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.

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