UNC Team Handball: USA Team Handball’s #1 Collegiate Club Success Story as it relates to sustainment. How can more Carolina Handball clubs be created and sustained?

Part 1 for this option provided some background on the state of collegiate handball in the U.S. Part 2 takes a closer look at U.S. Collegiate Rugby, the UNC Handball program and how some of their successes might be more broadly applied to U.S. Collegiate Team Handball.

In the Facebook replies regarding the first part of this discussion on collegiate handball it was pointed out that collegiate programs were very susceptible to faltering because by their very nature college teams are transient with players always departing upon graduation. While this is true, it fails to recognize that this is a problem that is overcome by hundreds of rugby clubs and yes, a handful of team handball clubs, like AF, West Point and the University of North Carolina.

Why Rugby is thriving

No analogy is perfect, but one has to only look at collegiate rugby for a glimpse of what could be. From coast to coast there are 900 collegiate rugby clubs. Not every U.S. college has a rugby team, but almost every NCAA Division 1 school does and sizable portion of the Division 2 and Division 3 schools. Somehow, instead of moving to a collegiate rugby graveyard the vast majority of rugby clubs are surviving and indeed, thriving. How is this being accomplished for collegiate rugby and how might it be duplicated for team handball.

To better understand why rugby is thriving I interviewed Bruce McLane who coaches the Iona Rugby Club and discussed some of the aspects that have over several decades facilitated rugby’s sustainable success.

Here are some of those reasons:

• The number of collegiate rugby clubs has reached critical mass in just about every region of the country. And by critical mass, I mean that just about every collegiate club has relatively close by opponents that they can compete against. This fosters league play, rivalries and competition.
• Rugby clubs have taken the camaraderie aspect of their sport to the highest levels.  The days of the beer soaked after party are long gone, but collegiate rugby clubs are still tight knit with alumni often playing a big role in helping to ensure club sustainment.
• Most rugby clubs have been around for decades and in the case of some clubs over a century! Not surprisingly such heritage results in entrenchment that’s pretty hard to dislodge.

Collegiate Handball’s #1 Sustainment Success Story: Carolina Handball

As I wrote in part 1, there are only a handful of clubs that are entrenched in the manner of a club rugby program. Air Force and West Point have been around for decades and have some distinct advantages related to their service academy status, so it would probably take an earthquake of circumstances to envision either program shutting down. Since I started playing handball some 28 years ago there’s only been 3 college programs that I’ve assessed as becoming “firmly established”: Texas A&M’s men program and the Men’s and Women’s programs at the University of North Carolina. And while Texas A&M meets my artificial 5 year requirement few would argue against UNC being the real success story.   With so many other programs having fallen by the wayside, it really begs the question, “What has UNC done differently?” And, more importantly, “How could it be duplicated with other colleges?”

To a great extent UNC’s success can largely be attributed to the long term dedication of John Silva. He started the program and provided a guiding hand for well over a decade. This continuity allowed the program to get firmly established and perhaps weather any lean years that inevitably happen after the initial energy of getting started wears off. Most likely his official capacity as a member of the UNC Faculty also facilitated his efforts in recruitment and in the securing of school facilities for practice.

But, probably Silva’s greatest achievement and the reason why UNC is still a thriving club was his foresight and success in mentoring and guiding several individuals like Miles Bacon and Wade Sutton to step into club leadership roles.  As such there is now a solid cadre of individuals that makes it pretty unlikely that UNC will be joining the graveyard of clubs any time soon.  A legitimate women’s club has even been started and looks to be sticking around!  Such mentoring and handing off is always easier said then done. Too many times in the past clubs have disappeared when the “key individual” departs the scene for whatever reason.

A Big Shortcoming (The Failure to Expand the Base of Established Clubs)

While, it’s fair to toot the horns of North Carolina, West Point and Air Force for setting the example it’s also fair to provide some criticism to those clubs and USA Team Handball for failing to expand the base. Let’s face it: it’s pretty boring to see the same 3 clubs year in and year out finishing in the top 3 while other clubs come and go without even coming close to threatening that hegemony.

While these clubs surely take pride in their dominance, they also inherently know that their success is largely due to the lack of strong competition. It’s one thing to say you’re the best out of 10 schools and another thing entirely to say you’re the best out of a 100 or 200.

To a great extent those 3 schools can rightly say, “Hey, it’s not our job to expand the base, that’s USA Team Handball’s responsibility.” A very true statement, but the Big 3 could clearly do more. In particular, I’ll chastise both Air Force and Army for failing to start a sustainable program at Annapolis. There cannot possibly be a more ideal institution/situation to start a program: Link  (What an epic failure of those schools and their alumni. (Yeah: I did just call in an airstrike on myself.)  Meanwhile, North Carolina appears content for the most part to schedule their annual tournaments and have teams fly in or drive long distances while several relatively nearby colleges remain devoid of the sport.

Options for USA Team Handball Consideration

But, again to be fair the institution most responsible and quite frankly the one that would most benefit from a broader base of U.S. collegiate clubs is USA Team Handball. What could USA Team Handball do bolster USA Collegiate Handball? Here are some options for consideration:

1. Hire a full time college coordinator: The college coordinator would have many responsibilities, but at this particular point in time, job #1 would be efforts to facilitate the establishment of new collegiate clubs. Job #2 would be to work with fledgling clubs to help sustain them from years to come. At the end of the day success or failure at this job would hinge on club establishment and sustainment. If the College National Championships has no new teams and 5 former teams missing this would no longer be met with a shrug and resignation. There would be accountability.
2. Direct more resources toward college development: If there’s going to be accountability, there should also be some dedicated resources to give the college coordinator a fighting chance. Quite a bit of coordination can be done with email and phone calls, but that individual will also need a travel budget to meet with prospective colleges and host clinics. Funding will also be needed for equipment assistance for new programs.
3. Hire part time coach/recruiter/organizers at specific colleges: Beyond equipment assistance and a guiding hand from a college coordinator certain colleges may merit additional assistance in the form of paying for a part time coach/recruiter/organizer. While this may be anathema to anyone who’s taken on such a time consuming role for free because they love the game, the cold reality is that with the exception of John Silva the volunteers have all eventually been sustainment failures at the collegiate level. While a paid coach could also fail, this support and recognition of their value could be the little extra nurturing that sustains a fledgling program until it’s fully established.
4. Incentivize existing club programs to establish new clubs: In combination with options 2 and 3 above USA Team Handball should provide financial incentives for existing clubs to shepherd new clubs along. Perhaps “sister club” arrangements could be made and bonuses could be paid out once a new club attend nationals 3 years in a row. This could be the extra push needed to help the established clubs do go that extra mile to help other colleges recruit, conduct clinics and practices at those skills and facilitate competition for them. And, it wouldn’t have to be just collegiate clubs. Some of our top Sr Men’s and Women’s programs could link with colleges, thus giving them more local competition and ideally a farm club for their team. After all, what’s a player to do when he graduates, but join the local club.
5. Establish and fund a model college conference: Currently, one of the major problems with collegiate handball is that the handful of teams are scattered all over the U.S. This results in infrequent competition and the form of competition usually consisting of weekend tournaments, whereby matches are shortened and crammed into a jam packed 2 days. Additionally, many of the matches end up being between collegiate and regular clubs. While, not entirely a bad thing as players benefit from playing against more experienced players it’s not a collegiate experience. Finally, many teams are often scraping by to find players and some collegiate teams end up adding a few extra players not even affiliated with the college. All of these shortcomings add up and detracts from the collegiate aspect that is desired.

   A collection of schools could receive direct support from the Federation to form a conference that would serve as a model for other schools to follow. Additionally, this conference could provide a marketing vehicle for the greater promotion of the sport.

6. Upgrade the Collegiate National Championship and Promote it as USA Team Handball’s Premier Event: For many years the Collegiate Championship has been a secondary tournament less in prestige than the U.S. National Championship for clubs. While the level of play at Club Nationals is superior, arguably it is of lesser marketing value. This is because the clubs are unknown quantities and aesthetically less appealing. What I’m trying to diplomatically say is that a U.S. Championships which consists primarily of Non-Americans and athletes in their 30s and 40s is going to be a tough sell for TV. Whereas an event with college name teams and athletes is in their early 20s is a far easier sell. And, based on the Collegiate Rugby Championship’s success (link) it’s not as far fetched as one might think that such a handball related couldn’t find its way on TV. It goes without saying that successfully putting such an event on TV would be an incredible coup and a huge boost to college development and recruiting.
7. Establish an “All American Collegiate Team” and fund an annual European Summer tour: Youth and Junior National Team tournaments either for World Championship qualification or IHF Challenge events are a traditional vehicle for many countries in the world. Unfortunately, these events aren’t ideal for the USA for a couple of reasons. First, these events often take place during the school year requiring athletes to miss a week or even two weeks of school. Secondly, these age based competitions are essentially limited to high schoolers, College Freshman and depending on whether the event is Under 19 or Under 20 or not, some College sophomores. As many Americans first start playing handball regularly at age 18 or a little bit later this means only a handful of collegiate athletes can realistically try out and those that do usually are still a little bit green technically. As a result, U.S. teams often either get blown out or rely heavily on European based Americans who don’t really need these competitions to further develop as handball athletes.

Pros

Broadening of the National Team player pool:  As has been previously highlighted collegiate players are a prime source of recruitment for our National Teams. More collegiate teams would mean a greater number of prospects.

Broadening of the national fan base and general player pool: As USA Rugby has demonstrated hundreds of colleges playing a sport will eventually result in a huge alumni base of fans, coaches and referees. The bulk of these athletes will never play for a U.S. national team but they will be the engine for greater growth

Cons

Diverts resources from other efforts:  If USA Team Handball wants to really focus on college club development it will take man-hours and funding to do so properly. This means finding more revenue or diverting revenue from other cost centers.

Risks

These initiatives may fail just as volunteer efforts have failed in the past.   There’s simply no guarantee that these efforts would succeed. In fact, a solid case can be made that you can’t create demand where it doesn’t already exist. Better to just let college develop happen intrinsically than to artificially force it through initiatives.

Costs

College Coordinator. Depending on the experience level desire this salary would be in the neighborhood of $30-60K.

College support costs. Giving a college coordinator the tools to do their job could be quite expensive. Trips for clinics, coordination, hiring part time help at select schools and established club incentives could start to add up to 100-300K fairly quickly.

All American team costs. Funding this trip would be roughly the equivalent of a National Team Trip.   And depending on athlete interest it could be partially self- funded by athletes.

Timing for Implementation

Currently, USA Team Handball is directing a significant portion of its resources towards the operation of its residency program at Auburn University. With 2016 Olympic qualification over for the U.S., USA Team Handball could immediately re-evaluate its priorities and redirect resources to college programs. And, speaking of 2016 maybe it would make sense to have a roll out of such programs to coincide with the 2016 Olympic TV broadcasts. A prime recruiting opportunity.

Final Thoughts and Some What If’s? to Ponder

As with many of the other options identified implementing this option would mean a significant shift in priorities from our national teams. It’s a never ending debate as to where priorities should lie and one that I’ve found myself on either side at different points in time. Still, I can’t help but ponder what if? As in, what if at some point in the 90s or 2000s resources had been dramatically shifted to college club development? U.S. teams would have lost the same games with worse score lines and perhaps some overseas trips would never have occurred. Would that have been a great loss? And, what if instead sustainable clubs had been established at Annapolis, North Carolina St and St John’s University? Maybe, today each of those teams would be competing at college nationals with each sporting a no kidding prospect for our National Teams at age 21 or 22. Heck, maybe younger. Maybe, there would be even more teams. Maybe we would even have a burgeoning talent pool of prospective players. One that could really justify the existence of full time residency program. For sure, a lot of “what if’s”, “perhaps” and “maybe’s”, but still worth contemplating.

Gut Check Time: Does USA Team Handball have a plan to hike its way out of the forest or is it just walking in circles?

This past Saturday, the USA Women and Men lost to Uruguay in the 2nd Leg matches for the Last Chance Qualifier for the PANAM Games.  The Women lost 24-22 and the Men lost 28-20. The USA Women ended up with a 7 goal aggregate loss and the USA Men ended up with a 4 goal aggregate loss. Match Recap: Link

These results simply cannot be sugar coated. Failing to qualify for the Olympics is one thing. Anyone familiar with our National Team’s results the past few years knew it was going to be tough to beat Argentina. But, losing to Uruguay and not even qualifying for the Olympic Qualifying Event (i.e.; the PANAM Games)? Without a doubt this is an unavoidably stark reminder as to where our National Programs stand.

Let’s be honest: The U.S. is not even close to the level it needs to be to qualify for an Olympics. We don’t just need a couple more players, or a few more months of training or a few more games. Maybe if we had qualified for the PANAM Games and gone toe to toe with Argentina and/or Brazil in the semifinals this summer before falling short we could rationalize that we’re almost there, but that didn’t happen. Not even close.

With Failure Comes Opportunity

Failure, however, can also be an opportunity. Olympic qualification for the Men is no longer possible and the Women now only have a very, very remote chance. (The U.S. Women’s would need to qualify for the World Championships and then finish in an unprecedented 7^th place.) While there are other goals for our National Teams for a variety of reasons Olympic Qualification is without question the main target. With 2016 gone as a possibility the U.S. will now not play another match related to Olympic Qualification until December, 2018, at the earliest. With no immediate pressing need it’s therefore an opportune time to step back, take stock and plan for the way ahead.

2020 Olympic Prospects

Part of that taking stock is an assessment of what the U.S. prospects are for 2020 qualification. And, taking a look at our current teams and our Pan American competition reveals a very tough road ahead. For the Women, it’s particularly bleak. The average age of the 2^nd chance roster is 28 and the bulk of the scoring is coming from athletes 30 and older. The U.S. needs a roster overhaul and it’s debatable as to whether there are enough quality prospects joining the program with the right age/athletic ability combination to take the U.S. to the next level. Seriously, there would have to be several already on the team making key contributions before we could even realistically contemplate the monumental task of taking down the current World Champions, Brazil. Brazil will likely not be as strong in 2019, but it’s unlikely they will drop down near as much a we need to go up. With the men’s team it’s much the same story. The Argentine and Brazilian Men aren’t as good as the Brazilian Women, but there’s still a huge gap. And, the U.S. Men aren’t very young either with the roster for the 2nd chance tourney having a guestimated average age of 27. A couple of players are on the younger side, but several players are pushing 30 or have passed it.

I’m not suggesting that the U.S. shouldn’t even try to qualify for the 2020 Olympics, but a real hard look should be taken at how resources are to be expended towards 2020 qualification. For example, if expenditures for a residency program and/or full time coaching are only going to improve our chances of qualification from 2% to 5% are they still worthwhile expenditures? Might it be better to expend resources towards a development initiative that would improve qualification chances in 2024 from 10% to 40%?   Those are questions that should be asked.

Planning for Today vs. Planning for Tomorrow

With many efforts there is an inherent conflict between either planning for today or tomorrow. Or, perhaps more accurately, the “near term” or “long term.” Or, even more accurately planning for a “defined” near term” or a “defined” long term. I say defined, because sometimes people would just as soon not define what their time frame is because in doing so they will be forced to make decisions they’d prefer to avoid having to make.

And, sometimes folks will like to argue (or worse, just assume) that near term efforts are by default also supporting long term plans. This, however, is often a bad assumption and one that has all too often been true for USA Team Handball. Case in point: Have the efforts of the past 3 years (hiring full time coaches, rushing to build a residency program and in the case of the women populating that program almost entirely with athletes over the age of 25 really paved the way for long term success? Or, has it been overly focused on questionable, short term goals? For sure, I’ve got my opinion, but what’s done is done.

Instead, it’s best to start fresh and ask some tough questions regarding what makes sense going forward. Here are just a few questions that should be asked:

Full time head coaches: Despite limited resources, 3 years ago the decision was made to hire full time coaches. Have these hires produced satisfactory results? How is their performance being measured? Can the U.S. continue to afford this expenditure or should the funds and man-hours be spent on other critical needs? Will having full time head coaches significantly improve U.S. performance or would the U.S. have similar results with just part time coaches?

Recruiting: Is USA Team Handball successfully recruiting the types of athletes it needs to build long term success? Or, is it recruiting too many athletes that are in their mid 20s with limited raw athletic skills? Is it even realistic for USA Team Handball to recruit the types of athletes that were more readily available in the 70s, 80s and 90s? Even if these athletes can be recruited can they be trained quickly enough to beat quality teams like Argentina and Brazil that have developed through their youth programs?

Residency Programs: In the fall of 2013 the U.S. established a residency program at Auburn University. Is this program producing satisfactory results? What are the established metrics being used to assess performance? Is the program too austere to attract the types of athletes desired? Can the program be effectively focused on both near term National Team performance and individual player development? Is Auburn the best location for this program or should other locations like Boston be pursued? Or, would USA Team Handball be better off sending its handful of top notch prospects to an overseas location like the Aarhus Handball Academy where they could get weekly match competition?

Some More Prognostication

It’s my own personal opinion that asking and answering these questions and others will logically lead USA Team Handball into a different direction than the path it’s been on the past couple of years. At the very least it would lead to some major tinkering with the structure and goals of the Residency Program at Auburn. And, it could depending on more detailed analysis lead to radical changes such as closing or mothballing the program at Auburn, pumping resources into targeted youth programs, an arrangement with an overseas entity like the Aarhus Academy or even going all-in on the likelihood of a Boston Olympics.

My fear, however, is that little such introspection will take place and the U.S. will muddle about for the next few years with a program at Auburn that looks much like it does now. Our national teams will continue to struggle, but hopefully show some signs of marginal improvement. Perhaps improving to the point where we can beat other 2nd tier nations in PATHF and qualify for the World Championships, but not progressing to the point where we can beat Argentina and Brazil. And, then when we fail to qualify in 2019 there will be a changing of the guard. Dozens of players will have already come and gone and several more will retire. And then a new batch of crossover athletes will be brought in. If there’s an Olympics in Boston we may even finally decide to move the Residency Program there. Recruiting and funding will naturally tick up and the U.S. will field some respectable sides that won’t embarrass. We’ll also have an uptick in grass roots interest like that which was seen in LA and Atlanta, but we’ll again slide back into to the same 3rd tier status the sport has always had in America.

Stay the Course? Are We Really, Really Sure that Makes Sense?

Maybe those are satisfactory results for some. With several years of “nothing” going on for our national teams under the Esch regime, the common refrain has been “at least we’re doing “something” now.” And, to many old timers I think the idea of setting up a Residency Program similar, if but a little more austere, brings back nostalgia for the good old days. That the program will soon be back to the level of the 80s and 90s.  And, maybe just maybe, we’ll somehow even exceed expectations this time around.

Believe it or not, I fully understand why some folks have this outlook. Heck, occasionally I even find myself guilty of such nostalgia. I guess I’m just a bit too analytical, though, to keep the rose colored glasses on very long. The bitter reality is that those good old days weren’t nearly as good as we like to remember them. The historical results are an epic pile of losses. The Men’s Olympic record is 4-24-1; The Women’s Olympic record is 4-19-0. In World Championship competition the men are 0-16-0 and the women 4-24-0.

And, keep in mind those are the “great” results are from a different era. We haven’t even been good enough to qualify for those events for several years otherwise we’d be adding quite a few more “L’s to those dismal records. Further compounding the problem is that handball is way more professionalized today and our competition is much stiffer in Pan America. Time was that we could take some great athletes in the 22-25 age range, spend 2 or 3 years training them up and qualify for an Olympics. The new reality is that even if, and it’s a big if, we can recruit the same quality of athletes post college we recruited in the past it’s doubtful that we could now even qualify a team for the Olympics, let alone come close to beating a European team.

Maybe what’s been started at Auburn is going to be truly different. That this past weekend’s stumble in Uruguay was just a momentary hiccup on the road to slow and steady improvement. That it’s only a matter of time till our Residency Program at Auburn starts building teams that will make short work of sides like Uruguay, Chile and Greenland. And, just a bit more time till we’re beating Argentina and Brazil, qualifying for the Olympics and even knocking off some European sides.

I guess anything is truly possible. The thing is, though, I’ve seen this movie before and I’ve yet to read or hear anything that articulates just how this movie’s going to have a different ending. We may be doing “something” but so is a lost hiker in the woods walking around in circles.

Time to Start Focusing on 2024

As I see it, the alternative is to develop a long term strategic plan with 2024 as a target and focus point for both National Team and Grass Roots development. Why 2024? Two reasons:

• There’s no quick fix to our National Teams that will dramatically improve our chances for 2020 Olympic Qualification. Focusing on 2024 will buy more time to identify, recruit and develop talent. Still a challenge, but a more realistic one.
• There’s a significant chance that Boston will host the 2024 Olympics meaning that the U.S. will not have to qualify. And, a hosted Olympics could be the vehicle to build some sustainable grass roots that can keep the U.S. competitive for years to come.

How exactly would this be done? Just how would it be different than what is being set up at Auburn? Very good questions. I know that perhaps, I come off as a “Mr. Know It All” sometimes, but, I’ll be up front and state, I don’t know the answers to those questions. Sure, I’ve got some ideas and I’ve started to flesh out some possibilities, but it’s not a simple problem with an obvious solution.

What I do know, though, is this. A comprehensive plan is needed. The sooner, the better.  But, that’s just what I think. The real question is what USA Team Handball leadership thinks. If there ever was a time to take stock and potentially change course, that time is now.

The Greater Boston metropolitan area has the population equivalent of 14.5 Iceland’s. Boston also has a pretty decent chance of hosting the 2024 Olympics which would result in substantial opportunities for local sponsorship. The Auburn-Opelika metro area is the equivalent of less than half an Iceland. Which location would be a better candidate for focusing limited resources in the hopes of creating a “home for handball” in the U.S.?

Part 1 of this option highlighted the potential benefits of focusing resources in one geographical area and the historical limited success the U.S. has had in doing so. This part explores how the U.S. might learn from the past should it decide to try and create a “Home for Handball” in the U.S.

Building a Better Mousetrap

One could infer from the lack of success highlighted in part 1 that you simply can’t artificially create a Little Iceland. But, maybe the lesson is just that it wasn’t done the right way.   That to execute such a strategy successfully, better planning, more resources and more patience are needed. It’s certainly debatable. One thing is for sure, though: The potential benefits of creating a Little Iceland or Home for Handball in the U.S. merits a further investigation. An investigation that would first take a long hard look at what’s worked and what hasn’t. A full assessment of the failures of the past and some real thought into how it might conceivably work in the future. I haven’t fully assessed those failures, but have a fairly solid understanding of what happened and what could be done differently. Here are some thoughts on building a better mousetrap:

1. Very Carefully Select your Location. Ask any real estate professional what the 3 key issues are for selling a house and they’ll tell you: Location, location, location. It’s no different in assessing where best to focus limited resources. Here are some key factors that should go into making the all important location decision.
   • Population: In general, the more people living in the location that’s selected, the better chance you are going to have in reaching critical mass. It’s simply a numbers game with the acknowledgment that your conversion rate (i.e. converting someone who doesn’t care about handball to a truly devoted participant/fan) could be really, really small.  After all, a good portion of the population at-large doesn’t care about any sports, let alone one they’ve never heard of. Converting 1 out of every 100 people would be a pretty darn good conversion rate. 1 out of 500 or 1,000 might be more realistic. This reality means that choosing a large metropolitan area will greatly improve your chances of creating converts.

     For example take a metro area like Boston with a population of 4,684,300 people. To create 5,000 handball fans/participants you would need a conversion rate of .11% or roughly 1 out of every 1,000 people. Now contrast that to the Auburn-Opelika metro area and its population of 135,800 people. To create 5,000 handball fans/participants you would need a conversion rate of 3.68% or roughly 37 out of every 1,000 people. Ouch. Those are some tough numbers. I’m not saying that it’s impossible to reach critical mass at a college town in rural Alabama. But, I will say that without a doubt the smaller population base means it will be way more challenging there than in a major metropolitan area.

   • Job opportunities: Athletes are far more likely to move to a location where there are varied job opportunities including professional positions for recent college graduates
   • Education Opportunities: Athletes for both the residency program and collegiate league would be interested in quality education opportunities.
   • College League Possibilities: The potential to develop a collegiate league in the regional area should be an important factor. And a league with reasonable driving distances for competition.
   • School District Pilot Program Possibilities: The potential to engage local high schools and middle schools to adopt team handball as a sanctioned sport
   • Cost: The costs of setting up a handball academy and supporting leagues and other development initiatives will be substantial. Some locales will be more suitable and cheaper for a number of reasons.
   • Sponsorship Opportunities: The likelihood of obtaining local community support for a handball academy and other development initiatives.
   • Existing local handball support: Ideally, there would already be at least some dedicated supporters of the sport in the local area. Having a ready group of dedicated volunteers will facilitate implementation of several development initiatives.
2. Fully integrate all aspects of regional development: It’s important to highlight that focusing resources in one location would be a lot more than simply establishing a residency program/development academy. Such a high performance training environment would be a key part, but just one part in a true regional development effort. And, all those parts (youth development, a high school league, college league, club league, development academy) would need to work closely in tandem to maximize the success of this initiative. This would mean maximizing staffing to support all these elements. In particular, athletes could be justifiably compensated for their support to youth and high school league support.
3. Fully commit and prioritize this regional development effort: Make no mistake, this would be a major effort and for it to work it might well be required to substantially decrease support to many other Federation activities. Doing a regional effort, “on the cheap” with only partial commitment/funding support also lessens the potential synergy possible with a multi-pronged effort.
4. Give the effort time to blossom and mature. This effort could very well take several years to fully bear fruit. Pulling the plug or lessening support prematurely due to the lack of immediate results will defeat the purpose of such a concentrated effort.

Pros

Establishment of a recognized “Home for Handball”: Having a recognized home for the sport will help in a number of tangible and somewhat intangible ways. Name recognition and identity in one concentrated geographical area has value. With it comes media exposure, sponsorship opportunities, greater public awareness and “buzz”. All of those could even mean real crowds and eventual TV broadcasts.

Improved Recruiting Prospects:  Co-locating youth, high school, college and a Residency Program/Development Academy efforts together will create a pathway/pipeline that athletes can see and join. Critically, this will make it far more feasible to recruit athletes from ages 10-18. An age group that has been very difficult to recruit for a variety of reasons.

Cons

Lessens the possibility of broad based nationwide growth:  A very strong focus on one regional area will by default result in less support to other regions. Correspondingly, there will likely be less chance for growth on a broad coast to coast basis. Rather than taking advantage of it’s huge population, the U.S. will be restricting itself due to a de facto self-imposed restriction.

Shows favoritism to one “blessed” region:  Handball supporters in other parts of the country getting less support will likely voice their disfavor with an intentional and pronounced unequal sharing of resources. For sure, historically there has been grumbling at even minor appearances of favoritism towards a club or region. And this time the grumbling would be somewhat justified because their efforts will indeed be getting fewer resources.

Risks

If the basket breaks, so will all the eggs.   It’s important to remember the cautionary basis for the “all the eggs in one basket” saying. Namely, that is a warning not to do it, because you won’t have any eggs if you drop that basket. And, just like that basket of eggs if the region you choose to focus on fails to pan out then you will have nothing to show for. This could be a spectacular failure. But, then again there have been far too many failures with many of the other piecemeal strategies that have been tried in the past.

Costs

In theory, a regionally focused strategy will save significant money and resources. This is because staff, athletes and volunteers would be concentrated in one location and could readily focus on multiple, integrated development efforts without significant travel costs. Keep in mind, however, that this only works if the effort is truly focused on a particular region. If you spread efforts such as a residency program, High School Pilot Program and collegiate league to different regions of the country it will be less feasible to share staff and funding to support multiple efforts.

Creating a Little Iceland or Home for Handball in the U.S. is certainly an enticing prospect, but also a risky one. In part 3, I’ll tackle the timing for implementing such a strategy should USA Team Handball decides that it’s a risk worth taking.

All the eggs in one basket: What if all of the major handball clubs scattered to the 4 corners of the U.S. were instead focused in one metropolitan area?

Would the U.S. be wise to develop a very focused development strategy around one metropolitan area? In part 1, I lay out the arguments for doing so and review historical efforts to spark development regionally. Part 2 will focus on the pros/cons, costs, risks and timing for doing so.

Iceland: 1,000 Times Smaller

Ever since I had the opportunity to play against Iceland at the 1993 World Championships I’ve been a little bit fascinated with Iceland and it’s national handball program. I even remember getting out my world almanac (yeah, this is a little bit before widespread internet and Wikipedia) because I was asking myself, “How many people live there, anyway?” Not sure what it was 22 years ago, but the current population is roughly 323,000 people. Coincidently, the population of the U.S. is approximately 323,000,000. This disparity inevitably leads to the question: How does a country roughly 1/1,000th the size of the U.S. kick our butts in handball?

Obviously, in terms of handball national team performance, there’s a lot more at play than total population. And, the key difference is that a significant portion of Iceland’s very small population is very focused on handball, whereas in the U.S. a very miniscule percentage has the same dedication. Seriously, depending on how you want to define it, it’s really small. I would argue that there are only around 300 really dedicated handball followers or around 1/1 millionth of the U.S. population. Bump it up to a 1,000 if you want, but you’re still talking about 1/300,000th of the U.S. population.

Creating a Little Reykjavik

Compounding the U.S. struggle is the reality that the handful of folks that really care about the sport are scattered throughout a huge nation, making it a struggle to work together to grow the sport.

Over the years I’ve found myself thinking about this problem, relating it to Iceland and playing a little numbers games of population comparison. I grew up on a farm in the state of Iowa (around 10 Iceland’s) and not too long ago lived in Las Vegas (6 Iceland’s). I remember driving across town and looking over towards the sprawling suburbs next to the mountains and thinking, “Hey, I just drove past a couple of Iceland’s.” And, now I live in Colorado Springs with a metropolitan area a bit bigger than 2 Iceland’s.

As, I’ve played this little game I’ve thought about what could be done if everyone who cared about the sport of team handball lived in the same place. Be it Iowa, Las Vegas, Colorado Springs, Boston or even Auburn, Alabama.  In short, I’ve asked myself:

What if we could throw all the eggs in one basket?

What if…..

• Instead of top clubs scattered throughout the country they all resided in one compact area?
• In one metro area, there were 10 top senior club teams regularly playing each other in a league competition?
• There were 20 collegiate teams feeding those programs.
• There was a Handball Development Academy training the top players in those colleges on a regular if not daily basis?
• There was a sanctioned High School sports program in that city feeding those college programs with new recruits?
• There were 50 youth clubs training and playing games, feeding the high school program?

Why, if all this were true and somehow came to pass it would be, as if, the U.S. had a little Reykjavik all its own. Or, as I like to call it the “All the Eggs in One Basket, Iceland Strategy.”

Organic Success

To some extent such a strategy has indeed been implemented to varying degrees in other sports. In most cases, though, it wasn’t actually a strategy. It just happened organically or naturally without artificial help. Case in point, are a couple of sports that for many years were essentially Californian, water polo and volleyball. Yes, there was a time not that long ago when competitive volleyball was very California centric. And, it still pretty much is when you’re talking men’s volleyball. And, although water polo has spread it’s wings some, all one has to do is look at where the bulk of the collegiate programs are to see that it is still very California centric.

The advantage to this regionalism is that the sport had critical mass in terms of local competition and development. Critical mass in that there were plenty of teams to play each other and create development at younger age levels. However, if that interest had been spread out evenly across the vast United States there would have been no critical mass. Clubs would have had to travel vast distances for competition. Isolated clubs might have sprung up, but these pockets of growth would be susceptible to periodic collapse of clubs and lack of interest.  Youth teams with no one to play would struggle to even get started. Why volleyball might never have become what it is today. Water polo might even be the equivalent of what Team Handball is in this country. A non-relevant sport from coast to coast.

Non-Organic Experiments with Limited Success

But, can such a regional massing of clubs and interest be created nonorganically? Can a federation take steps to proactively create a little handball Reykjavik? The answer is yes: steps can be taken. In USA Team Handball’s case the primary tools for doing so has been national team residency programs and investment to capitalize on the Olympic host city exposure.

Since the mid 1980s residency programs have been located in Colorado Springs, CO; Philadelphia, PA; Atlanta, GA; Cortland, NY and most recently Auburn, AL. In each case the massing of athletes in one spot has had some development effect on the local area. First off, just simply practicing an unfamiliar, but cool looking sport inevitably attracts a few onlookers to try it. Some of those athletes even became national team players. The athletes based at those locations also often did community outreach to facilitate development. Finally, for a variety of personal reasons some athletes settled in the residency program location and still live there today.

Unfortunately, none of these locations have had much success in terms of sustainable impact. Today, Colorado Springs has a local club mostly comprised of aging veterans that gathers occasionally to provide competition for the AF Academy. Over the past decade or so there have also been some decent youth programs in the Colorado Springs area, but no program is currently active. To the best of my knowledge pretty much nothing exists handball wise in either Philadelphia or Cortland, NY, but neither or those locales were residency sites sufficiently long enough for any side benefits to take effect.

In terms of an Olympic boom, both Los Angeles and Atlanta clearly benefitted from the exposure that an Olympics can bring. In the case of L.A. the 1980s were clearly the high tide for the sport there. At one time there was as many as 5 clubs in the LA area and the Boys & Girls clubs had dozens of programs throughout the area. But the buzz was not sustained and by the mid 1990s there was just one club, LA THC which still exists today.

And then we have the test case of Atlanta, which benefitted from an Olympics, a Residency Program and even having the Federation HQ co-located there in the late 1990s. For a time, Atlanta was indeed the closest the U.S. has ever come to having a little Reykjavik.   Atlanta had two solid clubs (ATH and the Condors), a development program with the Boys & Girls Club and the South East Team Handball Conference, the largest collegiate league the U.S. has ever had. Years later, however, there is little to show for. Gary Hines who rose up through the ranks is a mainstay on the national team, but the youth programs and ATH and the Condors are no more. All Atlanta has now is a newish club, Georgia Team Handball which has little link with the past.

What’s to be learned from these experiments? On the one hand, you could look at all of these experiments simply as failures and proof that you can’t artificially create a little Iceland.  I would argue, however, that position doesn’t take into account the limited planning that went into these experiments. In LA’s case the growth that occurred was pretty organic. There was funding from the 84 Olympic Foundation, but there were also dozens of firm believers willing to put in the work. The same can be said, as well, in Atlanta. There was funding support, but there were also plenty of dedicated volunteers. Colorado Springs may be somewhat of a disappointment, but that fails to account for its smaller size. Finally, the programs in Philadelphia and Cortland never were around long enough to take root. And Cortland was also probably hampered by its smaller size and location.

So, maybe the problem wasn’t so much with the concept, but with the choice of locations and with the lack of overall planning to make it a truly focused integrated effort. Maybe the U.S. could learn from it’s past mistakes and modest successes to build a better mousetrap? In part 2, I’ll lay out what could be done with a very focused regional effort.

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.