! The poor UVA tour guide (very nice, very composed young woman) could not entirely keep a straight face, but was finally able to get out, “Yes, yes we do have squash courts.”
I guess I am saying I bet squash would be pretty high too.
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It is worth noting that the best squash players in the world tend to be from the Middle East (places like Egypt and Pakistan) and Asia (India/Singapore/Malyasia) and over the past several years players from these countries have dominated the positions on many of the top US college squash teams.
In these countries, squash is not an “elite” sport, but rather a sport that everyone can play, which probably has something to do with the dominance the players from these countries enjoy. The players from these countries that play for US colleges and universities are generally not wealthy and like many student athletes, use their excellence in sports to gain admission to top universities.
The recruitment of these foreign players has made it harder (much harder) for top US junior players (even the wealthy ones) to use their sport to benefit in the college admissions process.
If you look at the rosters of the top US college squash teams, you will see ethnic diversity that would be a shining example of global representation on any part of campus.
And before anyone starts talking about wealth/access, to play ANY sport at the college level, it is expensive. Sports like squash, fencing, and even sailing are much less expensive to administer at the college level than sports like football, basketball or lacrosse.
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That’s why it would be interesting to see sport by sport breakdown.
I bet there would be some surprises like running and soccer, but just speculating like we all are.
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I am curious if there is variance between scholarship/merit schools and meets need schools. And there might be some variance linked to the prestige/rigor of the school, regardless of strength of the athletic program.
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I know a lot of the players are international, but I guess this is the part I would want to see verification of.
For fun I just looked up the current Harvard men’s squash roster:
13 people, 3 from the US, and then one each from Egypt, South Africa, Israel, Ecuador, Ireland, Switzerland, India, Canada, England, and Malaysia.
I really don’t know how that would shake out. Someone more familiar with non-US secondary schools might have some guesses, but even then who knows, it is complicated who ends up as students at the sorts of international secondary schools that regularly feed to Harvard and such.
I think it is a wealthy sport in the US for the most part. I had never even heard of squash growing up. I always thought squash was a vegetable I disliked or a type of sweet drink or pop (soda) --I think it is a drink in both my parents’ home countries. I didn’t learn about its existence as a sport until I was an adult.
However, there are also community access organizations like CItySquash in the Bronx, which are both athletic organizations and college/prep school placement organizations: Squash and Education Alliance – CitySquash So at least through such orgs, there are low(er) income kids exposed to squash who play in k-12 schools and university.
Absolutely, although I think the scale of such programs tends to be very small compared to mainstream US sports with similar youth programs.
Several of the international athletes I know get quite a bit of money. There is a huge difference between being “privileged” in several of these countries and affording US education. Heck, even here there is a large gap between the two.
Also, why are we always hammering on squash? Look at the top Lacrosse teams in the country. Field Hockey seems to be just as bad. Baseball? The kids in my town are traveling all over the country for week long tournaments…
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I think that was my fault–it just happens my S24 plays squash.
That said, holding aside the international factor, I think it is also because squash takes dedicated courts. You can paint the lines for lacrosse and field hockey on a football field, and baseball fields are very common. But schools with squash courts are very uncommon in comparison.
I totally agree, though, that in reality the sorts of kids who are competitive for recruiting in these sports are usually year-round athletes, which typically means participating in expensive travel club teams and summer programs, not just the school team.
The advantage of sports like squash is that every player has a rating that is comparable to another player anywhere in the world
In theory, the college squash coach could recruit players sight unseen based entirely on the player’s ratings.
I believe a team like Harvard’s has a minimum # of spots for US players because the best players are generally international.
I would think it would vary quite a bit as well particularly if one starts looking at the non traditional NCAA sports or niche sports such as sailing, fencing, squash, etc.
Not to mention the many US boarding schools with a lot of international kids. Any one of the kids on that roster could’ve gone to Exeter for example 
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Instead of looking at traditionally elite sports like squash and tennis, why not look at stats of the football players? As far as diversity vs privilege, the roster speaks for itself. (Count the number of private school alum and public school alum from privileged communities). I would also be interested in seeing post graduate employment and how many end up in investment banking? https://gocrimson.com/sports/football/roster
Different (but similar) school and before TO (just)… the US player we know was told to get X SAT score for support which would allow the coach to get the Egyptian student they actually wanted.
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Also streetsquash in NYC, and Metrosquash in Chicago
Both my kids played squash when they were young at a club that hosts an international tourney each year. It seemed to me that many of the international pro players had come from affluent families. I also agree that some of the international players who play in US colleges come from US prep schools.
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When it comes to niche sports and their conflation with wealth and white people, I fear many posters are skating to where the puck was. If one were to look at the rosters of Harvard’s fencing and golf teams:
One could conclude few of the rosters are predominantly white, and it is unclear whether the athletes came from wealthy families. Given the high number of Asian and Asian Americans represented, while it is possible their families are wealthy, it is also possible these recruits merely have the commitment to education and excellence that is culturally embodied by many Asian families, and that sacrifices were made to put them in positions to succeed (like private HS).
As this is a Harvard oriented thread, I used their rosters, however most of the rosters at elite college for these niche sports likely have similar characteristics.
Sports like squash, fencing and golf may be more accessible to Asian athletes as the qualities necessary for success have more to do with quickness, agility, tactics and mental toughness than outright physical size or strength required by sports like football/basketball/etc,
While Asian and Asian American participation is varsity sports is a relatively recent phenomenon, putting together competitive sports teams are nothing if not meritocratic and are a welcome salve to the DEI policies that have been discriminatory to many.
It is worth noting that when Stanford tried to cancel its niche sports programs, doing so would have virtually wiped out Asian/Asian American representation for Stanford’s varsity programs. Thank goodness they came to their senses.
Anyway, if you didn’t know niche sports are no longer only the privilege of the white and wealthy, you heard it here first. They are a venue for excellence and provide access to education. Who can argue with that?
I agree about the not-white part, but I’m not so sure about not-wealthy, and specifically not if that is just based on premises like not-white = not-wealthy, or particularly that Asian + niche sports = not-wealthy.
I guess it depends on what people mean by wealthy or not wealthy. But in our feederish HS, it is true there are plenty of Asian kids in the niche sports. But these are also mostly kids of business people, doctors, engineers, and so on. That’s really just because most of the kids in the HS come from families like that, not limited to but including the Asian kids.
And most of the other high schools that are competing in these sports seems similar to me–they are mostly well-regarded independent private schools, with some well-regarded publics from high-SES districts too. But not so much the big public football or basketball powerhouses.
OK, so to be really blunt about it, the nature of the few high schools that offer these sports in my area seems to be largely filtering for kids from at least professional class families. And these days that population is not just white for sure. But I remain unsure that means they could not be skewing wealthier than sports like football or basketball.
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They are not but does that mean that there is no value in the niche sports? I mean, the football team at my daughter’s school has 120+ MALE players. They are mostly AA or white, so not particularly diverse either. Just not completely white. And has anyone taken a look at how many men’s sports teams Alabama has because of football?
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