In his 50s, he still hasn’t lost his passion for sport. In his last year of college at Wharton, with his organized athletic career seemingly on the verge of winding down, Mr. Berliner said his tennis coach persuaded him to try squash.
“I was captain of the tennis team and my coach told me I would love it,” Mr. Berliner said. Mr. Berliner heeded his suggestion. “He was right.”
Squash is on par with golf in the real estate industry, a pastime enjoyed by so many prominent figures, including the landlords Steve Green and Edward Minskoff, it has become as much a conduit for business and networking as exercise. And while it’s hard to find a golf green in proximity to Midtown, there are plenty of squash courts, including one right across Park Avenue from Mr. Berliner’s offices at Studley.
Not only is the sport a kind of condensed version of tennis, the game Mr. Berliner grew up on, it fits his ethos as well.
“The people who you find playing squash are the smartest and most honorable guys,” Mr. Berliner said. “There is this sentiment of sportsmanship that’s so integral to the game. In tennis you’ll get people who call a shot out of bounds if it’s close, but in squash, even if you really did think the ball went out of bounds, it’s customary to call it in your opponent’s favor if you have even the slightest doubt. There is such a sense of honor to the game. It’s also a killer workout.”
The day after his meeting with The Commercial Observer, Mr. Berliner played in the finals of a 55-and-over national doubles tournament. He and his partner upset a highly ranked team in the semis, eventually losing in the finals to the number-one seed.
After the match, a typically upbeat Mr. Berliner emailed The Commercial Observer:
“It was a lot of fun and my first ever final in a national tournament,” he typed out one day last week to The Commercial Observer. “It took a while to get there, but it was worth it!”
dgeiger@observer.com
