At the end of a school year where many Warriors set records or brought their teams on impressive postseason runs, 880 UW student-athletes, administrative staff, coaches, and guests sat at the edge of their seats at the end of the 64th annual Athletic Awards Banquet to see who won the evening’s most coveted awards: the Totzke and Marsden trophies for male and female athlete of the year; respectively.
Following the nominees for the Totzke trophy, PhD student Cameron Seth was announced as the recipient, the first time a squash athlete has won the award since Eric Dingle in 2009. He stayed on stage and joined third-year Niki Shemirani in making UW history when she received the Marsden trophy, making her the first squash player to do so since Micaala Seth, Cameron’s sister, in 2013.
The pair shared a hug and a round of applause from all in attendance before walking off. The duo is the first squash pair to win both of the awards in the same year. After each securing the OUA MVP awards for women’s and men’s squash with a combined record of 11 wins and no losses, it’s easy to see why.
“We’re great friends,” says Seth. “We train together all the time,” added Shemirani.
Niki Shemirani
Shemirani is entering her fourth year of systems design engineering. (Photo credit: Abdullah Pathan)
Shemirani’s journey to success began in Iran, where she was born and raised. An exuberant and athletic child, her parents enrolled her in sports such as swimming, skating, and skiing before eventually signing her up for squash at 7. She fell in love after the first session and has been playing ever since.
After booking a flight to Toronto at 16, Shemirani faced a new challenge: establishing herself in a community that had grown up together as a foreigner who knew nothing about Canada.
“It was really hard at first,” she says. “These were all people who grew up together and have played together, and I’m good but not exactly at their level.” With aspirations to play on the professional circuit, Shemirani practiced tirelessly before abruptly having to stop when the COVID-19 pandemic began. But pressure can burst a pipe or make a diamond, and she decided she’d become a diamond.
“I’d sit at home and watch YouTube videos to improve my skills, I’d try to go for runs, and it was really cold,” she reminisces. “A lot of people I was playing with quit during or after the pandemic.”
Having sown the seeds to become a great player, she reaped the benefits at 18 when she competed in the Canadian Junior Open (CJO). In a tournament featuring upwards of 300 athletes from 20 countries, Shemirani won the U19 division. She says this is the moment when things began to click for her. Now with a tournament win and her family’s ongoing support, the systems design engineering major was all too happy to join UW’s team when she began university.
She’s left her mark on the program in more ways than one; she’s designed training plans for teammates, is a vocal leader and has only continued to develop as a player.
In February’s 3-day OUA championship tournament, each athlete played an individual match against one opponent in a best-of-5 format, where team points were awarded based on the results. Most games were incredibly competitive and came down to the wire, except for when Shemirani took the court. Across 6 matches, she won 15 games and lost none, and finished with a field-high rating of 5.71. For comparison, top players worldwide have a rating of 6.0+. But she expects even more of herself; she is the #124-ranked women’s squash player in the world as of the time of this writing, after all.
“I really want to push and see how high I can go [after graduation],” she says. “I’m aiming for top 20 [in the world].”
Despite many extraordinary accomplishments at a young age, she says the moments that have impacted her career and life the most came after losses.
“Sometimes you lose [a close match], and you learn more from those than wins,” she says. “I always think about what I could’ve done better, I reflect. As athletes, sometimes we win and forget everything, but you need to sit down and think about what happened.”
Now entering her fourth year, she plans on “doing it all again” next season.
“I’m so grateful to have this opportunity to speak, and to have such great coaches and teammates, and an incredibly supportive family,” she says. “It’s great for the squash community [at UW] to see if you put in hours, you’ll get results.”
Cameron Seth
Cameron Seth is in his final year of a five year PhD in computer science. (Photo credit: Abdullah Pathan)
An injury derailing a promising career is every athlete’s deepest fear, but Cameron Seth has never been one to run away from a challenge. He’s conquered professional squash players, completed an undergraduate degree in computer science, and is now pursuing a doctorate. So what was it that threatened to permanently take him off the court? Femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) is a genetic condition that causes the hip joints to rub against one another.
After finishing his first round of schooling in 2016 and walking away with a Shield of Excellence award, Seth played professionally in the Professional Squash Association. He’d already won the CJO when he was 18, and now with nothing but time and resources at his disposal, he increased the intensity of his training.
Aside from Micaala Seth, Cameron has another sister, a brother, and parents who played squash for UW. The family dynamic and Seth’s individual skill culminated in a professional title in New York in 2019.
“Most athletes will go their entire careers without [a title], and I had to beat two guys who were top 100 in the world to win. I worked really hard and it paid off,” he recalls.
He achieved a peak ranking of 113th in the world before injuries came knocking. His success had come at a price; the pain from FAI and overuse became unbearable, sidelining him for 2.5 years. The normal recovery time is eight months.
“I took time off, then the pandemic happened, and I couldn’t train anyway, so I decided to get my master’s degree,” he says.
After returning to UW to complete his PhD, Seth was overjoyed to return to a team environment. Ten years after he last represented the black and gold, he’d have a chance to measure his skill against younger, more athletic players at the OUA championships. Having sat out so long, he knew he’d need to use skill and experience rather than brute force. Fortunately, skill and experience were all he needed.
Seth won five matches with no losses, and finished with an otherworldly rating of 6.69. His team finished fourth, and after nearly three years of inactivity, Seth had another trophy to add to his cabinet.
Like Shemirani, he accepted the Totzke trophy with poise.
“Sometimes squash isn’t as recognized as some other sports, so to win [the Totzke trophy] and get that recognition, it’s an honour,” he says.
With Shemirani entering her final year and Seth graduating, the squash duo aren’t turning their back on the sport that has defined their lives. Close friends, they’ll be playing in a national tournament in Vancouver at the end of April. Both praise the Warriors’ responsiveness and availability as contributing factors to their triumphs.
“I’ve spoken to athletes at other schools; a lot don’t get much support from their athletics department, so we definitely notice the help we get from ours,” Seth says. “It’s what leads us to having players like [Shemirani], and it’s why we have a good team.”
“[Seth and I] push each other to be better. We won’t get [complacent]. Just because we won awards doesn’t mean we’ll settle down. Athletes get hungrier after success,” Shemirani says about their future ventures.
