Coach ups local squash standards
There are times in your life when you feel you are in the company of a great human being, someone like John Lingashi, Mpumalanga's professional squash coach.
Despite his decades of expertise in the sport, he remains humble, laid-back and just so pleasant to be around. Lingashi, however, played tennis at school in the small mining town of Kalulushi, Zambia, until he was 14 years old.
“We were a group of five boys who got lifts together. One of the boys played squash and after our tennis game, we’d go and wait outside the courts for him to finish. We always wondered what he was doing in there, and so one day we also went in and had a knock. I tried squash that first time and I never went back to tennis. It just blew me away,” Lingashi says.
“It is an amazing sport. Many of the people I coach get completely addicted and want to play every day. It’s great for fitness, hand-eye coordination because it is such a fast game, and keeping school- children on their toes on the court and their minds quick in the classroom.”
At 16, the talented sportsman was selected for the national Zambian u/19 side, and after three years, he graduated to the senior side going on to represent his country for five more years. The 48-year-old says his greatest achievement was playing for his country.
“It is a feeling like no other. We won the Eastern Central (Africa) Champs three times when I was a junior and four times as a senior. I was fortunate to play in tournaments all over the continent,” he explains.
He adds that most of the best Zambian sportsmen and -women came from the copper belt, as the sporting facilities in the mining towns were top-notch.
From Zambia, after an eight-year stint working as a personnel assistant for an oil company, Lingashi headed to Namibia as the national coach for eight years. He moved to the Lowveld with his wife and two children in 2009, as there was a need for a squash coach to spearhead junior development in the province.
“There is so much talent here. I have seen it! If some of those boys and girls had carried on playing, we’d be seeing their names on national team lists today,” he says.
Some of John’s former pupils are on those very lists. Former Lowveld High pupil, Panashe Sithole obtained a squash scholarship to St Mary’s School Waverley in Johannesburg and is in the current u/19 South African team.
Her brother, Wayne, left town before her, also on a scholarship to St Stithians College, and is “still squashing at the University of Pretoria,” Lingashi says. Barberton’s Nothando Ntemane also went to Pretoria Girls High School with her squash talents, and Hoërskool Nelspruit’s (NHS) Neil Henning is currently in the top four of the u/16 rankings.
“It feels great to have developed them to a certain point, but I wish I could have stayed their coach until they got to the top,” he says.
