Stefan Fatsis, once again is doing his best to promote Team Handball in the U.S. This time with a cheering section report in one of the most widely circulated papers in America, the New York Times. The story doesn’t have much in it that will be new to Handball fans, but it is great for the sport to get that kind of exposure.

One tidbit that was news to me was the $1,500/game cost that ESPN charged for the satellite uplinks during the World Championships. Yes, we’ve got to pay to get the sport on TV in the U.S. (even web TV!) But, it’s money well spent as that is the fastest way this sport is ever going to grow in this country.

New York Times: Team Handball Has It All, Except an American Interest: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/sports/othersports/10cheer.html

Earlier commentary by Stefan Fatsis
Wall Street Journal (Aug 2004): http://www.stefanfatsis.com/writing/weoughttoplay/
NPR Interviews: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.685

Can you teach an old dog a new trick? https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?extend.372 (or why I think TV is so important to grow the sport in the U.S.)

I won’t be attending the USA National Championships this coming weekend, so regrettably I will be missing out on and opportunity to catch up with old friends and talk about Handball issues with the Federation leadership. But, if I was attending Nationals, I certainly would have a few burning questions. A town hall meeting is scheduled for Saturday at 1:00 PM. Here are some suggested topics and questions for those who will be there:

1) Board of Director (Election/Selection): The Federation By-Laws that were approved at the first Board Meeting are not exactly clear as to the procedures for Electing/Selecting Board Members. Namely, the by-laws includes language (Section 5.2) concerning member rights to vote in elections, but the language (Section 7.6) for choosing Board Members only describes a selection process. As I read it, the Nomination and Governance Committee will be the sole decider as to who the new Board Members are. And the Board of Directors gets to decide who gets placed on the Nomination and Governance Committee. Thus creating a potential never-ending do-loop where only like-minded individuals can possibly get a seat at the table. With the exception, of course, of the two athlete representatives who must be elected.

Going back to the original applications submitted to the USOC, I noted that the lack of an election process was pretty undemocratic, but perhaps that was designed intentionally to save USA Handball from itself. The conflict in the by-laws suggests, however, that there might be some reconsideration of this. So, the simple question to ask is “Will the Federation membership ever get to vote on candidates for the Board of Directors?” and, “If no, Why not?”

2) Competition Committee: See my last post on this topic for more detail. The basic question to be asked is how will Nationals be set up next year?

3) Little has been said or written as to how the USA plans to field competitive National teams. Here’s some relevant questions:
– There were talent identification camps this year, but now there’s already talk of requiring the Men’s team to self fund their attendance at the PATHF Div 1 championship later this year. It looks like the USA is already resigned to not qualifying for the 2011 Men’s WC. Is the USA also throwing in the towel in regards to London 2012? When will the USA first attempt to seriously qualify for major competition?
– Is the USA considering establishing a resident National Team program? If so, when and where?
– Are their plans to more aggressively place USA players with foreign clubs?
– Is there a master plan that lays out what the goals are near term, mid term, long term? Can we see it?

4) German Bundesliga: I’ll say again that this partnership deal could be a major breakthrough for USA Team Handball. The key words are “could be.” The questions are, what are the concrete benefits of this partnership and when will start to see them?

Side note: The IHF President is attending the USA National Championships. It’s no secret that I’m not a big fan and you can guess how I feel about the implied endorsement USA Team Handball has given, by welcoming him less than a month prior to the upcoming election vote in Cairo. The President, however, is the representative of the IHF and should be treated with respect. That being said, the National Championship is an excellent opportunity for you to make it clear to the Board of Directors how you feel about the upcoming election. Some of the Board of Directors are total newcomers to the sport and most likely would be interested in getting feedback from the rank and file on a number of issues. USA Team Handball Board Members names and photos are here: http://www.usateamhandball.org/about/board/ If you spot them, go ahead and chat them up for a few minutes. I'm sure they will appreciate it.

There was a lot of hot air expended in the forum section of our website in regards to the format for this year’s National Championship. Aside from the hot air, though, most of the complaints we’re pretty legitimate. This commentary will look at the basic problems with the format, the process that was used and provide a proposed solution

[b]National Championship (Format)[/b]

Rather than traditional pool play, the Federation first informed clubs that this year’s tournament would use a simple knock out format. It didn’t take too long for clubs started to complain. The problems identified included the following:

1) The seeding of the 20 teams was highly suspect. Notably, the Condors with national team player, Gary Hines, were seeded very low.
2) The single elimination tourney format combined with the poor seeding, undoubtedly would have resulted in some quality teams playing for either 17th, 9th or 5th place.
3) Eight teams were subjected to play-in games that not only placed the losers into finishing no better than 17th place, it required them to play an extra game prior to playing a 100% fresh team in the round of 16.
4) Not securing a facility for Sunday morning games, thus not providing enough time to easily adapt the format.

To the Federation’s credit, they listened to the uproar that ensued, recognized the inherent problems with the original format and replaced it with a new format. Instead of 8 teams being immediately subjected to elimination games, each team losing in the first round will now be given a 2nd chance to play their way back into the round of 16. After the round of 16 the knockout format then gives way to pool play. While better, the new format is still not without flaws. Namely the seeding is still highly suspect and the round of 16 games are still paramount. Two strong teams could still meet in that early round and one of them will be sent down.

[b]National Championships (The process for developing the format)[/b]

But, while there were problems with the format, what I find even more troubling is how the Federation came up the format. First off, last Fall the Federation quickly put together a competition rulebook that laid out in detail a semi complicated scheme for qualification to the National Championships. This competition rulebook was rushed and inherently failed to recognize that the club structure needed to pull it off simply didn’t exist yet. It took awhile to recognize this, but eventually most aspects of the rulebook were thrown out for the 2008-2009 season. The 2009 championships became an open tournament and requirements for U.S. Residency and Citizenship were thrown out when challenged.

And when it came time to lay out the format and seeding for the tournament, the Federation did so in a manner so non transparent it makes the IHF look good. I had thought that it was simply done in-house by the staff, but according to some email traffic I’ve seen it appears that a select group was quietly chosen to participate in the development of the format and the seeding of the teams. Hey, I exchange email with the West Point coach from time to time and the Carolina guys seem OK, but surprise, surprise, I noticed that those clubs and Chicago (the Tech Director’s club) fared pretty well in the original seeding matchups. Hypothetical here, but if they had been matched up in the first round vs. the Condors, I’m thinking the first format probably would not have survived its in-house sanity check. Keep in mind that I’m not alleging intentional foul play. I’m just saying you’re less likely to recognize a potential problem effecting some other club. And obviously, no matter how good a job they might have done there is an inherent perception problem in that these folks were never identified. Imagine if word got out that Coach K was secretly sitting in on the selection committee for the NCAA Tournament and Duke got great seeding in Greensborough and UNC was sent out to Boise.

[b]The Solution[/b]

Not much can be done for this year’s tournament beyond the band-aid that’s already been applied. Next year, however, it should be a different story. Here's what should be done:

1) Establish a Competition and Organization Committee: The committee should contain 4-5 respected Federation members from the different regions of the country. The Federation staff can take the lead, but the committee should be an integral part of the planning and decision making process.

2) Take a good hard look at the competition rulebook. There needs to be a balance between what we would like to have in terms of national and regional competition with what’s realistic considering the current state of our club programs. A meaningful and fair qualification format for Nationals is feasible, it just needs some thought. The rulebook should be adjusted accordingly and then a formal review should be conducted. Keep in mind that it also can’t be foisted upon the clubs and be successful. The clubs are going to have buy in to it and this is where those 4-5 respected Federation members can go a long way towards making that happen

3) Stick with the rules outlined in the revised rulebook. As long as you do a good job of developing a realistic qualification system this shouldn’t be a problem. Yes, there should still be some flexibility, for unseen circumstances, but in general, clubs will prefer a clearly defined set of rules that they need to follow.

From a big picture standpoint, it’s starting to get a little old to keep saying, “let’s get it right next year”. Depending on when you want to start counting the new Federation is either a year old or approaching it. Some good things are happening. It looks like some high quality officiating will be at the tournament and the long term impact of the Bundesliga deal could be huge. The Federation needs to recognize, however, that the “we’re the new guys” excuse is no longer valid anymore.

While living in France for 5 years I worked in an international office with colleagues from throughout Europe. Every once in a while I would conduct straw polls of these colleagues over lunch on happenings in America to get a sense as to whether a particular phenomenon was uniquely American. Back in 2007, one such question posed to 7 colleagues was, “Do any of you guys know who Barack Obama is?” The answer was a unanimous, “No.” My prophetic response was, “Get ready, you will.”

To be fair, at that time, the U.S. election was several months from the first primary and France was focused on their own Presidential election, so it wasn’t that surprising that the African American with a funny sounding name was unknown by my educated and fairly well informed colleagues. Of course, everyone knows who he is now, but I also know, even though I haven’t spoken to many of them since I left, that most are surely amazed that a black man who had only been a state senator 5 years earlier is now the leader of the most powerful country in the world. Reluctantly, and perhaps a little bit sheepishly, they would also acknowledge that a similar event could never happen in their own country. Of course, many Americans would have said the same thing 20 years ago. Heck, many were still saying that the day before the election when he had a commanding lead in the polls.

So, what is the point with this diatribe on American politics? The point is to inform some folks in the International Handball community that [b]elections are never a foregone conclusion [/b]and that the power of ideas can go a long way. O.K., I may be just one crazy American who writes about Handball, but I get emails from a lot people all over the World, some in very well informed places, so I think I have a pretty good pulse of this nebulous International Handball community. And what totally perplexes and bewilders me is the near universal dissatisfaction with the current IHF Presidential coupled with the perception that his re-election is a foregone conclusion. Those two conclusions just don’t add up.

I’m not foolish enough to think that the IHF is a cornerstone of democracy in which every voter will independently weigh the merits of each candidate and then choose the best one. No, I fully realize that there will be some backroom dealing with promises being made and some voters can and will be swayed to vote in a way that perhaps benefits themselves and not necessarily their country or International Handball in general.

But, I cannot and will not believe that all 157 potential voters will blindly vote for a particular candidate or can be bought off by a few handballs and a nice hotel room. Instead, I think most of the voters are swayable, [b]particularly if they are fully informed[/b].

One critical aspect of this election should also not be lost to the readers of this website who live in a country where Handball is relatively unknown is that the vote will be [b]one country, one vote[/b]. This means that Cameroon’s vote, the Cook Island’s vote, Costa Rica’s vote and Hong Kong’s vote counts the same as Germany’s and France’s. It’s not practical for a random German fan among millions to call his Federation President on the phone to talk about the upcoming election, [b]but it’s quite feasible to do so in a country where a few thousand or even a few hundred care about the sport[/b]. And if calling is not possible a simple email or hand written letter could be sent.

[b]And can personal contact make a difference? You better believe it can.[/b] It would not surprise me one bit if there are Federation Presidents out there in far flung locations who are not fully aware of the events that have transpired in international handball over the past few years. Or if they are aware, they’ve only gotten one side of the story. An email from a member of their Federation highlighting their election concerns may not immediately cause a Federation President to change their vote, but it should encourage him to start asking questions.

Some will say that we, the Handball fans of the world, are naïve and that we can’t influence the way nations vote next June in Cairo. To those people, I say:

[size=14][b]YES, WE CAN![/b][/size]

Contact your Federation President and let him/her know that you care strongly about his upcoming vote.

[b]National Federation Contact Information[/b]
Countries A-D: http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=119
Countries E-H: http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=120
Countries I-L: http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=121
Countries M-P: http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=122
Countries Q-T: http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=123
Countries U-Z: http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=124