EPISODE · May 13, 2026 · 11 MIN
Chapter 17 - The Founder
from The Convergence · host Robert Eberhard
Rob Eberhard picked up a squash racquet at twelve years old, handed to him by his father. He never put it down — building clubs, teaching players, selling racquets out of the back of his car between tournament rounds, and eventually spending eleven years and five pivots trying to build the infrastructure the sport was missing. His daughter Sage left competitive squash not because she stopped loving it but because the social thread connecting her to its community was never strong enough to hold her. The corporate league experiment in Whistler tripled participation in two months and proved the thesis: this was never a passion problem. The rideshare shifts that kept the lights on became a pitch laboratory. And when Sage came back to squash at Queen's University — earning the Jack Fairs Trophy from the coaches of every opposing team and the MVP award from her own — the book's central question answered itself in the most human way possible. The infrastructure that holds people in the sport is not an abstraction. It is the difference between a daughter who leaves and a daughter who comes back.
What this episode covers
Rob Eberhard picked up a squash racquet at twelve years old, handed to him by his father. He never put it down — building clubs, teaching players, selling racquets out of the back of his car between tournament rounds, and eventually spending eleven years and five pivots trying to build the infrastructure the sport was missing. His daughter Sage left competitive squash not because she stopped loving it but because the social thread connecting her to its community was never strong enough to hold her. The corporate league experiment in Whistler tripled participation in two months and proved the thesis: this was never a passion problem. The rideshare shifts that kept the lights on became a pitch laboratory. And when Sage came back to squash at Queen's University — earning the Jack Fairs Trophy from the coaches of every opposing team and the MVP award from her own — the book's central question answered itself in the most human way possible. The infrastructure that holds people in the sport is not an abstraction. It is the difference between a daughter who leaves and a daughter who comes back.
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Chapter 17 - The Founder
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