Kingswood College master in charge of squash, Ian Knott-Craig, was recently named Coach of the Year at a Squash South Africa awards evening.
Kingswood College master in charge of squash, Ian Knott-Craig, was recently named Coach of the Year at a Squash South Africa awards evening.
Although Knott-Craig was not at the function, he received a call from chairman of Eastern Province Squash, Alan Stapleton, to say he had won the award.
Stapleton had nominated him for it a few months earlier. Kingswood headmaster, Jon Trafford, says he is delighted that Knott-Craig has been recognised – not only for what he does for squash at Kingswood, but also outside.
He said this was a massive achievement, both for the school and also for the children who have been coached by Knott-Craig.
Knott-Craig himself said he was surprised, not only at winning the award but by being nominated for it, as he has only been coaching squash for the past four years.
However, in those four years, he has taken the Kingswood squash team from strength to strength and they are now one of the top sides in the country.
He has also made an impact in the greater Grahamstown area, offering private coaching lessons and initiating a development club, which currently consists of pupils from various township schools.
This project has been recognised by Squash South Africa, who have donated money for kit. Knott-Craig said his passion is not just for the sport, but also for seeing the enjoyment of the game from his pupils.
Ian was a hockey coach before he was asked to head up the school's squash club.
Until that stage, he was just a passionate social squash player. He has since received his level one coaching qualification and coached over 60 players to provincial level.
So how has he done it? He started, he says, by putting huge amounts of effort into his new assignment.
His first goal was to expose his team to top quality squash so he invited various senior players to run workshops.
This paid off. He entered the Kingswood team into a Cape Town competition only months after taking over as coach, and they beat many of the top Western Cape schools.
On the strength of that, Kingswood received invitations to play at various schools tournaments across the country.
In 2013 Kingswood won the Eastern Province section of the Top Schools squash tournament, which took them to the national competition – where they'll compete this year for the third time.
Even more of an achievement is that, for the first time in the history of the tournament, Eastern Province will be represented by the same school in both the boys' and girls' sections of the competition, after Kingswood girls won the playoffs recently.
Knott-Craig remembers starting with quite a small number of players.
Now, four years later, the club has grown to over 120 members.
It’s not only the squash court that keeps Knott-Craig busy.
He is also a part-time lecturer at Rhodes University Education Department, head of the Kingswood Bridging Year programme and facilitates a partnership between Kingswood, Mary Waters and St Mary’s.
He is also the co-ordinator of a computer project which is installing computer labs in five rurals school in and around Grahamstown.
As if all that weren't enough, he's in the process of finishing off his PhD in educational leadership and management at Rhodes.
However, he says that his biggest reward is "seeing the kids smile”.
