Q: Is there a big difference between Charlottesville and your hometown of Christ Church, Barbados?
Best: Starting with the culture, I was an only child at home, not really having much to share, so to the roommate life I climatized pretty well. I had no problem sharing space, but that was a change having to climatize to the dorm life. Time management was also a thing. Living at home, my parents did everything. They’re like we have training today, school, etc.; they told me what I had to do. Here, I have to do everything on my own, things as simple as washing my clothes, changing my sheets, all those little things that parents do that we take for granted definitely came into play when I came to America. And then things with the team as well. As I said, Mandy is a great example. Everyone on the team at home, we kind of grew up in our own little clique. Our friendships off court were great. We did everything together but in terms of the actual training, everyone is kind of more individualistic. We’re trying to better ourselves, more individual training. Everyone is kind of focused on their own well-being. Whereas here, it’s more of a team spirit kind of vibe. It’s very team oriented here which took some time to get accustomed to. Team activities after training and team bonding was something I was definitely not accustomed to and honestly not quite into when I first came, but now I’ve come around and it is quite nice having that team to turn to at the end of the day. So yeah, there’re a lot of different things, but I do enjoy having the best of both worlds. I can have both worlds to kind of play around with, which is nice.
Q: How did you first start playing squash?
Best: I like to say I started in the womb. My mom would play when she was pregnant with me. Then she would take me when I was in the pram to the courts and squash was kind of my daycare. I just kind of grew up around the club; then when I was able to walk, I would hold a racket and just play. At that time, they wouldn’t allow juniors to get coaching until they were seven, so I got my first lesson when I was around seven. Mandy was around nine, so we started training with the same coach. That’s kind of how it started. Squash has just kind of always been there. It’s always been part of my daily routine. It’s never been a question.
Q: Did you start playing tennis and badminton around the same time?
Best: I’ve done a lot things, it’s hard to keep track. Before squash, I actually did ballet because my parents thought I was too clumsy and then it clicked that I absolutely hated it.
Squash was the first. I didn’t really take it seriously. I just played around. Then when I was nine, I picked up tennis and then cricket eventually when I was 11. I did like a bunch of other sports like netball and badminton at school, but it was never seriously. It was just that I loved to be active. Going home to just one child in the house, it wasn’t the most fun. I always tried to find activities to do with other people my age. That’s kind of how I turned to sports. Then I narrowed it down to squash and tennis eventually when I was around 12 and I eventually chose squash as my sport.
Q: Did you always want to come and play collegiately in the states?
Best: I never thought it was a thing growing up. I just knew I loved to play sports. I loved the social aspect of it. I just loved to be active and then I went to my first U.S. Open when I was 11 because my mom saw it advertised in a magazine. I came up here and my mom went ‘Well, we can actually compete with these people.’ I think I came like 17th out of like 124 at the time. She was like, ‘that’s not bad for someone who doesn’t take it seriously.’ From there it was, ‘we’re going to have to decide what sport you want to do’ and obviously I chose squash.
I just did it because my parents were like this is our way out. So that’s when the discussions of scholarships and stuff came in. It was never really a dream of mine. I remember watching movies with American college girls on TV, I never pictured myself doing it. I always looked further ahead. I wanted to have a good job etc., but I never thought of the process before that. But I guess my parents were the ones that kind of instilled that in me later on about scholarships and if you want better connections, America is the way to go and squash is the way out.
Q: What was it like going through the recruiting process and why did you choose UVA?
Best: Initially all my parents knew about was the Ivy League, so it was Harvard, Columbia, Yale. So those were the colleges we were definitely gunning for and they actually started to contact me around junior year in high school. I started to do a couple of visits and they never felt right, but I’m usually a very laid back person and was like, ‘you know, any place is going to be great. You know the name itself is great, so being at any of those colleges was going to be awesome.’ I never had a choice before in terms of what I wanted to do. It has always been squash. I went to the school that was assigned to me growing up and then I went to Choate (Choate Rosemary Hall) because that was where the offer was. This was the first time I was being able to choose where I wanted to go to school, so I wasn’t really too picky. I was like this is great. UVA was my last visit and I remember just loving the team, loving the campus, loving the atmosphere and I was like this is the place. I called my parents as soon as I left UVA and said this is it.
