Earlier today, Mike Cavanaugh announced his professional retirement from USA Team Handball: Link

While he no longer will have an official capacity he will still be contributing to the sport as the coach of Air Force and, I would suspect in other ways as well.  As long as I’ve been involved with the sport of team handball, there has always been one constant presence:  Mike Cavanaugh.  And, that’s literally true for anyone (and I mean anyone) involved with the sport in this country.  Seriously, if you want to play the Kevin Bacon game for USA Team Handball you will be hard pressed to find anyone who’s not 1 degree of separation.  Everybody knows Mike; Everybody.

And, virtually everyone in our small community has interacted with Mike in some capacity.  Whether they were a national team player or someone who just discovered the sport and wanted to find out more information they’ve met Mike Cavanaugh.  Some of those interactions were trivial, but some of those interactions were also pretty consequential.

On the occasion of his retirement I’ll share one such consequential interaction.  One that made a big difference in my life.

Helping an Athlete/Person Make the Right Decision

Way back in 1993 I was at one of those big crossroads points we all face in life.  I had just returned from the World Championships where I had represented my country, playing the sport I loved on the World Stage.  Sure, we hadn’t come close to winning a match, but for me personally it had still been a great experience.   In less than 2 years I had gone from being cut from an Olympic Festival team to starting on defense for the national team.  I was on cloud 9 with dreams of grandeur.

After returning from the World Championships I had an office visit with Mike and our then Head Coach, Vojtech Mares, where we talked about my future as a handball player.  I was pretty excited.  I discussed the possibility of getting a military assignment in Europe so I could play with a club there or simply leaving the Air Force altogether.  I was 28 years old and my AF career wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire.  (Leaving for several weeks at a time to go play a sport many had never even heard of just didn’t sit well with some of my supervisors.) The Olympics was also just 3 years away and since Atlanta was hosting we had already qualified.  The residency program was moving to Philadelphia.  I had even started to investigate Aerospace Engineering jobs in the area there.

This little office meeting could have gone a number of different ways.  An average (at best) player could have been pumped up with praise.  Encouraged to move to Philadelphia and pursue his Olympic dreams.  And, from strictly a management stand point that would have been the thing to do.  The Philadelphia set up didn’t have enough players.  I was a marginal prospect, but a reliable one.  I would have helped in terms of practice quality and who knows maybe I would continue to surprise and contribute in a meaningful way.    

26 years later I don’t remember exactly what was said, but it was a frank and open discussion.  A conversation, that didn’t overly encourage, but one that didn’t discourage either.  Fact based about what USA Team Handball’s plans were and how I might fit in those plans.  It was a conversation that started out as a discussion about handball, but ended up as a discussion more about me as a person and my future.

I had been skillfully and gently moved down from cloud 9.  Still excited about the sport and what I had accomplished, but now in a position to be more thoughtful and analytical. To make a decision with my heart and my head.   I did not move to Philadelphia and stayed in the Air Force.   A decision that ultimately was best for me.

A Guy with a Lot of Friends and Very Few (in any?) Enemies

I suspect that I’m not the only person in our small handball community that has a similar story they could tell.  How Mike has influenced them and made a difference in their life outside of the sport of handball.

What’s truly remarkable, when you think about it, is how we was able to maintain relationships.  Think of all the controversial issues and sometimes downright crazy stuff that has happened over the years.  All of the heated disagreements on how best to proceed.  For sure, I’ve had my complaints and on more than one occasion have disagreed with what was decided.

But, despite all of those disagreements I’ve never had a bad interaction with him.  Always professional; Always friendly (as much as possible); Always the diplomat.  Maybe there are some folks out there that feel differently, but they are few and far between. 

There are lots of ways to measure success.  Wins and losses; Medals, money in the bank account, etc. But, if at the end of the day, you cannot even begin to count all the people you’ve had a positive impact on as a coach, as an administrator, as a friend, then count yourself lucky.

Thanks, Mike for all that you have done for the sport in this country…

And, Beat Army!

This article is part of a series, Charting a Way Forward for USA Team Handball (2019 Reboot)

A Brief Diatribe on American and European Sports Structures

When describing handball in the U.S., it’s important to contextually to consider one’s audience.  Simple terms like club, schools, colleges, intramurals, leagues, tournaments and championships can mean radically different things to a European or an American. 

Case in point, I’ll never forget a comical discussion I had with my French basketball teammates regarding what the NCAA basketball tournament was.  This “knockout” tournament is a huge deal in the U.S. and was getting a little publicity in France since the son, Joakim, of a famous Frenchman, Yannick Noah, was playing in it.  Why was this conversation comical?  Because I couldn’t go one sentence without having to backtrack down a rabbit hole with further explanations.  Here’s roughly how it went:

Me:  So, it’s a tournament to determine the college national champion
Teammate 1:  What kind of a tournament?
Me:  Well, it’s a tournament where the top 64 teams keep playing each other until only 1 team is left
Teammate 2:  Oh, so like the Coupe de France.
Me:  Well, no it is just for college teams and it’s played over 3 consecutive weekends.
Teammate 3:  College teams?  Huh, Why not the NBA and the 2^nd division below the NBA.
Teammate 4:  No, Claude.  They don’t have divisions in the U.S.  College is their 2^nd division.
Me:  Well, sort of, but not exactly.  It’s our 2^nd best competition, but the players are amateur and only get scholarships.
Teammate 5:  What’s a scholarship?

So… I could go on and on and the conversation actually did for another 15 minutes or so, but it was really stretching my French speaking skills.  Still, even if I had been fluent it would have been a huge challenge.  Also, the funny thing was that since by that time I had lived a few years in France I fully understood why they had asked each and every question. 

It was also revelatory to me about all the expats I had played handball with in the U.S.  No wonder they were so confused.  Our structures are so different in so many ways and what I’ve learned is that each culture takes so many things for granted simply because… Well, that’s the way it’s always been done.

So, if you’re wondering why the obvious is being explained, keep in mind I’m writing for two different audiences.

Men’s Team Handball Organizations and Activities in the United States

Training Centers:  A Training Center is a place where handball is taught intensively.  Two common examples:  A European style Academy and what the U.S. has called Residency Programs in the past.   Currently, there are no handball training centers in the U.S., although the youth program in Chicago has some elements of an Academy, albeit on a smaller scale.

Clubs:  There are approximately 40 adult men’s clubs in the U.S.  These clubs vary significantly in terms of size, organization and level of play.  At one end of the spectrum is the New York City Team Handball Club with dozens of members, most of whom have played before in another country.  At the other end of the spectrum are perhaps around 10 clubs that have maybe 5-10 dedicated players and are struggling to keep afloat.  With few exceptions U.S. clubs are also simply adult recreational clubs.  There are no youth teams progressively teaching more skills as athletes get older. The adult members do take the sport seriously, but practices are at most once or twice a week with competition limited to weekend tournaments.  The one exception to this is North East Team Handball League.

Collegiate Clubs:  An important subset of clubs are collegiate clubs which are affiliated with a college or University.  There are roughly 13 Men’s collegiate clubs in the U.S.  It should also be emphasized that collegiate club sports are dramatically different from sanctioned NCAA sports.  There are no scholarships and colleges typically only provide top level support.  As athletes are college students, in most instances they are ages 18-23.

Youth Programs:  These programs consist of athletes in Middle School (ages 12-14) and High School (ages 14-18).  There are two fairly well established programs in the U.S., one in San Francisco with roughly 130 participants and one in the Chicago area with roughly 20 participants.  The program in San Francisco is a school based competition while the Chicago program is focused around one athletic facility.

Other Activities:  Team handball is played in Physical Education classes in hundreds, maybe even thousands of schools.  This handball, however, is often just a rough facsimile of the game, taught by teachers unfamiliar with the sport, for a few lessons and with a lot of rule variants.  There are also a number of colleges with intramural programs.  (Intramural sports are lower level competitions where multiple teams at one college play each other.)  Again, the handball that is played is often just a facsimile of the game we are all familiar with.

USA Men’s Club Demographics (2019 National Championship Snapshot)

This past April and May the U.S. staged its Collegiate Club and Club National Championships.   Unlike European countries there is no nation-wide league and these championship events are played over only 3 days and are open to all comers.  3 Canadian clubs even attended.  This chart breaks down the total participants in these 3 events. 

(Note:  Club nationals had 2 separate competitions: Elite and Div 1)
(Note:  Citizenship data in these tables relied heavily on roster names to assess nationality.  Such an assessment surely is prone to error as Americans don’t always have “American Sounding” names and conversely some expats have deceptively “American Sounding” names.  Overall, though I would assess that it’s a pretty good ballpark data.)

A few obvious points from these tables.

• A majority of our Club National Championships participants are not U.S. citizens (Only 23% of the combined total of Elite/D1 Male athletes were U.S. citizens)
• A majority of our Club National Championships participants are over the age of 30
• An overwhelming majority of our College National Championship participants are U.S. citizens
• An overwhelming majority of our College National Championship participants are younger than 24 years old.

U.S. Citizen Demographics (Male)

In terms of National Team planning it is, of course, a necessity to focus strictly on U.S. citizen demographics.  The following tables break out the citizen representation from U.S. clubs and adds estimates for expat Americans playing overseas and youth program participation.  These estimates were based on an extrapolation of National Championship data and National Team roster data.  For USA based numbers I added athletes based on known clubs that didn’t attend nationals.  For overseas numbers I took the number or expat players that have played on Sr, Jr, and Youth rosters the past 10 years or so (60 total) and doubled it, figuring that would conservatively account for unknown or lower level players.  Anecdotally, I would assess that the yearly total is higher at younger ages and gets significantly smaller as players age out.  For the most part I tried to error on the conservative side.  The only exception is that I did not pad this data with the inclusion of school Phys Ed programs and college intramurals.

Key Points and Logical Follow On Questions: 

• Conservatively, there are less than 600 Male U.S. citizen handball players in the world.  (It depends on one’s semantics, but it’s probably less.)
  • Question: Should USA Team Handball’s top priority be increasing this very, very low “total number”?
• Stateside demographics clearly do not follow the traditional pyramid structure often seen with other sports (massive youth participation at the base and professionals/national teams at the tip.)
  • Question: Is not having a pyramid a problem?
  • Question: How should limited resources be applied to different levels of this would be pyramid
• The only level with a competition that is structured somewhat normal (right age; predominantly American) is our college championships.
  • Question: Why is there some level of success at this level?
  • Question: Can this success be duplicated at other levels of the pyramid? Why or why not?

This is meant only as a top level analysis.  In a future article I will take a closer look at the U.S. Elite Player Pool and the existing and potential pathways for athletes to enter this pool.

Why a Reboot and Some Personal Reflection

Five years ago I started a series of commentaries that considered different strategies for USA Team Handball to improve National Team performance.  I did the series as a counterpoint to what I saw as some flawed strategic planning.  Flawed planning and a lack of process that led to the setup of National Team Residency Programs at Auburn.  Programs that were by almost any measure not very successful and have since been closed down.

But, as I pointed out in my critique there’s a basic truism regarding planning in that it is relatively easy to sit on the sidelines and critique a plan.  Especially a plan tackling a really tough problem.  So, I said to myself, if you’re going to critique something as flawed, you better come up with some alternatives.  Hence the series highlighting the pros and cons of several different alternatives.

Flash forward several years later and it appears USA Team Handball is now in a position similar to where it was in 2012.  Trying to figure out how to move forward.  On a personal level it’s gratifying to see that some of the options I’ve identified such as a focus on college programs targeted for some sort of implementation.  But, then I’ve also heard some top level ideas regarding water polo players transferring their talents and pro leagues starting up just around the corner that has alarm bells ringing loudly in my ears. I’m not saying such strategies can’t work (though I have my doubts), but, for sure, I’m wondering how well they stack up vs other possibilities.

I’ve also reflected on what I got right and what I got wrong in the original series of commentaries.  As I’ve learned more about handball’s structure in Europe and the changing dynamics in U.S. sporting structures it’s clear that some of the options need to be tweaked.  Further, on a real positive note, outside organizations like the IHF, EHF and Europe’s top professional clubs are now willing to provide resources, making some options a lot more feasible.

Big Picture:  Taking Stock of What We Have

One item I neglected in the original series was sufficient analysis as to what the current state of handball is in the U.S.  How many people, or more importantly, how many Americans are playing the sport?  How old are they?  What is the level of play?  How many American Expat players are there?  For sure, we are all capable of anecdotal assessments, but impressions can be often clouded to reflect what we want to see.  I’ve now done a real deep dive into the data and rest assured, it’s very telling data that should heavily influence any planning USA Team Handball does going forward.

• Demographics (Men)
  • American Citizen Male Athletes (Overview): Link
  • USA Men’s Elite Player Pool (Overview): Link
  • USA Men’s National Team (Part 1: A Closer Look by Position- GK and CR): Link
  • USA Men’s National Team (Part 2: A Closer Look by Position- BC and RW/LW): Link
• Demographics (Women)
  • American Citizen Female Athletes (Overview): Link
    USA Women’s Elite Player Pool (Overview): Link
• USA Club Programs
  • Part 1: Understanding the USA Club Structure and At-Large Men’s Clubs: Link
    Part 2: Collegiate Men’s Clubs: Our Most American Competition with Opportunities for Growth: Link
    Part 3: USA Women At-Large and Collegiate Clubs: Link
    Part 4: Why there are so Few Clubs and Why the Rosters Mostly Consist of Expats: Link
• Finances
  • Part 1: USA Team Handball Revenue (Grants, Contributions and Sponsorships): Link
  • Part 2: USA Team Handball Revenue (Membership and the Importance of Tracking that Data): Link

Big Picture:  Taking Stock of What We Want to Be

While determining “What we want to be” might seem straightforward it’s really a tough question.   In broad terms everyone wants to develop the sport and have successful national teams.  How developed, though, do we want the sport to be?  How successful is successful enough?  Not to mention, the two overarching goals of development and national team success can sometimes be in direct conflict with each other. 

• Part 1: A review of the USA Team Handball Strategic Plan and National Team Targets: Link
• Part 2: A review of USA Collegiate Development Targets: Link
• Part 3: A review of Fundraising Targets: Link
• Part 4: A review of Marketing Targets: Link
• Part 5: A review of the “Big, Hairy, Audacious Project: Link

Big Picture:  How We Get There? (Or More Accurately, Can We Get There)

And, then just about everyone has different ideas regarding “How we get there.”  So, how does one decide which option(s) are better?  Answer:  Very, very carefully after a lot of assessment in terms of cost, schedule, risks, SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), pros, cons, etc.  And, after all that is done another question has to be asked for each option:  Can we get there, from here?

• Part 1: The Project Management Triangle: Link
• Part 2: National Team Targets: Link

Big Picture:  Taking Stock of What We Want to Be… Urr, Actually Can Be

This, of course, leads to the reality that “What we want to be” and “What we actually can be” are often two very different things.  One has either to find more resources, change the time frame, or lower expectations.  (Or, in project management terms:  adjust cost, schedule or performance).  

This is often “where the rubber hits the road.”  Where decisions have to be made on how much to spend and where.  And, unless the budget in unbounded there are going to be winners and losers.  Some efforts will get funded and some won’t.  That’s just the way it is.

If all this is done properly, in the end you should get a nice flow chart where everything lines up.  The “How we get there?” matches “What we want” because we’ve tempered expectations to match what actually can be done.

An Ongoing Series

As before I will be updating this page with links to analysis.  First up, I will be tackling the “What we have” block in detail.  Yes, the demographics of our National Team programs and clubs.  Data which in stark terms shows just how minor our sport is in this country.

Former Swedish National Team Coach and Player, Staffan Olsson has been hired to be USA Team Handball’s new High Performance Director.  He is filling a vacant position that was previously held by Dave Gascon, who had performed the role on a volunteer basis from 2013 to 2018.

While the name, Staffan Olsson, has little meaning in the U.S., he is indeed a handball legend and is regarded as one of the best right backs of all time.  His coaching career has also been solid with stints as a co-coach of the Swedish National team and one of Sweden’s top clubs Hammarby.  Most recently he was an Asst Coach for one of the top clubs in the world, Paris Saint-Germain.

Three Primary Roles

The USA Team Handball write up lists three primary roles for him as High Performance Director.

1) oversee the management and direction of USA Team Handball’s national teams,
2) determine a pipeline of new athletes at the elite level, and
3) develop the training program for coaches and officials at various levels of the sport

The 1^st role seem like a pretty good fit for Olsson.  It will be somewhat “different” to manage 3^rd tier national teams like the U.S. instead of a premier national team like Sweden.  Different for sure in terms of budget, but familiar.  And, then developing training programs for coaches and officials will also be something he is well suited for except for maybe the starting from zero aspect that is often necessary in the U.S.

For sure, though, the most challenging role for the new High Performance Director will be to “determine a pipeline of new athletes at the elite level.” Why, the most challenging?  The U.S. currently lacks any significant grass roots development, meaning that there are very, very few elite athlete candidates available to enter any would be pipeline.  This reality has bedeviled USA Team Handball for decades.  In fact, I would argue that it’s an intractable problem that can really only be properly addressed after grass roots programs have been patiently and sufficiently built up. 

Maybe, however, there is some secret Swedish sauce that he will be able to apply to solve this problem in some other, quicker way.  Regardless, there’s little doubt in my mind that he will do a great job of looking after the players we have. Getting them good preparation for tournaments and helping them find clubs in Europe.

Me vs White Snake Back in 1993

It’s not very often that I get to pull the “Yeah, I played against him” card, but back in 1993 I indeed played against Staffan Olsson at the World Championships.  Why, as I wrote in this commentary back in 2016, I’ve even claimed to have shut him down after a few beers on more than one occasion.  Something tells me though, that just like USA Men’s Coach, Robert Hedin, he probably doesn’t even remember playing that match against the U.S.  When you play 358 International Games, some are surely forgettable.  Whereas when your resume is just 12 matches, you remember them all. 

Oh, and the White Snake reference?:  The U.S. Men’s team honored him with that nickname back in 93.  You see there was this band in the late 1980s… “Here, I go again on my own…”  In retrospect, his hair was long, but not that long.

Now that we’ve captured the demographics of our really, really small talent pool (Part 2), let’s take a deep dive into the likelihood of whether such a small cohort, properly trained and developed can be competitive against the big dogs.

I’ve seen a lot of movies in my life, but without hesitation or a second thought I’ll state that Hoosiers is my all-time favorite.  The movie tells the story of a small town high school basketball team that takes on the big schools and wins the 1952 Indiana State Title.  It’s certainly not the greatest movie ever made, but for sure no movie could better capture a time in my life and something that I was so incredibly passionate about:  Small town high school basketball.  I grew up in a different state (Iowa) and a different era (the 1980s) but it hits home never the less.  The film is fictional, but it drew inspiration from a true story, the 1954 Milan High School Basketball team. Even more impressive and less well known is the 1937 Melrose, IA team (where my grandmother went to school) which won with just 66 students in the school.

So, if a tiny high school with an enrollment of just 161 students can win a state basketball title beating schools 10 times larger, can USA Team Handball accomplish something similar.  Can U.S. National teams that are mostly Expatica America with a few stateside additions be competitive?  Win medals or titles?

Answer:  Yes, it’s possible.  Unfortunately, though, it’s just not very likely.

The Very Challenging Math Behind Small Talent Pools

So, why is the math so hard?  Well, because we are not talking about one small town vs several big cities (one at a time).  We’re actually talking about one small town vs several countries.  The equivalent isn’t Hickory High vs South Bend Central.  The equivalent is actually Hickory High vs an Indiana big school all-star team.  Yes, take the best player off South Bend Central and add 11 players from a selection of all the big schools in Indiana.  Jimmy Chitwood could still ball against that team, but his supporting cast would have been overwhelmed.  Maybe, good ol’ Hickory could still pull off one miraculous upset, but the next match would then be against the Illinois all-star team.  Again, anything is possible… But, it’s just not probable.

All things being equal the chances of a great athlete being born in a particular town or country are directly proportional to the size of that town or country.  The bigger the city, the bigger the country, well, then the better odds you’re going to have.  Of course, not all things are equal.  Raw talent is perhaps, but some towns, some countries can buck those odds with excellent talent identification and training.

Norway (Iowa), Iceland and the Faroe Islands

Case in point, I’ll bring up another less well known movie, “The Final Season” about Norway… Iowa.  Yes, a small town of 545 citizens that won 20 state baseball championships.  The school was so small their graduating classes were only around 25 students, but virtually every boy played baseball and they had a really good coach who produced several college/minor league players and 3 major leaguers.  And, because they were such a small school they only played two sports, baseball and basketball resulting in specialization that other big schools couldn’t take advantage of in 80s and 90s.

On a larger scale, the Iceland men have done roughly the same thing with handball over the years.  They almost always qualify for the World Championships and European Championships and they’ve qualified for 7 of 12 Olympic competitions.  The high water mark is their silver medal at the 2008 Olympics.  Quite an accomplishment for a nation of just 360,000 people competing against much larger nations.  And, make no mistake about it, even if handball is really popular in Iceland, meaning a far greater percentage of their youth athletes are going to take up handball they are still dealing with a far smaller player pool than most handball nations.

Then, there’s the Faroe Islands with just 52,000 people.  Handball is also popular there, but they’ve never come close to qualifying for the World Championships or European Championships.  They have, however, shown some real promising signs recently.  They won the first two IHF Emerging Nations Championships in 2015 and 2017.  And, this past summer their U17 National Team shocked the handball world by winning the first ever European Open Championship for this age group.  And, it was not a fluke, they clearly were the best team at this tournament, beating Norway, Spain, Hungary, Belarus and Sweden.  And beating hosts, Sweden, convincingly 36-29 in the final no less (Match video).  Holy crap, is leading scorer and Tourney MVP, Elias Ellefsen a Skipagotu, the Jimmy Chitwood of handball?

So, I don’t want to take anything away from the young Faroe Islands team.  Winning this tournament was a tremendous accomplishment.  No one is ever going to take that away from them.  But, are the Faroe Islands now on a path to future Sr. Team titles?  I’m thinking probably not.  The team that won that tournament is truly a team.  They’ve got some solid players, but I suspect as they move up to U19 and U21 tournaments the bigger nations are going to take advantage of their larger talent pool and will out talent them physically.  And, at the Sr National Team level with age restrictions removed?  Well, the gap will just increase.  I think the Faroes will be competitive.  Maybe, with the expanded format they will even have a shot at qualifying for the European Championships.  But, competing for titles?  Really unlikely, but believe me it would truly be awesome to be totally wrong here.

Golden Generations and the Team Photo on the Wall

The other way that towns and nations with a small population pool can have success is with the happenstance of a so called “Golden Generation”.  Every town is going to have a good player every 10 years or so, but if you get lucky you might get two or three good players born at roughly the same time.  Or maybe even hit the jackpot with an entire team.  Combine that with decent coaching, a bit of luck and well… you get to put a State Champion photo up in the high school gym or win a U17 European title.  Or even get Hollywood to make a movie about you.  It can and does happen, it just doesn’t happen very often.  That’s what makes it special or golden. 

Is the current crop of Handball American Expats a golden generation?  Having followed USA Handball pretty closely for 30 years or so, I could say “yes or no… depending on your perspective”. 

With the U.S. Men there is a solid core of young Expat players aged 20-23 that could be mainstays on our Sr National Team for a decade.  The U.S. has never had that many talented players at that age level. Ever.  Not even close.  (Heck, historically many of our national team players didn’t even start playing handball until age 22 or 23).  From a comparative historical perspective it’s clearly a golden generation.  But, if one wants to compare that same cohort to the talent of other handball nations it’s less golden.  More accurately, it’s a collection of players that one might expect to see in the German 2nd Division.  Such a team can be competitive and could win a NORCA title and qualify for the World Championships.  I’ve got my doubts, though as to whether they can beat Argentina and Brazil to qualify for an Olympics. And, as a side point that points to Expatica Americana having a Golden Generation: Historically I would assess that a 3rd or 4th division side is what we might usually expect from such a small pool of talent to draw from.

With the U.S. Women there are simply not enough Expats available to field a team similar to the men (e.g. mostly expats with a handful of stateside players to round out the roster).  On a historical basis, though, more expats then ever before are being used and they are playing keying roles. But unless there are a lot of expat players hiding out somewhere in Europe we won’t be contemplating an Expat first strategy with the U.S. Women anytime soon.

The Big Picture

It should be clear now that Expatica American is and isn’t.

What Expatica Americana is:

• A key cohort of our national teams
• A cohort that is very, very small in size
• A cohort that will ebb and flow in terms of quality (sometimes dramatically)
• A cohort that sometimes (all by itself) will allow the U.S. to put together a respectable national team

What Expatica Americana isn’t:

• A cohort that all by itself is very, very unlikely to carry USA national teams to greatness
• A panacea for the lack of stateside grass roots development

So, I would say that’s a pretty thorough overview of our Handball American Expats.  I’ve covered what it means philosophically, their demographics and what can be realistically expected from this key cohort both now and going forward.  Time to move on and think more broadly in terms of how the U.S. should strategically develop its national teams going forward.