Northwestern wide receiver Kunle Patrick caught the attention of University President Henry Bienen a couple of years ago.

No, not with his football talents, but with his squash skills.

The soft-spoken wideout doesn’t boast about playing squash with the university president or the NU club team, but his football teammates know all about his accomplishments.

“The first time President Bienen came to practice to address the team, he looked around and said, ‘Where’s my squash buddy, Cun-le?'” safety Torri Stuckey said.

“Now we joke around and call him Cun-le sometimes.”

When asked about it, Patrick just smiles, and Bienen remembers his meeting differently.

“I do recall at a spring practice saying, ‘Where is my squash partner, Kunle?'” Bienen wrote in an email. “As to how I pronounced his name, maybe my accent, still New Yorky I am told, sounds odd to people. I know how his name is pronounced!”

Bienen said former Director of Athletics Rick Taylor told him about Patrick’s squash skills and, as an avid squash competitor, Bienen contacted Patrick to get a match scheduled.

“The first time we played I was ahead 8-1, and he snuck by, being tenacious at the end,” Bienen wrote. “Our mismatch in athletic abilities could not be overcome by my squash smarts.”

Though Bienen honed his squash skills in his days at Princeton, Patrick learned the game from his dad while growing up in Trinidad.

At age 7, Patrick joined the squash junior national team.

“It was only a short period of time,” Patrick insisted. “We were supposed to go to a tournament in the United States, but there was a coup in Trinidad.”

Patrick said he moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., shortly after to live with his mother.

He said he didn’t have a place to play squash in New York so he took up soccer, basketball and then football in high school.

But Patrick resumed his squash career after he arrived at NU.

“Two years ago I went to SPAC to play basketball, and I saw the squash team,” Patrick said. “I decided I wouldn’t mind playing again.”

Patrick played on the squash team the past two winters, and last year he was the team’s No. 6 player. Nine people compete for the team in each match.

Three days a week, Patrick would go straight from running and lifting with the football team to the squash courts.

“At the end of practice, we have to do sprints,” said squash coach Mark Johnson, an associate biomedical engineering professor. “I said, ‘I know you’ve already done this so you can go home.’ But he said, ‘If they can do it, I can do it.'”

Patrick also helped the squash team clean Welsh-Ryan Arena after basketball games to raise money for its trips to the East Coast.

“I always thought it was crazy that he was on a football scholarship and he came to play with us,” said junior Matt Archibald, this year’s squash captain. “But he’s just one of the guys.”

Patrick traveled to the squash team’s three tournaments last season and won a match as the team finished 29th at the nationals held at Princeton.

Patrick’s squash teammates said he didn’t talk about football unless they asked him, but Patrick was anything but quiet.

“If you treat him right he will blabber on and on,” said sophomore James Koh. “He cracks some pretty fun jokes.”

Patrick’s football teammates noted his humor and also spoke highly of the work of the art theory and practice major.

“We have a lot of his art hanging on the walls,” safety Dominique Price said. “We put it on the fridge like we’re his parents. We’re so proud.”

Patrick doesn’t know if he will continue to play football or squash after graduation and he said if athletics doesn’t work out, he would want to be a graphic designer.

“I think he’s good at just about everything, and squash is just one of his many talents,” Price said. “He’s good at art, computers and he’s good at … squash.”