It took awhile, but USA Team Handball now has two new head coaches. The new USA Men’s Head Coach and Program Director is Mark Ortega has now been on the job for two months and the new USA Women’s Head Coach and Program Director, Sarah Gascon had the interim title officially removed on 4 October.
For the most part, I’m satisfied with the process that was used to make these hires. I took serious issue with the poor timing that saw Edina Borsos abruptly fired and then replaced with Sarah Gascon via a convoluted process. A process that, in my opinion, cost the USA Women a wild card bid to participate in the upcoming 2025 World Championships. This time, as it should be, CEO Mike King took responsibility and fully “owns” both of these decisions. I’d also prefer to have simply kept Coach Robert Hedin in place to continue the run of success his Men’s team had, but we are where we are.
An Unneccessary Dig that’s also Lacking Context
But, while the process was better I’ve got some concern with the selections and I’m scratching my head once again. I’ll highlight this quote from CEO Mike King in the Women’s Coach announcement as I think it points to my first concern.
“With realism about what it will require to climb quickly out of a nearly six-year winless stretch—and the bar-dropping disservice to our athletes during that time—we have turned that page for good. By onboarding exceptional talent, we are taking seriously our collective charge: to prepare and position this program to compete at the highest level of international handball.”
I have multiple issues with the portion I’ve bold faced and italicized
- 1) Even if the statement “bar-dropping disservice to our athletes” were entirely true it’s not appropriate to take a jab at previous management. I guess President Trump has kind of made such tactics “cool” to some, though.
- 2) If you get your job through a very unorthodox sequence of events you also don’t get to create a narrative of look at the bad hand I’ve been dealt. Nope. The only justification for such unorthodox tactics is that things are so bad we’re going to fix things immediately. Instead such tactics caused more problems and disruption… an even bigger hole to crawl out of.
- 3) While the last 6 years (2019-2025) for our Women’s program were clearly the worst ever in terms of wins and losses I would assess that the previous 5 years (2013-2018) centered around a residency program at Auburn were the worst ever in terms of Return on Investment (ROI). And, disservice to athletes? Dozens of athletes made a leap of faith move to rural Alabama, and in return they weren’t compensated and even asked to pay for their own trips to represent their country. (1 2 3) Arguably, an even greater disservice. Athletes are still paying for their own trips, but they can live where they want to.
First a Disclaimer…
I’ll elaborate more on #3, but I guess I should do a bit of disclaimer. Every few months or so, someone new to the USA handball scene will do a deep dive on this website, talk to a few people and then with a bit of a puzzled reaction ask me, “Man… Why does everybody hate you?” My self-serving answer is that I tend to do a pretty good job of telling people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear and nothing more emphatically brings that point home than the 5 year Auburn experiment. I tried to stop it before it started and I was relentless in my criticism of it.
Why so? Because I saw multiple problems with a 1980s and 90s solution that just wouldn’t work in a radically changed handball world. Quietly, behind the scenes, emails and conversations expressing concern were dismissed and ignored. I was the asshole trying to stand in the way of progress. Even years later after virtually everything I warned about happened… I’m still defined as that asshole. I’ve always thought that maybe some day, someone in a position of authority would step back and say, “Why do we hate this guy again? He seems to know quite a bit…” But, alas, I’ve come to realize that’s never going to happen. Enough whining. If you want more, go here.
And, if you don’t want to read some things that you’re not going to like I suggest that you stop here and go scroll through some Everything is Awesome handball memes on Instagram.
War Eagle!.. Really?
USA Team Handball now has both a Men’s and Women’s Head Coach where a big portion of their handball resume is anchored by their 5 years in Auburn, Alabama. As, I earlier highlighted, I assess those 5 years as the worst ever in terms of ROI for USA Team Handball. And, if you’ve been around awhile and can remember a lot of things not going very well… that is really saying something. It was not just another failed effort… No. It was the very worst initiative we’ve ever had.
The evidence is overwhelming and I don’t think anything else that has been tried even comes close. A five year residency program, initially with 2 full time coaches (later reduced to just a men’s coach), but with results not much better than doing next to nothing. Neither the Men’s or Women’s team were able to secure a World Championship berth despite competing against peer nations with far less resources. And, in 2015 both the men’s and women’s team couldn’t even beat Canada and later Uruguay to qualify for the PANAM Games. A crushing defeat that suggested major changes… but instead the program just limped along for another 3 years before finally shutting down.
Why was such a program green lighted? Why did it hang around long after it’s due date had expired? Well programs have their own inertia and with the tight knit nature of our sport there were also friendships, even familial relationships at play. Such relationships are the heart and soul of our small community… but, they can and have been very detrimental when tough decisions should be made.
Why did the program fail so comprehensively? The short answer is dismal recruiting, due in part to the location of the program and it’s limited funding support. Neither the Men’s or Women’s program were able to successfully recruit higher level athletes. But, when you put something in place and hire coaches to run a program… well, they’re going to take what they can get. Residency programs for training elite athletes became residency programs for training best available athletes. A lot of time and energy was spent training athletes that were never going to get us to where we wanted to be.
My personal assessment: In 5 years time only 2 athletes (Jence Rhodes and Ty Reed) were identified that would have likely made an Olympic team in the 80s and 90s. And, both of those athletes were the offspring of USA Handball Olympians… most likely athletes that never would have showed up in Auburn without encouragement from their parents. There were some other athletes that would have been on the fringes of the national team. Hard workers, dedicated team players. I know exactly what such athletes look like… because I was once one of those athletes. A national team can maybe have a couple of John Ryan’s to round out the roster, but if your entire roster is composed of John Ryan’s?… You’re not going to ever get there.
So, what I’m saying here? Well, let’s first be clear on what I’m not saying:
- If you were an athlete that was recruited to come on down to Auburn to chase an Olympic dream and found the program wasn’t quite you expected, but you worked hard and made great sacrifices you are not a failure. I have nothing but respect for you and your efforts.
- If you were a coach trying to make things work as best you can. Organizing practices and trying to develop your players to be the best handball players they can be. Again, nothing but respect for your efforts as they relate to those clear cut coaching roles.
But, here is what I am saying:
- If you were part of the planning, implementation and management of the Auburn Residency Program I’m highly critical of the role that you played. This doesn’t mean that you didn’t didn’t have good intentions and it certainly doesn’t mean you are a bad person. But, yeah, you were part of a big failure and there should be some accountability for that.
- And… if you were a coach, but your role was expanded beyond the traditional coaching roles of conducting practices and making the decisions on the court in competitive matches. And, your role was expanded to more of a management role overseeing the program to include the recruiting of athletes… you were also very much part of a big failure and there should be some accountability for that.
So, from my perspective we’ve now hired a Men’s and Women’s Head Coach and Program Director with very strong ties to the biggest failure in the history of USA Team Handball. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that having Auburn on your resume should be the “kiss of death” but, as they say, “You’ve got some splaining to do…” Of course, that’s just my persective based on decades of observation… I’m not doing the hiring.
Someone with a shorter timeline might even possibly think that Auburn somehow represents the “good ol days.” Might even rationale that there is so much to learn from that experience. That we can take the good parts and lose the bad. There’s a kernel of truth to that. But, just a tiny kernel. There’s a reason why the assistant coaches of super bowl teams have multiple interviews for head coaching positions with other teams. And, there’s a reason why assistant coaches for 5-12 teams are scrambling to find any position, anywhere once their head coach is fired.
Also, of concern, CEO Mike King was one of the athletes convinced to move to Auburn. Are the tight bonds formed through that shared experience unduly influencing hiring decisions a few years later? And, we’re not just talking coach hiring decisions… but, the unorthodox “hiring” of the CEO in the first place. From someone who views the Auburn experiment as the greatest failure in the history of handball in this country… the Auburn takeover of USA Team Handball is mind boggling exasperating. Why, it’s almost as if it’s 2013 all over again. Strike up the band and War Eagle!
Expanded Responsibilities Beyond Just Coaching
And, so now we get to Issue # 2. You may not have not noticed, but somewhere between the job announcement/description being posted and the job hiring, USA Team Handball went from looking for coaches to hiring a Program Director and Head Coach for both the Men’s and Women’s programs. It may not be readily apparent to some, but adding Program Director to the job title is a significant expansion in terms of responsibility.
Back in 2013, I wrote an article discussing whether the U.S. needed full time coaches. Part of that analysis reviewed what other nations did and how the job of a U.S. coach might be somewhat different. I say might be now, because it all depends on what’s needed and desired in terms of the U.S. National Teams. For old timers and anyone who’s ever participated in a residency program it’s a full time job because the coaching is on a continuous basis, fairly similar to that of a full time club club coach. Not exactly the same as there was some unique player development work required for crossover athletes and then fewer matches were played, but it’s similar. More recently, the U.S. had part time coaches, Robert Hedin and Edina Borsos fulfilling a more European style part time role. And, then many of what might be considered “Program Director” functions were the responsibility of High Performance Manager, Krista Austin, until she departed in 2023 and then… maybe nobody was really doing that job?
We could debate how effective Krista Austin was at performing programmatic, big picture tasks, but there should be no debate that having no one really empowered to perform that role was very problematic. How big a problem it is can be masked if one already has the athletes needed to be competitive (i.e. the U.S. Men) and it can be painfully self evident if the team simply lacks the athletes needed and is woefully uncompetitive (i.e. the U.S. Women),
I’ll tackle the differing circumstances of the Men’s and Women’s programs in the next couple of commentaries. What I’ll tackle now is whether Head Coaches should even be dual hatted as Program Directors. My personal viewpoint is that in most cases dual hatting these roles is problematic for these reasons:
- The skill set needed to be a good coach and the skill set needed to perform the management and planning of a program are significantly different. There is some overlap, but fundamentally coaching a singular team and managing a program are two different things. Some people can be very good at either role, but that’s the exception rather than the rule. And, we’re not talking about straightforward, well defined management functions… No, we’re talking about developing, implementing and directing a national team program that will work in the U.S. Something no one has ever really been successful at doing.
- The timeline and horizon for coaches and program directors are different. Or, at least they should be. Any coach worth their salt is very focused on the here and now. How to win the next game or do better in the next tournament. A program director, however, has to think more long term. Inherently, this leads to conflict… or, it should lead to conflict if both the coach and director are doing their jobs properly. So, if someone is performing both roles inevitably they will have a conflict with themselves on some matter and will have to decide whether the coach or director role takes precedence. The closest analogy is the common practice of professional teams having a General Manager (GM) and Head Coach. The GM determines the roster and the head coach, coaches the roster he’s been given. They work together, but they stay in their lane and don’t do each other’s jobs. About the only time it worked in the NFL was with Bill Belichik… until it didn’t. And, then maybe having Tom Brady as QB was the only reason it ever worked.
For these reasons I would be very hesitant to dual hat these roles. Heck, I think it’s already causing problems in terms of what the priorities should be. Going further, I think it would have made more sense to hire a Program Director or a High Performance Manager first and then have that individual very involved in the coaching selection process.
Or, to put it another way: Don’t hire a program director/coach (basically a unicorn) to try and develop a program and coach a national team at the same time. Instead, hire a program director to develop a plan and then hire coaches that are well equipped to execute that plan.
In Part 2, I’ll take a closer look at the Women’s Program and the selection of Sarah Gascon as Program Director and Head Coach