On DiMauro's plaque: As a senior, she was the first women's squash player to win the University's prestigious Association of Alumnae Fathers' Trophy in 27 years. She won the WISRA Individual Championships title as a freshman in 1996, advanced to the final her sophomore and junior years, then lost in five sets in the semifinals to the eventual champion as a senior. As a result, she was a four-time first-team All-America, the first woman in program history so decorated. She also was four-time first-team All-Ivy and the 1995-96 Ivy League Rookie of the Year. A two-year captain, she had a 73-9 career record (19-2 in Ivy play).
 
By Josh Verlin
 
Jessica DiMauro's rise to squash stardom happened faster than she could process.
 
DiMauro grew up around the squash courts, her father taking her and her sister to the club when he went to play. Along with the other children there, the young Toronto-area native played tag or hide-and-seek, earning a bag of treasured Hickory Sticks if she behaved properly.
 
Within a couple years, she was a national champion, traveling the world, then coming to University City, where the winning never stopped. 
 
One of the greatest squash players in Penn's illustrious history on the hardwood, DiMauro is one of 11 inductees this year into the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame Class XII. 
 
"It is such an honor," she said. "Just having gone to Penn was amazing; to get to play squash for Penn, with my very special coach and teammates, made Penn an even more unbelievable experience; but then to actually get honored for something that was an honor to be part of—I mean, not that many people get that opportunity.
 
"I am so very grateful that I had the opportunity to play for Penn, and then be appreciated for it."
 
A national champion, four-time All-America and four-time first-team All-lvy selection, DiMauro was the 1999 recipient of the Association of Alumnae Father's Trophy, the award given annually to the top female student-athlete at Penn. 
 
But her impressive resume started several years before she made her way down from Toronto to Philadelphia. DiMauro started playing squash competitively when she was entering her teen years, and it didn't take her long to make a splash on the national stage.
 
She made her first appearance in the Canadian National Championships Under-16 division as a 14-year-old, running into eventual champion Jan Wilson in the first round.
 
"I got three points in three games," she said. "I was terrible. I was so mad, I literally just trained and trained and trained. 
 
"The next year I beat her in the final, three games to two."
 
A year later, DiMauro was playing for the Canadian U-19 team, which not only was her highest-level squash to date, but it was also an eye-opening experience off the court. A girl who hadn't done much traveling in her life was suddenly getting to see all of Canada, the United States, and far-off places like Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.
 
"I met so many people all over the place," she said. "That's why I liked playing squash, I just liked meeting people and being able to do things that I wasn't otherwise doing, it was so fun."
 
Despite the quick rise on both a national and international scale, DiMauro didn't quite realize just how good she was. For her, squash was a portal to unexplored territory, a way to branch out, and a way to meet new people.
 
"I was just focusing on whatever match I was playing, I wasn't looking at the big picture," she said. "I knew that I liked it and I got to travel' the nationals I won I got to go out to Calgary which was my first-ever flight, actually. I got to go on a plane, got to travel a bit, and I was like 'oh this is kind of neat!'"
 
Along the way, DiMauro caught the eye of Penn squash coach Demer Holleran while playing at the US Junior Nationals. Holleran, the former Princeton standout and national collegiate champion who had taken the Penn job in 1992—herself just three years out of college—was immediately wowed by the young Canadian, knowing she would make an instant high-level impact in the Ivy League.
 
"She just had a real flair in her game, she was very talented with the racquet," Holleran recalled. "It was pretty impressive, the shots that she could pull off, especially at that age. Technically she was really strong and had a really good arsenal of shots."
 
However, recruiting DiMauro wasn't such an easy task. Living with her parents and grandparents, DiMauro was comfortable in her surroundings; the idea of leaving not just her hometown but her country entirely for a school hundreds of miles away wasn't immediately appealing.
 
"(Holleran) was just contacting me, and I was like 'mom, tell her I'm not home, don't answer the phone,'" DiMauro said. "I didn't want to go."
 
Eventually, Holleran went to Toronto to meet DiMauro face-to-face, and the coach convinced her future pupil to give college squash a chance. DiMauro said she ultimately chose Penn over Brown, which made similar overtures.
 
To help convince her to give it a shot, DiMauro's parents made her a deal: go down to Philadelphia for a few weeks, and if she really hated it by fall break, she didn't have to go back. DiMauro never needed to take that safety escape.

It's a feeling she looks back upon now with a laugh, recognizing how silly she was being at the time, trying not to go to one of the best institutions in the world for both academics and athletics.
 
As a freshman, DiMauro took the women's collegiate squash world by storm, losing just one match and winning the individual national title. 
 
"I didn't lose a game my freshman year in tournament play," she said. "I should have appreciated it. I wish I did, but I just figured that's the way it should be, I just expected that of myself."
 
The next three years she spent chasing that goal, falling just short each time, losing in the championship match in 1997 and 1998 and in the semifinals in 1999. 
 
"It's one of the things I tell all the kids I coach now," she said. "When you're hard on yourself as a kid and all you think about is winning, you don't appreciate your wins and it doesn't end up being a really fun thing, which is sad. I talk a lot to the kids about appreciating wins and after a tournament win, to do something nice for yourself, make it special."
 
While at Penn, she was introduced to a professor who would introduce one of her other life's passions. Dr. Daniel Janzen has spent a vast majority of his five-decade-plus career studying and advocating for Costa Rican rainforests and ecosystems, advocating for the conservation and preservation of the country's majestic national parks. DiMauro, a biology major, quickly caught on with Dr. Janzen, taking him on as her advisor and working in his lab; when she got her master's degree, he was her mentor as well.
 
DiMauro went down to Costa Rica for several summers with Dr. Janzen. She quickly developed a passion for the Central American country, which has a vast network of rainforest, volcanoes, hot springs, beaches, and more.
 
"Honestly, the people there are just so great and wholesome, they have a great disposition with how they look at life," she said. "On top of that, it's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, and I found the national parks system interesting."
 
She's been back frequently since, including earlier in 2022, the first time she'd been there in two years due to the pandemic. In 2011, she held a fundraiser through the International Conservation Fund of Canada, raising $30k to benefit Dr. Janzen's efforts, and has continued to help raise money to support Janzen's research and outreach.
 
DiMauro's commitment to helping people has crossed back over to the squash world, as well, where she's been coaching for nearly two decades. Back home in Toronto—where she lives with her husband Jamie and their daughters, three-year old Joey and one-year-old Jax—DiMauro has become renowned for her work with players who went on to star in college, including Penn's James Flynn, training them from when they were younger than she was when she got into the sport and seeing them succeed on a national and international level.
 
"I'm really excited for her to be recognized," Holleran said. "She's given back a ton as a coach and really motivated a lot of kids. it makes me really proud, too, because it means that maybe I did a good enough job that it looked appealing."
 
Even two decades after she graduated from Penn, her alma mater is still a big part of her life. DiMauro gave her college experience a lot of credit for helping her gain the confidence necessary to go out in the real world, to eventually become a squash coach who mentored some of the best young talent Canada has to offer, to run a major fundraiser to benefit Costa Rica.
 
"I'm still in a daily chat with the girl who lived across from me freshman year, one of my roommates, my co-captain at Penn, and another one of my teammates," she said. "I was kind of a homebody, I didn't know that much about the world, but I met so many neat, different types of people that I didn't have exposure to before, and I found it so interesting.
 
"I came way out of my shell, and Penn was a huge part of that—and a huge part of making me the person that I am today."