Princeton University Athletics
Peter Yik
January 07, 2000 | General
Peter Yik has found a second home in a new country, and he has loved every minute of it.
One of the perks of playing squash is the travel. Take Peter Yik, for example. He and his squash racket have certainly seen the world.
Europe. Africa. Australia. Heis been to them all.
So what's his favorite destination?
"Vancouver," he says. "To tell you the truth, I've never been to a nicer place than Vancouver."
Okay, so maybe he's prejudiced. Vancouver, in British Columbia, about three hours north of Seattle and one hour north of the U.S.-Canada border, is the hometown of the Princeton senior.
This travelin' man has made himself quite at home in New Jersey, however. Yik came to Princeton with lofty expectations placed upon him, and he's responded with one of the top careers in Tiger squash history.
"I've been involved in Princeton squash as a player and coach for 25 years," says Princeton coach Bob Callahan '77. "In terms of absolute raw athletic ability, he is one of the best players I've seen. He can be one of the top players in Princeton history, and that's saying something. That's how good he is."
The high point of his first three years came last March, when Yik breezed through the individual tournament to win the national championship. Beginning as the No. 3 seed, he took out No. 2 seed Dave McNeely of Amherst in the semifinals before playing perhaps his best match as a collegian in defeating Harvard's Tim Wyant 15-4, 15-12, 15-2 in the championship. Wyant, the ninth seed, is the younger brother of former Tigers Jack '96 and Missy Wyant '98.
"I had some good wins in the tournament," says Yik, a three-time first-team All-America and the 1999 Ivy League Player of the Year. "I came out in the final and was really focused. I knew it was what I really wanted. You don't get an opportunity like that too many times, and you have to take advantage of it."
The win in the individual tournament ended a season in which Princeton was clearly the fourth best team in the country. The Tigers were a perfect 11-0 against teams ranked fifth and below, but they went 0-5 against the three ahead of them, Trinity, Harvard and Yale.
"Last year was a little disappointing from the team standpoint," Yik says. iWe lost a lot of seniors from the year before, and we asked guys to step up three, four positions. As a team, the atmosphere was great. I was very happy with the way we played and practiced and traveled together. Now we want to win."
To that end, Princeton has assembled an incoming freshman class that is dominant, one that could have four freshmen playing in the top 6.
"Our team will be young," Yik says. "Everyone wants to win the league, though. We'll be disappointed if we don't. We're going to go in thinking We're going to win, not that maybe we can win or if everything goes right then we might have a chance to win. That has to be our focus."
One of the incoming freshmen is David Yik, Peter's younger brother. They grew up in the all-American family, except of course that they're Canadians. Two brothers, the sons of parents who are both doctors. Their father was also a college basketball player and coach. Together the brothers were introduced to squash by their father when Peter was 12 and David was nine.
Prior to that Peter played a variety of team and individual sports, including tennis, soccer and baseball. It was squash that impressed him most.
"It's a very fast game," he says. "It's very physically demanding, and you spend a lot of time thinking on the court."
After traveling to locations such as Egypt, England, Scotland, Australia and New Zealand to play as a junior, Peter chose Princeton over Harvard. He is unbeaten the last two years in regular-season matches, and last year he joined with Julia Beaver in giving the Tigers the menis and womenis individual champions. Now he's joined by his brother in pursuit of a national team championship, the one goal that has eluded him.
Along the way he hopes he has helped spread the word about the game he loves.
"It's cool to see people hitting squash balls," he says. "It's nice to see people taking up the game. I hope that we've done something to bring attention to the sport. It's a fast moving game. People know all about the basketball team in winter at Jadwin, but maybe they're not aware that there is a fun sport to watch being played on the C level of Jadwin. Hopefully people will come out and see us."
If they don't, they're missing out on something special.
by Jerry Price