Who: Faraz Hussain
Connection to squash: Creator: www.SquashClub.org
Occupation: Jack of all trades, master of none..
Number of members: 3200 virtual members
Office: Peoria, Illinois Home:
How long is your commute? 8 miles
Method? Car or Bicycle depending on the weather and if I'm not too sore from squash..
Number of Emails per day: 40
Number of voice mails per day: 3
Number of text messages per day: 0-1
Last conference attended: Abaqus user conference in Boston
Number of plane flights in 2007: 12
Last book read: The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations by James Surowiecki
Favourite gadget/technology: My broken fake Ipod from ebay
Interests, hobbies, outside of squash: Cycling, collecting LP records, playing guitar and listening to audio books
Location of last vacation: Singapore/Malaysia
Most rewarding or satisfying parts of job: Very little stress
Perks of your role: 40 hours work week
Things you could do without: Aggressive drivers
Frustrating aspects of your role: Emailing people who never reply to your emails.
What motivated you to create www.squashclub.org?
I have been playing squash since I was ten. I grew up in different country's and got to play the game mostly in Pakistan and Brazil. I continued the game in college, but unfortunately I never was able to find any consistent partners to play with. So from age 10 to age 25 I probably averaged playing no more than once a month, even though I would have gladly played everyday had there been someone to play with.
After graduating and starting my job as an engineer, I decided to rekindle my passion for the game . There was a big opportunity to use the Internet to bring players together. That is how SquashClub.org started and through it I been able to unite over three thousand players worldwide. I have used it to find players all over the world as I
travel a lot and always bring my racquet with me.
What does TV mean for squash? What's holding us back in this regard?
I think the future of all TV is the internet . Sites like psalive.tv are doing a good job broadcasting hi quality matches for anyone to watch around the world at a fraction of the cost of having to use TV/Satellite .
Squash and the Olympics, thoughts or ideas?
I don't think Olympics is the silver bullet we think it is. The glory days of the Olympics are now behind us. People are inundated with choice so a few minute blip on squash is not going to make any difference with regards to promoting the game.
To date, accomplishments you are most proud?
Seeing SquashClub.org grow to 3000 members.
Unfinished business, priorities for 2008?
Add more pictures and videos to SquashClub.org, make it a more complete guide for a beginner to pick up all aspects of the game.
Greatest change you would like to see in the running of our sport
The only way squash is going to grow is if each of us takes the time to introduce our friends to the game and keep them interested by playing with them. Too many players only want to play better players and ignore
the rest. In squash you can get a decent workout playing anyone by handicapping the game for the stronger player. So we should focus on getting our friends on the court and keeping them there!
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