Sharon Bradey Named Director of Squash

Sharon Bradey, Exeter’s new director of squash, says her career has been defined as much by lasting relationships as by points won.

Her parents helped run a squash club in Adelaide, Australia, while she was growing up. The club was close enough to home that Bradey ran or biked there nearly every day. “As long as I got home before the sun went down, I could go back the next day,” she says. “Only once did I learn that lesson.”

During the 1980s, squash was booming in Australia. Saturday morning junior clinics regularly drew a large crowd of children competing for court time. By the time Bradey turned 12, she was playing on a team with women who were decades older. Surrounded by “extra mums,” The Kid, as she was called on the court, quickly learned what it meant to compete and to belong. “You played your heart out because you didn’t want to be sitting off the court waiting,” she says.

Bradey spent her teenage years traveling across Australia for junior tournaments and balancing schoolwork with an increasingly demanding squash schedule. At 18, with savings from working part time, she joined the professional tour as a six-month experiment. “There wasn’t much money in it,” Bradey says. “I knew I had to perform well to make enough to travel to the next tournament.”

That experiment turned into a decade-long career that took her around the globe. She was ranked as high as 12th in the world.

After Bradey stepped away from professional competition, she spent the next 30 years coaching at colleges and clubs, including The Harvard Club for 25 years. She also coached national teams in Spain, Denmark and Israel. Her global experiences have helped shape her philosophy as a coach. “Excellence matters,” she says. “But people matter more.”

In 2025, Bradey was inducted into the South Australian Squash Hall of Fame, an emotional homecoming that reunited her with family, mentors and teammates. “Squash has given me a lifetime of relationships,” she says. “I love seeing former players come back as adults, as parents, as coaches themselves. When you realize you have been part of someone’s journey, that’s the sweet spot.”

Now an American citizen and one of the longest-serving female professionals in club squash in North America, Bradey sees Exeter as the place where everything aligns. “To be able to do what I love, in another country, and feel so connected to a school and its students — I’m meant to be here. I believe that.”

This article was originally published in the winter 2026 edition of The Exeter Bulletin.