The USA Women are hard working, motivated and fired up, but results on the scoreboard are still lacking.

Previously, I reviewed the Men’s program and their 3 game series against Puerto Rico in October.  This time around I take look at the Women’s team and the state of the Residency Program on its one year anniversary.  (Additional note:  The video for these matches is no longer available at the USA Team Handball Youtube channel)

Results of USA – Puerto Rico Series

Friday, 17 October
Final Score: PUR – USA  25-24 (12-11)
Goals – USA: Van Ryn (6), Levinkind & Gascon (5), Graham (3), Hardison & Taylor (2), Lewis (1)
Saves – USA: Self (11), Scherer (4)

Saturday, 18 October
Final Score: PUR – USA  26-21 (13-10)
Goals – USA: Rhoads (5), Abou-Zeida (4), Pierce (3), Hardison (2), Lewis (2), Farrar (2), Nguyen (1), Elder (1), Morrison (1)

Sunday, 19 October
Final Score: PUR – USA 22-22 (14-12)
Goals – USA: Graham (4), Dunn (4), Van Ryn (4), Gascon (3), Taylor (3), Hardison (1), Pierce (1)

Extrapolating Team Progress

To provide some context to those results, here’s how Puerto Rico, the U.S. and Uruguay have performed in recent competitions.  (Uruguay is included since that’s whom the U.S. Women must beat next March just to qualify for the PANAM Games.)  And, it’s also important to note that prior performance is no guarantee of future performance.   Teams can improve or decline substantially in the course of a year or two

2011 Pan American Championships
Puerto Rico: Did not participate in qualification
USA: Did not qualify (Lost to Venezuela and Cuba in North American and Caribbean tournament)
Uruguay: Finished 4^th

2011 PANAM Games
Puerto Rico: Finished 6^th out of 8 teams; Head to Head result: Beat USA 29-27 in consolation semifinal
USA: Finished 8^th out of 8 teams
Uruguay: Finished 7^th out of 8 teams; Head to Head results:  Beat USA 36-24 in group play; Beat USA 30-23 in 7^th place match

2013 Pan American Championships
Puerto Rico: Did not participate in qualification
Uruguay: Finished 5th out of 8 teams; Head to Head result: Beat USA 30-17 in consolation semifinal
USA: 8^th out of 8 teams

2014 South American Championships
Uruguay: Finished 4^th out of 5 teams and was assigned to the 2^nd Chance Tourney.

2014 Guadaloupe Tourney
Puerto Rico: Head to Head competition: Beat USA 24-21
USA: 23-13 win against Puerto Rican juniors

An assessment of these results from the past 4 years yields the same old story.  Scoreboard wise there’s nothing to report in terms of progress.  The USA women played Puerto Rico this past March on a neutral court in Guadaloupe and lost 24-21.  At home last month in Auburn they lost twice, 25-24; 26-21 and drew once, 22-22.  Going back further in time my records have the U.S. losing to Puerto Rico, 29-27 at the PANAM Games in 2011.  Teams change, rosters change, but with several months of practice at Auburn progress could only have been claimed with solid victories at home against a lower tier PATHF nation.  That didn’t happen- plain and simple.

The Visual Assessment

But, while the scoreboard is important it doesn’t always tell the full story.  This can be particularly true when you are talking about friendly matches where coaches often experiment with rosters to test different player combinations and to provide playing time and experience to newer players.

So, before I start my critique I would first like to point out that I think the athletes training at Auburn are a hard working group who’ve undoubtedly made some very significant personal, professional and financial sacrifices to better themselves as players.  “You know what?  How about I write that again with a little more emphasis.  I say again”:

“I think the athletes training at Auburn are a hard working group who’ve undoubtedly made some very significant personal, professional and financial sacrifices to better themselves as players.”

Seriously, as a former national team player with modest skills who made quite a few sacrifices few people can say that bold faced statement with the credibility that I can.  So, if you happen to be an athlete at Auburn please don’t take this critique as a personal indictment on your efforts.

The offense is inept.   The U.S. currently has no backcourt player on its Auburn roster that can individually create scoring opportunities in a “1 vs. 1” matchup against an average defensive player.  And, only one backcourt player (Ashley Van Ryn) can score reliably when the opposing defense breaks down.  If you watch the video of the U.S. set offense here’s what you’ll see over and over:  The backcourts will play catch amongst themselves a few times at 12-14 meters, occasionally throwing to their wings.  At no time during this “playing catch” is there even a hint of a threat to attack. Then, if the ball hasn’t been turned over yet, one of the backs will head towards 10-11 meters where they might get a bad shot off.  It’s downright painful to watch.  For the uninitiated, this is what happens if a team doesn’t have a credible backcourt scoring threat.

In terms of wings, Julia Taylor is becoming technically sound, but I’m not so sure she has the quickness needed to play at a higher level.  Lisa Dunn is also doing her best, but really a lefty is what’s needed at right wing.  At circle runner inexperience also seems to be at play, and this surely exacerbates the backcourt’s ineffectiveness.

An adequate defense.  The defense is adequate when it’s allowed enough time to get set up.  The players appear to communicate well and in a 6-0 set they can be tough to shoot over, particularly, for an undersized team like Puerto Rico.  The team, however, lacks quickness and is very vulnerable to 1 on 1 offensive moves from quicker players.  These “quickness” mismatches led to several breakthroughs or passes to open players for easy shots.  Against a team with more experienced and even quicker players the U.S. defense would be severely tested.  In terms of goalie play I didn’t get a full read from the video to make much of an assessment one way or the other.

The team is way too old to be considered a “developmental team”.  A team, mostly composed of inexperienced players is bound to have technical shortcomings.  With good coaching, frequent competition and hard work, however, technical skills will improve.   Unfortunately, these improvements also take time.  Perhaps 3-5 years for real improvement and I would guestimate that the athletes training at Auburn have an average age of 26 or 27.  (It’s hard to say exactly how old as the Federation has decided to no longer list athlete ages for the past couple of years.)  It’s unlikely for a number of reasons that these athletes are going to stick around to age 31 or 32 and even if they did, they would also be seeing their athletic skills decline.  Maybe if the bulk of the athletes were in the 18-22 age range this lack of technical expertise could be justified, but that simply is not the case.

The team lacks significant raw athletic talent.  However, I’m not so sure that even if the Auburn based athletes were in the coveted 18-22 age bracket that this group has the raw athletic talent to get them over the hump. Judging talent is an inexact science, even more so via web stream.  Still, I just don’t see any “knock your socks off” talent.  The type of player that you just know will be great given the time and effort.

Near Term Lens:  In March 2015 the U.S. will play Uruguay and the Dominican Republic, the 4^th place Central and Caribbean nation in a second chance tournament to determine the 8^th and final qualification spot for the PANAM Games.  Based on recent results there is nothing to suggest that the U.S. is poised to win such a tournament.  There has been no progress on the scoreboard and the visual evidence supports and amplifies that reality. Even if the U.S. hosts, I would make Uruguay, a team that beat the U.S. by 13 goals in 2013 a big favorite.  And, that’s just to get to the PANAM Games.  In Toronto, they would be even bigger underdogs to Argentina.

Long Term Lens:  Peering out further into the future (Post 2015 PANAM Games) and the chances for 2020 Olympic qualification look pretty grim.  Even if the U.S. turns around its residency program and modifies it into a credible developmental program with younger and more gifted athletes they will face the enormous challenge of assembling a team that can beat Brazil, the current defending world champions.  Most likely the 2019 Brazilian side won’t be as strong as they are now, but they surely will still be a top notch team.  In short, the U.S. could do an unprecedented job of recruiting, find a windfall of funds for frequent overseas trips and substantial player stipends and it still wouldn’t be enough to close the gap against a weaker, but still good Brazilian team.  Yes, 2024 is the earliest that U.S. women will have a realistic chance of qualifying and if you do the math that means you need to add 9-10 years to the current ages of players in training at Auburn.  That means only a handful of players (if any) are chasing a realistic Olympic dream.

Déjà vu all over Again:  A Possible Coaching Change?

As I watched the matches and wrote this assessment I couldn’t help but notice the striking similarities between the Women’s team now and the situation it was in almost 8 years in the spring of 2007.  Following a string of disappointing performances in the Quebec Club League and with an all important PANAM Game 2nd chance tournament just weeks away the National Team Head Coach was either fired or perhaps forced to resign.  It was a surprise move and at the time I assessed it as either a desperate or decisive action.  In the end the move had no impact as the USA women failed to qualify for the 2007 PANAM Games.  Ancient history with no relevance, you might wonder?

Well, the USA Women’s coach back in 2007 is now the current USA Women’s coach: Christian Latullipe.  And the USOC administrative manager of American Team Handball interests (the Federation had been decertified) is now the current CEO of USA Team Handball:  Mike Cavanaugh.  Talk about a striking and unlikely repeat of circumstances.

So could this repeat of history continue and conclude with yet another coaching change?  It’s at least conceivable to contemplate such a change as the circumstances are so similar.  And this time around, Cavanaugh wouldn’t be firing the coach he hired, but simply the one he inherited. Often it’s quite a bit easier to fire someone else’s choice rather than tacitly admit that your hiring choice was wrong in the first place. Time will tell, but the USA Women clearly have a long way to go and a short time to get there.  Pure speculation on my part, but perhaps more is on the line than just pride for some upcoming friendly matches scheduled this December at Auburn against Canada and Guadaloupe?

One Last Thought

I guess I could idly sit by and not express an opinion.   Just sit back and watch.  But, I think it’s better to have some independent commentary about our National Teams, be it good or bad.  I’ll leave it to my readers to assess whether I’m just some Negative Nellie always seeing the dark side of things no matter what or just someone who’s objective and coming up with the dark side.

Trust me, I’d like to be dead wrong a bit more often.  Here’s hoping that this is a misguided commentary that gets pinned up on the National Team bulletin board and becomes the inspiration for a remarkable turnaround.

The USA Team Handball Collegiate Club Graveyard: Why have so many teams come and gone over the years? And what could be done to prevent this from happening?

This option for USA Team Handball requires a little more explaining than the other options for consideration.  Part 1 provides the background information.  Part 2 will tackle what could be done.

Background (Framing the Problem)

Last weekend Army beat Air Force 31-26 in what is surely USA Team Handball’s longest, continuous club rivalry, collegiate or otherwise.  It dates back to at least 1986 when I traveled to West Point as an AF cadet to play in my first of two collegiate handball matches.  The other match took place in the Spring of 1987 at the National Club Championship when our pool play game vs West Point also served as the Collegiate Championship.  Yes, back in 1987 there were just two collegiate men’s teams, Air Force and West Point. 27 years later there were 10 men’s colleges and 2 women’s colleges at the Collegiate Championship, but as anyone who follows the sport in this country knows this number has ebbed and flowed for years.  In reality there are just 3 firmly established men’s collegiate programs (West Point, Air Force and North Carolina) and 2 firmly established women’s programs (West Point and North Carolina).  Yes, if you’re looking for positive spin could say that collegiate Team Handball has almost doubled in size (from 3 to 5 programs) since I started playing.

First, a short aside from those who might want to point out that there are currently more than 5 collegiate clubs in the U.S.  This is true, but as the graveyard map above so ably demonstrates there’s a big difference between showing up at nationals for a couple of years and being a program that’s consistently there, year after year.  Maybe the Texas A&Ms and Illinois States of today won’t join that graveyard, but they’ve got to stick around for about 5 years before I’ll grant them “firmly established” status.

Still, even if you use a looser definition and counted every college that formed a club and played in one tournament we’d still be way short of where this country needs to be.  To be at 5 programs in 27 years is a huge disappointment to say the least.  Contrast those numbers to other club (non NCAA sports) like Rugby which claims to have 900 collegiate clubs and 32,000 players.  Or, Ultimate Frisbee which claims 700 clubs and 12,000 players.  I don’t know what the numbers were for those sports back in 1987, but Ulitmate, for sure, was in its infancy.

But, is a lack of collegiate growth an over-riding concern or just one development problem of many that USA Team Handball faces?  After all, this country doesn’t have many clubs in general.  And arguably, we have only one program currently at the High School level in New Jersey and just a couple at lower levels like the programs Craig Rot has started in Minnesota and suburban Chicago.  Does collegiate handball deserve extra attention.

Why Collegiate Handball is (or should be so) important for USA Development

Here are some arguments as to why collegiate handball is worthy of some extra attention:

• It’s the first realistic opportunity the USA has to get some quality athletes to devote themselves full time to the sport: Sure, it would be nice to get younger athletes fully engaged, but the traditional American sports present very stiff competition.  Unless Team Handball can become a fully sanctioned sport in high school almost all (if not all) of the better athletes will gravitate to the traditional sports.  After, high school, however, a good portion of these athletes will see their careers end when they are not awarded a college scholarship.  These athletes may not be part of the “elite” in their chosen sport, but they may be strong candidates for elite status in Team Handball.  And, at the other end of the spectrum:  While it might be tempting to wait for some even better raw athletes after their collegiate careers are over, these athletes are older and may age out before they can be great club or national team players
• Colleges have infrastructure that can more readily support club start up and sustainment: Starting a club requires a number of things to include a place to practice, athletes and organization.   Gym space can be an issue, but virtually every college has gyms that could be used for team handball.  Colleges are also chalk full young adults, mostly aged 18-22 and by default some portion are athletes making recruiting less challenging.  Finally, many colleges have policies in place that encourage and support clubs with funding and resources.  It doesn’t usually pay for everything, but it provides structure and a base for support.
• College sports have tradition and name recognition: Team handball lacks recognition in this country and if you were to hype a TV broadcast between our nation’s best club teams, NYAC and NYC you would get some blank stares from many a sports fan.  However, if you were to talk about a match between Air Force and West Point, or say the acronym “UNC” the typical sports fan will immediately think, “Service Academy Rivalry” and “sky blue” uniforms. If you ever want to sell the sport the aesthetics of school colors and tradition will beat no name clubs with aging veterans.

The impact of having so few collegiate club handball programs

While few would argue that it’s not good to have so few collegiate programs is it really a big deal or just something that would be nice to have? Well, here’s some of the impact our low numbers have had on the development of the game and our national teams.

• Fewer collegiate clubs means a dramatically smaller player pool for our National Teams: If you are an advocate of Residency Programs this reality surely hits home.  Over the years, collegiate clubs have been a primary recruiting source for our National Teams.  Army, Air Force and UNC have been the handball starting point for dozens of players.  It would be interesting to see a statistical breakdown of National Team players and how many started first with a collegiate club, but I’m guessing it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 30%.  Higher for the men and lower for the women.  Imagine what that percentage might be with more clubs and then imagine how much higher the quality of players would be with a larger pool to draw from.
• Fewer collegiate clubs means a dramatically smaller fan base and accompanying smaller revenue stream: Setting aside the National Team player pool aspect think about everyone who’s put on a collegiate jersey.  Everyone of those former players is a potential ardent fan of USA Team Handball, European Club Handball and the sport in general.  Someone that might purchase the upper tier cable package to get Champions League matches on beIN Sport, someone that might buy a USA Team Handball jersey, or attend a USA national team match.  Last weekend USA Rugby played the All Blacks of New Zealand in front of 61,000 fans at Soldier Field.  For sure there was more than a few New Zealand expats there, but I bet there were a sizable number of former collegiate rugby players in the stands.  Handball couldn’t even fill an arena if we had 100% attendance from every collegiate player from the past 3 decades.  And, another potential revenue stream:  The philanthropic billionaire former player.  The greater the number of former players, the better chance you have that someone like former collegiate rugby player Mark Cuban:  ready, willing and able to open their sizable wallets to help.
• Fewer collegiate clubs means fewer youth coaches, referees and club leaders: And apart from the direct revenue aspect if there are more collegiate teams there were surely be more former players giving back to the sport.  Rugby for many years in the U.S. was mostly a collegiate sport with a few clubs consisting of expats and college graduates.  (Does that sound familiar USA handball followers?)  As more and more collegiate club programs got on solid ground and an alumni base grew into the thousands, though, the growth started occurring in youth programs.  Now there are even sanctioned high school programs and colleges that are recruiting those athletes.

Why there are so few collegiate club handball programs

So why has the “sport of the future” had such paltry growth at the collegiate level?  More importantly, what can be done to change this?  Answering the “why question” is fairly straightforward.  Here are the two main reasons why growth has been so minimal:

1. It’s difficult to start a club program: Starting any team handball club in the U.S., collegiate or otherwise isn’t easy.  As I’ve pointed out before it’s drudgework that many (including dozens of former national team players) don’t want to go anywhere near.  Heck, in some respects it’s amazing that we’ve had several programs get started even if they inevitably flamed out.  Which alludes to the 2nd reason.
2. Transitioning from a fledgling program to an established program isn’t easy: While starting a new club is challenging, there often is a level of energy which is invigorating and allows new clubs to overcome those challenges.  In most cases, however, that energy level wears off after a year or two and eventually the club encounters some new challenge that isn’t overcome.  That challenge could be dwindling numbers, the need for a new gym or as, often is the case, the departure of key individuals leading the charge.  All too often, in fact, in almost every case over the past 27 years, the new challenge is not met and the grave digger heads out to the cemetery to add another gravestone.

So, how can USA Team Handball turn things around for its collegiate programs?  In part 2 of the “college focused option” I take a closer look at what could be done and the pros/cons, costs and risks associated with doing so.

A bright spot for the U.S. Men’s Team: E.J. Udu-Udoma is developing into a decent left wing.

The USA Men’s and Women’s National Teams played a 3 game series against Puerto Rico from 17-19 October, 2014. Here’s a top level assessment of the Men’s Team performance and the state of the Residency Program as it nears its one year anniversary.

The Results

Friday 17 October
USA – PUR 24-24 (11-11)Goals – USA: Pickett (7), Inahara & Morgan (6), Mustafa (3), Udo-Udoma & Howes (1)

Saturday, 18 October
USA-PUR 24-23 (12-12)
Goals – USA: Morgan (6), Udo-Udoma (5), Pickett (5), Inahara (4), Howes (1), Recker (1), Dyke (1), Mustafa (1)

Sunday, 19 October
PUR-USA 29-24  (14-9)
Goals – USA: Morgan (7), Inahara (6), Udo-Udoma (3), Recker (2), Pickett (1), Mustafa (1), Evans (1)

Extrapolating Team Progress

To provide some context to those results, here’s how Puerto Rico, the U.S. and Uruguay have performed in recent competitions.  (Uruguay is included since that’s whom the U.S. Men must beat next March just to qualify for the PANAM Games.)  And, it’s also important to note that prior performance is no guarantee of future performance.   Teams can improve or decline substantially and rosters often vary quite a bit from competition to competition..

2011 PANAM Games
Puerto Rico: Did not Qualify (Finished 4^th in Central American and Caribbean Qualifier)
USA: Finished 7^th of 8 teams
Uruguay: Did Not Qualify (Finished 2^nd to USA on Goal Differential in 2^nd Chance Tourney Qualifier) Head to Head Result:  USA-URU 23-23 Draw

2012 Pan American Championships
Puerto Rico: Did not participate in qualification
USA: Finished 7^th out of 9 teams
Uruguay: Finished 4^th out of 9 teams  (No head to head match up with USA)

2013 Caribbean Cup
Puerto Rico: Finished 3^rd out of 5 teams and qualified for the Central American and Caribbean Games (Puerto Rico’s qualifier for the PANAM Games)

2014 Pan American Championships
Puerto Rico: Did not qualify (Finished 5^th at North American and Caribbean Championships (February)) Head to Head Result:  Lost to USA 29-26
USA: 6^th out of 8 teams
Uruguay: Finished 4th out of 8 teams; Head to Head result: Beat USA 27-23 (15-5 at halftime) Also of note:  Narrowly lost to Chile, 25-24 in Bronze medal game; Tournament was hosted by Uruguay

If there was any doubt, these results from the past 3 years should make it fairly clear that Puerto Rico is a step below the USA in terms of quality.  On the surface one might look at USA’s 29-26 victory over Puerto Rico this past February and conclude that the 1-1-1 results this past weekend on home soil as a sign of regression.  This, however, neglects the fact that USA was playing without arguably its 3 best court players, Adam El Zogby, Gary Hines and Martin Clemons Axelsson.  All 3 are experienced backcourt players who play professionally in Egypt, Germany and Norway, respectively.  While Puerto Rico hasn’t qualified for a Pan American Finals event in several years their 3 goal loss this past February to a stronger, more experienced U.S. team might have signalled real trouble for the U.S.  Instead the U.S. held its own despite playing with a pretty inexperienced backcourt.

The Visual Evidence

While the inexperienced U.S. side fared well, it was alas, Puerto Rico.  A team, the U.S. in the past would dispatch by 10 goals or more.  After viewing the matches my assessment is that neither the USA or Puerto Rican teams were technically sound and the play was pretty sloppy.  Plenty of silly turnovers and the defenses were pretty porous.  Going further, I would assess that aging USA Club Teams, NYAC and NYC would both have been beaten the team wearing USA jerseys this past weekend had they been the competition instead or Puerto Rico.  Although, after playing 2 matches I would given the edge to the younger USA team in the 3^rd match.  Old legs have a mighty hard time getting up on the 3rd consecutive day.

Near Term Lens:  Focusing on the near term and in particular, a March 2015 showdown vs. Uruguay to determine the 8^th and final spot for the PANAM Games there are a few positives to take away.  It would appear that the U.S. has developed a couple of wings that can contribute in Greg Inahara and Ebi Udo-Udoma.  They may not yet be the first options for those positions on the depth chart yet, but come March they could be.  At the goalie spot both Moritz and Goodreau show promise.  I’d still go with veteran Danny Cappareli, but that may change at some point.

On the downside, help in circle position and the backcourt won’t be coming anytime soon from the program in Auburn.  Circle play with the backs was pretty limited and this could be chalked up to inexperience at both positions.  Veteran, Jordan Fithian, has little to worry yet regarding his playing time.  Regarding backcourt play, Chris Morgan, was the only Auburn based player to make any significant contribution.  He led the team in scoring with 19 goals in the 3 matches played, but he’s still a couple of rungs below El Zogby and Hines in terms of ability. Good progress on display against Puerto Rico, but he’s got quite a ways to go before he can be effective against better competition. The shortcomings at backcourt are so pronounced that the U.S. brought in a 3 U.S. based players that are not training at Auburn to bolster the lineup.  Ethan Pickett, who lives in Chicago scored 13 goals and is also a work in progress.  Notably, what skills he does have were mostly the result of a year in Denmark at the Aarhus Academy.  Rounding out the backcourt was 38 year old, Shkumbin Mustafa  and 29 year old Lewis Howes.  Mustafa, who learned the game in Kosovo only scored 5 goals at center back, but played a big role in the organizing and setting up the other backcourts.  Howes helped shore up the defense and scored 2 goals.  It doesn’t take much analysis to quickly conclude that  if the U.S. had relied solely on Auburn based players the backcourt would have been woefully ineffective and the results of all 3 matches would have been ugly double digit losses for the U.S.  This is to be expected, though, as it has always been the most challenging for the U.S. to find good prospects to play backcourt.  And, then they are the hardest positions to learn and master.

All told, USA qualification for the 2015 PANAM Games will have little to do with the athletes training in Alabama.  Instead it will hinge on Hines, El Zogby and Axelsson and whether this trio of athletes can muster some consistent backcourt scoring punch and extract some revenge for Uruguay’s 27-23 victory over the U.S. this past summer.  And mind you, that’s just to qualify for the PANAM Games.  Truth be told, the U.S. doesn’t have the guns to realistically beat Argentina should they somehow make it to a pivotal match against them in the semifinals.

Long Term Lens:  Peering out further into the future (Post 2015 PANAM Games) and the picture is pretty murky.  Assessing how raw talent will pan out is never easy and even more difficult via internet streaming, but I for one didn’t see any knock your socks off talent on display.   Instead, I saw a bunch of hard working athletes taking advantage of an opportunity presented to them to wear their nation’s colors.  How many of those athletes will be around 5 years from now when the U.S. seeks qualification for the 2020 Olympic Games?  That’s a long ways out, but I suspect that natural attrition and hopefully, a constant stream of new recruits will mean that only a few of the players taking the floor this past weekend will still be around when the U.S. makes another run at qualification.

To sum up, after nearly a year in Auburn, the Men’s program has made some modest progress.  The players there have shown steady improvement, and a few players can now even be counted on to contribute to qualification matches next year.  The program does, however, still seem to be a little thin in terms of recruits.  I suspect it’s tough to conduct a full scrimmage at Auburn without bringing in a few newbies at Auburn to fill out the sides.  This surely limits the quality of the practices and I can’t help but contemplate how some of the Auburn based athletes would probably be better off if they were based in Europe playing regularly in club competitions.   Goodreau and Moritz, in particular, would undoubtedly be better off with more time in goal under game conditions.  But, then if they left, who would play goalie at Auburn?  Inahara, Udo-Udoma and Morgan, in my opinion would also be excellent candidates for a program like the Aarhus Academy.   To it’s credit the Residency Program has developed their game to the point where a move to Europe can be contemplated.  The question is now, whether that will happen or not.  Or whether, they will remain at Auburn, reach a certain skill level and plateau out.

A wishful thinking future headline? Maybe, but arguably an overseas residency program has the best chance of making a headline like this a reality someday.

Background

Simply putting out the welcome mat won’t populate a National Team Residency Program with the type of athletes desired. A concerted recruitment effort is needed to get better athletes with real potential to the door.

Background

Because the U.S. has a very limited grass roots base, U.S. clubs have developed only a handful of national team caliber athletes.  To overcome this deficiency USA Team Handball has historically relied on the recruitment of “crossover athletes” for its National Teams.  There has been a lot of debate as to whether this is a good strategy or not.  Opponents blast it as a shortsighted, quick fix strategy that has produced mediocre results (at best) and squanders limited resources that could be spent on building up the grass roots.  Proponents argue that the grass roots growth will follow national team success and that the U.S. should take full advantage of its large size and accompanying raw athletic talent pool.  I’ve tackled this debate in other commentaries, though, and will not it address here.  Instead, I’ll presuppose that focusing on crossover athletes is the right strategy and that finding better ways to recruit these athletes are needed.

While I would have liked to have seen a Board of Directors really tackle the basic fundamental question of whether crossover athletes should really be the focus before starting residency programs I am pleased to see that the current shortcomings in recruiting are at least now being identified as a major challenge. (July 2014 BoD Meeting Minutes) Most troubling to me was that for several months after the start of the Residency Programs there appeared to be almost no recruitment whatsoever.  Just simple announcements on the Federation websites for National Team tryouts, which coupled with the athletes having to pay their own costs to participate often resulted in very low turnouts.  It’s not clear what else was being done behind the scenes, but one meager solution to address the problem was to hire unpaid interns to focus on recruiting:  (Link 1, Link 2)  At the last tryouts in July there were 6 men and 14 women participants.  None of the male athletes that attended were picked up and to the best of my knowledge every player in residence on the men’s team has come from our existing, but very limited grass roots programs.  On the women’s side there have been a number of crossover athlete recruits, but it’s unclear as to the long term potential of these athletes.

There’s a fairly stark underlying reality to the decision to establish full time National Team Residency programs.  If you’re going to the expense to have them you better be able to fill those programs with quality athletes.  And, if you don’t have established grass roots programs churning out athletes that means you’re really going to need some real emphasis and support to recruiting efforts.  Here are some steps that could be taken to beef up USA Team Handball’s recruiting efforts.

1. Put someone clearly in charge of recruiting.  This might sound somewhat obvious, but I suspect USA Team Handball has not clearly delineated where the “buck stops” on this all important task.  Most likely everyone drawing a salary is involved in some aspects of recruiting and if you’re assigning interns and volunteers even those that aren’t being paid.  That’s a good use of staff time, but someone needs to be in charge and accountable.  This “someone”  could be the coaches, the Tech Director, the CEO, or even a newly hired recruiting coordinator.  Regardless, recruiting should move very high on their job jar list.
2. Assign clear metrics to guide recruiting focus and measure success.  In many respects, the real measure of success will be National Team wins and losses over time.  But, those results won’t be known for several years and there are other near term metrics that could be established to measure success, such as simply the overall numbers of athletes trying out for the national team.  Even better, would be some sort of weighting system that would take into account an athlete’s age and skill level.  For sure, signing a pretty good athlete at age 18 should be seen as a major recruiting coup, whereas signing a 25 year old athlete, even a really good one is less desired.  Without clear metrics to guide recruiting the temptation may be to simply find warm bodies willing to move to Auburn.  That may fool the USOC and perhaps some members of the Board, but it won’t solve our recruiting deficit.  And, worse it means that the Federation is wasting resources and being disingenuous to an athlete making significant sacrifices.   (For an idea on what those recruiting metrics might be see these earlier commentaries:  Link 1 and Link 2)
3. Hire someone to be a full time recruiting coordinator.  A strong case can even be made that  recruiting is so important and at the same time so challenging that it justifies expending resources to hire someone full time to tackle this job.  Someone who wakes up in the morning focused on addressing and solving the recruiting challenge.  Someone without other tasks distracting them.  Someone who knows this is their job and keeping that job means bringing in quality recruits.  That wouldn’t mean that this person was the only one recruiting per se, but for sure that individual would be orchestrating other staff and volunteers in their efforts.  It’s a tough task and a skill set for which a Team Handball background while desired is not really necessary.  Such an individual might be someone with college recruiting experience at the Division 2 or Division 3 levels.  The logic being that USA Team Handball could benefit from someone with skills finding athletic diamonds in the rough missed by the Division 1 schools.
4. Provide more resources to support recruiting efforts.  A lot of recruiting can be done on a budget thanks to the internet and the good old fashioned telephone call.  Some recruiting efforts, however, will be more successful with a physical presence.  And, this will require a travel and event budget.  Some of the travel would be to events where high school athletes congregate like summer camps and tournaments.  There would be an art to finding the athletes that aren’t going to get the Division I scholarship, would still be great handball players and be willing to try a residency program.  And, this would require a lot of networking and some face time to establish relationships.  USA Team Handball could also set up its own clinics/tryout events for high school and college age athletes in select markets.  Unlike, the open announcement that have been used in the past, though, there would be a significant amount of legwork up front to ensure that targeted athletes would attend.  Phone calls, letters, and perhaps a visit from a former Olympian would all be part of a targeted strategy.
5. Provide greater financial benefits to selected recruits.  Ideally, USA Team Handball would have the resources to more effectively recruit some of its athletes.  In particular, a college scholarship, even a partial one, could turn some heads and entice some border line Division 1 athletes (in their chosen sport), to commit to USA Team Handball.  And, it goes without saying, that ideally these athletes have been carefully assessed as athletes with skills  that would make them ideal candidates in their new chosen sport of Team Handball.

Pros

1. More and better recruits being identified.  Assuming success it’s hard to find much fault with the concept of better recruiting.

Cons

1. Diverts resources and attention from grass roots development.  The old, never ending argument again:  The resources applied to recruiting could be applied to setting up grass roots programs that, in theory, would develop players that would never have to be recruited to play for Team USA.
2. Diverts resources from current national team prospects.  Again, resources applied towards recruiting and future success may have to come out of the budget lines dedicated to current national team training and competition.

Risks

1. Inability to recruit desired athletes.   Quite possibly the challenges of recruiting athletes, particularly younger ones, to play for Team USA might be too difficult to overcome.  The extra emphasis may yield no significant improvement over the trickle of athletes that already comes in.  This risk is so significant that it might be wise to reluctantly consider no significant efforts to improve recruiting, and, in turn, a rethinking of the Residency Program model.

Costs

• The first two steps identified (clearly assigning responsibilities and establishing metrics) can be implemented at fairly low cost.  Increasing the emphasis on recruiting and spending more time on it will, however, mean that some other tasks will get less focus.  There are only so many hours in a day and something else will surely no longer get done as well.  Clearly established metrics, however, should free up some time as Federation staff will no longer waste time recruiting athletes that don’t fit the desired metrics.
• Hiring a full time recruiter will likely cost in the neighborhood of $40-80K in personnel costs.  Alternatively, USA Team Handball could hire someone to work the recruiting issues half time while working other administration issues.  A travel/event budget could run upwards to $100,000/year.   If trips are judiciously planned it could be much lower, but events like the ill fated summer festival are more expensive and could easily bust the $100K budget in no time, especially if more of the prospective athlete costs are paid for.
• Providing financial support for select athletes could get real expensive quickly.   Tuition and other costs for an in-state student at Auburn University runs $29,000/year.  Barring a huge increase in financial support it’s pretty unlikely that USA Team Handball will be handing out full ride scholarships anytime soon.  That being said even a small amount of scholarship aid coupled with the opportunity to represent your country in international competition might be enough to sway some heads.  The big secret is that outside of football and basketball many Division 1 scholarships are really only partial scholarships.  This support varies from sport to sport and from school to school.  Additionally, athletes are often given preferential treatment for traditional financial aid, which explains at least in part, how the Ivy League schools, which technically have no scholarships, somehow attract Division 1 talent.  Bottom line:  some level of support; even a small amount could help recruiting efforts.

Timing for Implementation

The first two steps (clearly assigning recruiting responsibilities and establishing metrics) could and should be implemented immediately.  The timing for hiring a full time recruiter and/or providing more recruiting resources probably should wait until the current effort to qualify for the 2016 Olympics runs its course.  One possibility would be to let one of the national team coaches go and to use that salary towards recruiting.  Alternatively, recruiting could be clearly delineated as a coaching responsibility (See below for further discussion on that possibility).  And, as always, it sure would be nice if there was more money available to just simply bump up the recruiting budget.  Barring that happening, though, USA Team Handball needs to take a hard look at whether some other part of the budget should be lowered to meet the recruiting challenge.

Side Analysis (The American Collegiate Coaching Model and the Traditional Coaching Model)

As, I pointed out in an earlier series success in collegiate sports in the U.S. is very closely tied to recruiting success.  And while recruiting is a vital part of success in most team sports, to the best of my knowledge there is no other sporting league or entity where coaches are expected to take on so much of the responsibility and accountability for recruiting success.  In professional team sports there is usually a general manager who is responsible for acquiring and hiring players.  The coach may be involved in the process, but his primary role is to take the players given to him and coach them to win matches.  For national teams it is much the same story and when a nation already has a strong grass roots programs there is virtually no recruiting.  Essentially, the nation already has its available players and the coach’s job is merely to pick which players they want on their roster.  The only occasional recruiting is to acquire a naturalized citizen or perhaps to coax an aging veteran to continue playing for his nation.

This is a stark contrast to American collegiate sports where success on the field hinges largely on a coaches ability to convince highly touted 17 year old kids to come to their college.  Money can’t even be used to recruit athletes, although some like Charles Barkley joke that isn’t necessarily followed.  While USA Team Handball doesn’t have to follow collegiate rules the residency programs are essentially competing for the same athletes.  Further, with a thin talent pool, a U.S. National Team coach can’t be successful with merely picking the best 16 players available.  This means that recruiting will be a big part of U.S. National Team programs for years to come.  The question then becomes can the U.S. expect or even find a national team coach that can essentially function like a U.S. collegiate coach?  To be responsible and accountable for successful recruiting?  That’s certainly a tall order for a foreign national and that’s one of the reasons why I questioned the hiring of the current coaches.  Conversely, it’s also surely tough to find a skilled American recruiter who can also coach the finer parts of handball.  This suggests that unless someone uniquely qualified with that dual skill set can be found it’s probably necessary to separate the coaching and recruiting roles.

Should USA Team Handball take a bold step to change the focus of its Residency Programs?

Background

USA Team Handball has established Residency Programs for its Men’s and Women’s National Teams at Auburn University in Alabama.  Goals for these programs have not been explicitly stated, but based on the majority of the athletes that been recruited the programs appear to have two primary goals:  developing new players and national team preparation for competition.  These goals, however, often conflict with one another and trying to do both simultaneously with a national team can be problematic.

In particular, the immediate need to prepare for competition results in a competition mindset and a focus on near term performance.  At first glance this may seem like an obvious and desired effect.  After all, what’s the point of having a national team, if not to do the best we can in competition and ideally win a lot of games?   A broader look at the landscape of world handball and the very, very thin U.S. player pool, however, warrants careful consideration of a change in mindset to unequivocally focus the Residency Programs on future player development.

Such a focus would include the following steps

1. Establish mission and goals for the Auburn Residency Program that clearly identify its focus on future player development. To the best of my knowledge there is no documentation that fully describes the purpose of the Auburn Residency program.  Developing such a document would provide an opportunity to clearly delineate what is desired for the program.
2. Rebrand the Residency Programs program to clearly identify them as development programs.  Something like the “U.S.A. Team Handball Academy” or “U.S.A. Team Handball Future Development Program” would clearly signal the future developmental focus of the program.
3. Decouple the National Team coaches from the development program.  To further emphasize the development focus the coaches or training directors administering the program would not be dual hatted as National Team coaches.   The administrators would still work closely with the National Team Coaches, but their focus would be developing players for the talent pool; not coaching players in the talent pool.
4. Establish an age range for athlete participation.  It can be debated as to what this range should be, but I would advocate ages 18-23.  While it would be desirous to have even younger athletes in a high school program current U.S. structures will make it nearly impossible to do so.  And, while it may be easier to recruit quality athletes at older ages those athletes are very unlikely to meet the “future potential” requisite inherent with a development program.
5. Establish a time limit on participation.  The goal of the program would be to improve athlete skills to the point where they can play competitively in a professional environment.  Historically, athletes introduced to the traditional Residency Program Model improve dramatically as players during their first two years of participation.  Eventually, though, they plateau due to the limits of their fellow participants and a lack of competition opportunities.  In other words, it’s easier to improve when you’re playing and practicing against more skilled opponents, but more difficult to improve when you’re playing against weaker opponents.  At some point athletes would “graduate” and be encouraged to seek better competition overseas.  This time limit would also have the added benefit of freeing up spaces to let more athletes participate.

Note:  An earlier series of commentaries written in 2009 describes this player development residency model in more detail as well as some problems with the traditional residency model.

Pros

1. Broadening of talent pool for years to come.  The successful implementation of this program would create a much wider talent pool of prospective athletes.  Not only would more athletes be trained up, but since they are younger, they would have more playing years ahead of them.  The obvious added benefit of this would be more athletes to choose from for national team competition.  A not so obvious benefit will be the trickle down improvement in U.S. based club competitions as players who participate in these programs, but do not quite pan out at the highest level are still more likely to continue playing through their 20’s and early 30’s.
2. Improve prospects for American players to have pro careers:  If one looks at the world’s top teams it’s plain to see that their rosters are entirely composed of professional athletes.  Even the Pan American teams that the U.S. competes against for Olympic berths have rosters with a number of athletes playing professionally (some at the highest levels) in Europe.  Professional athletes will almost always defeat amateurs and if the U.S. can get more athletes overseas it will greatly improve national team prospects.  A U.S. Team Handball Academy could be the vehicle to boost skills of young athletes to the point where European clubs show interest.
3. Ensures focus on development.  While it can be argued that the current Residency Program could still be directed to focus on younger player development the establishment of a Handball Academy and its associated guidelines would guarantee that focus.  Older athletes simply could not be recruited and the coaches running the program would not have conflicted priorities.

Cons

1. Weakening of current National Team prospects.  Moving forward with this change in direction will immediately result in weaker U.S. National Teams at international competitions.  Practicing on a regularly basis in one location creates a more cohesive team as players become very familiar with each other’s skills and abilities.  Additionally, Residency Programs create a team bonding that can provide an additional advantage in competition.  Any slim hopes the U.S. had of 2016 Olympic qualification are probably eliminated and 2020 Olympic qualification prospects would also be weakened as this change in direction would probably take several years to bear fruit.
2. Lack of support for older National Team players. This change in direction would likely end the careers of many older National Team players as many of them are either not skilled enough or do not desire to live overseas where they can continue their development as players.

Risks

1. Inability to recruit desired athletes.  Probably nothing challenges the implementation of this youth based movement more than the reality that recruiting athletes at younger ages with the desired athletic ability will be challenging in the U.S.  The top athletes at those ages generally play another sport and USA Team Handball will be competing against colleges that can offer either full or partial scholarships.  This risk is so pronounced that additional actions to address this recruiting challenge should probably be implemented in conjunction with or prior to establishing a future player focused residency program.  (Separate recruiting initiative: Link <to be written>)

Costs

1. Residency Program Costs. With the Residency Programs already in place this primarily is a change in focus/rebranding and could be executed for little or no cost.   A level of support for athletes is already in place and while more is desired, it could continue at the same lever for the younger athletes envisioned.  In terms of administration salaries are already being paid for 2 National Team coaches.  These coaches are already providing training instruction and could simply be rehired as Sports Academy coaches or administrators.   Additionally, as the focus would be entirely on player development USA Team Handball could also consider having just one coach so another salary could be freed up for other requirements like recruiting.  Finally, while this is development program a handful of trips for competition is still desired.  Ideally, these would take advantage of IHF challenge competitions where financial support is provided
2. National Team Costs. By combining competition preparation with player development USA Team Handball was benefiting from certain cost efficiencies.  With the decoupling of these two roles either more funding for National Team support will be needed or support to National Team will have to decrease.  Assuming a decrease in funding, possible cuts include making the National Team coaching positions part time volunteer positions, eliminating all trips for friendly competitions, and even requiring athletes to fully fund or partially fund trips for qualification competitions.  These are not pleasant possibilities to contemplate, but if the U.S. wants to get serious about future player development funding should be diverted from senior team programs.
3. Recruiting Costs.  It’s hard to see this program being successfully implemented without more resources being devoted to recruiting efforts.  This may necessitate the hiring of a full time recruiting coordinator or require having another staff member devote significant man hours to this task.  Additionally, there will likely be some travel costs if recruiting is to be more effective.

Timing for Implementation

This change could, in theory, be done immediately, but probably should be phased to coincide with upcoming Olympic and World Championship qualification.  An implied (if not explicit) promise of support has been made to a number of athletes that don’t fit the development concept (i.e., they are significantly older) and an immediate change in focus would be unfair.  Both, the men’s and women’s program can qualify for the 2016 Olympics by finishing first or second (if 2016 Olympics host Brazil finishes first) at the 2015 PANAM Games which take place in Toronto next July.  While it’s unlikely either team will qualify they should be given that opportunity with the support that the current Residency Program model provides for training.  Should they fail to qualify for the Olympics next July or even fail to qualify for the PANAM Games (via a qualification tournament in January, 2015) USA Team Handball will have a logical break point for redirecting the Residency Programs.

Another logical break point for the Women will coincide with the 2015 World Championships.  Due to Brazil’s winning of the 2013 World Championships, Pan America will have an unprecedented 6 spots for the 2015 World Championships to be played in December, 2015.  The U.S. will have a decent chance of securing one of those spots at the 2015 Pan American Championships and this may support keeping the Women’s team intact through that tournament.  The Men’s next World Championship qualification even will not take place until January, 2016 at the earliest, so it should be less of a consideration.

Overall Assessment

Well, it should come as no surprise that I am fully in favor of taking this bold step.  Ideally, it would be better to implement such a program after we have further developed our collegiate club competitions and established some sort of High School competition, even if only in one U.S. city.  Further, it would be better to have funding to support a recruiting budget.  All of these shortcomings makes the chance of success somewhat iffy, but with the Auburn program in place it makes little sense to wait for those things to happen first.

Finally, the current state of our talent pool makes near term success very unlikely.  If U.S. qualification prospects were more realistic I could enthusiastically support an all out run for 2016 qualification.  The reality, however, simply doesn’t support it.  Even 2020 is a bit of a stretch, but I think with a switch to a development focus, we could make a respectable run.  And, more importantly start to populate our national team rosters with athletes that could really make a difference in 2024, when the U.S. might very well be hosting an Olympics.