One special game shows Tempest Bowden how to win

Tempest Bowden shows off one of her tournament trophies, won thanks to the SquashSmart after school program. Joseph Santoliquito

By Joseph Santoliquito, Special to SI.com

PHILADELPHIA, PA -- The line of demarcation that signals "Da Bottom" comes at Spring Garden Street, a coincidental euphemism, considering it doesn't engender anything resembling spring, nor a garden. It actually marks the end of tree-lined streets and a row of pristine brick fraternity houses on Drexel University's campus, and begins the urban blight of shattered glass, abandoned buildings, and rusted wrought iron fences.

It's this side of Spring Garden Street that Tempest Bowden calls home. "Da Bottom" is how the neighborhood refers to itself, because they consider themselves the bottom of Philadelphia, where there is a high murder rate, no playgrounds and hardly any hope.

But each day, around 3:30 p.m., Bowden enters a different world. A world of privilege, BMWs, private sports clubs. A world of opportunity.

She enters the world of squash.

Bowden is among the best teenaged female squash players in the country. She's ranked 26th nationally by the United States Squash Racket Association among girls under-17. What makes the North Philly native so unique is that she's one of the few African-American teenagers who play and is a nationally rated in squash.

It's a funny trip the affable 17-year-old Tempest took to reach this status. When the idea of playing squash was first broached to Bowden, when she was in sixth grade by the local SquashSmarts program that she currently plays for, she dismissed the idea. She thought they were talking about food.

By 2003, Bowden started competing in tournaments. However, she noticed something immediately was different -- a teenaged white boy once felt compelled to walk up, lean in and say to Bowden, "You shouldn't be here, this is a white man's sport."

He was loud about it, too.

"I'm thinking, 'What am I going to do?' I was 13 ..." Bowden recalls. "I certainly wanted to say something to him. But I kept it in. I think it's the reason why I play with an edge. I feel I have a lot of prove and this is my way of doing it.

"It doesn't matter to me how people look at me. I'm the underdog. I know it. I just go in with the attitude that I have something to show you. I get noticed. We go to tournaments where we're all city kids, and the thinking is, 'Oh, this is a pity thing. Oh, they're the poor black kids playing a sport.' Like we get handouts, or something. I think I'm better and the SquashSmarts teams are better because of that."

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