Team USA’s Head Coaches (Javier Garcia Cuesta and Christian Latulippe): Did it make sense for the cash strapped Federation to hire 2 full time coaches at this point in time?

Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 focused on National Team Residency Programs and whether the time was right for USA Team Handball to start these programs.  This installment addresses the related questions of whether we need full time head coaches and if we do, whether the recent hires have the right skill sets to meet USA Team Handball’s current needs.

What does a national team coach do anyway?

Before I tackle the question of whether it’s the right time to hire full time head coaches for the U.S. National Teams I’ll first try to identify the roles and responsibilities of a national team coach and some semantics in regards to what it means to be full time.  In many respects being a national team coach is like being a coach for any team.  You train players, conduct practices, scout opposing teams and make coaching decisions during a match.  Where being a national team coach is different from being a club coach is that the actual periods of competition are fairly limited and in many nations players are attached to their clubs most of the time.  Accordingly, actual coaching consists of periods of intense activity and periods of relative inactivity.  We could argue about how just inactive the slow time between competitions is, but without a doubt there’s less to do when a coach doesn’t have players to train and matches to prepare for.

Because of these realities National Federations have come up with several different models of employment for their National Team Coaches.  Here’s a short summary of the most common models of employment:

1. The part time coach (with full time employment elsewhere):  Rather than pay a coach to sit around and do nothing most of the year, many nations choose to have a part time coach that spends the bulk of their time working for someone else.  This is currently the most common model use with the national team coach often also being the coach of a club team.
2. The part time coach (with other Federation responsibilities):  Some nations expand the job jar of the national team coach to include other responsibilities that might be related to coaching (e.g., Technical Director), but aren’t coaching per se.  It’s also somewhat a semantic distinction; the individual is a full time employee, they just aren’t a full time coach.
3. The full time coach:  Some nations prefer to have their coaches fully engaged with their national teams year round.  They recognize that there’s quite a bit of down time, but they don’t want their coaches distracted.  I haven’t personally seen the day to day itinerary of these coaches, but they apparently spend quite a bit of their time attending club matches to keep tabs on their players.
4. The full time coach (with a developmental team to train):  Some nations actually do have players that are available for training almost year round- the U.S. when it had Residency Programs, for example.  With players to train on a daily basis a full time coach is pretty much a necessity.

What employment model is right USA Team Handball?

In recent years, USA Team Handball has gone with a revolving door of part time coaches being selected in conjunction with qualification tournaments.  And when the U.S. had Residency Programs, full time coaches were hired to run the programs.  But, setting aside history what makes sense right now for USA Team Handball?

Well, first off let’s clearly establish that at this point in time it makes little sense for the U.S. to hire full time coaches.  The U.S. cannot afford the luxury of having someone 100% focused on its National Teams (model 3) and it also does not have Residency Programs in place (model 4) that would necessitate a full time coach.  So unless USA Team Handball can find coaches willing to work for pauper’s wages part time coaches will be the reality.

The part time coach (with full time employment elsewhere) certainly has its limitations.  It can be challenging for a fully resourced coach in Europe to take professional athletes and organize them into a cohesive and competitive team in a short period of time.  To expect a marginally resourced coach with amateur athletes to do the equivalent is asking quite a bit.  Certainly, the U.S. National Team results in recent years haven’t been very good.  I would argue, however, that poor results in recent years have had little to do with the coaches being part time.  Instead the poor results are more related to the quality of our players and other systemic problems related to a very thin talent pool.  As further proof, it should be noted that the U.S. has also piled up quite a few losses against other developing nations with part time coaches.

The part time coach (with other Federation responsibilities), could be a beneficial arrangement, particularly if that coach is also well suited for “other responsibilities.”  In effect, such an arrangement becomes a great “two for one” deal.  During the “down time” the coach can spend the bulk of his time taking on other tasks and still remain engaged with National Team related responsibilities.  Then when competition and training camps ramp up the coach can smoothly shift their focus to the National Team without the start/stop problems that a coach employed elsewhere has to deal with.

But, this only makes sense if the coach is well suited for the other responsibilities.  Otherwise it can become a “half for one” deal.  In other words, the Federation gets a part time coach for the cost of a full time employee.  And even worse, that part time value of “half” might not be the right fraction.  If the Federation has a lot of tasks that are not coaching related and the employee keeps finding ways to work on coaching related tasks that they are more interested in doing the Federation might even end up getting a 1/3 or 1/4th deal.

The recent USA Team Handball hires:  Huh?

With funding in short supply I would argue that it would probably make sense in the near term to stay with part time coaches that still receive the bulk of their employment income elsewhere.  There’s just too many other things that the Federation could fund or focus its efforts on.  But, perhaps if the right multi-talented candidates can be found a case could be made to hire them as full time employees to take on coaching and other responsibilities.  As this is apparently, what USA Team Handball has decided to do so here’s a look at the “High Performance Coaches” and whether they are a good fit.

Coach Javier Garcia Cuestas: The perfect coach to run a Residency Program; If only we had one

If one looks at USA Men’s National Team Coach Javier Garcia Cuesta’s career resume one cannot help but be impressed.  Not only is he arguably the most successful National Team coach in U.S. history, he’s also turned around programs in Egypt and Portugal.  He was never my coach, but I’ve heard dozens of friends and former players speak highly of him and his ability to understand the psyche of the American athlete.  Give him the talented raw athletes and the resources and he’s proven that he can assemble a competitive team.  If USA Team Handball starts up a fully resourced Residency Program similar to the one that was at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, he should be the first coach interviewed to head that program.

Problem is, of course, we don’t have a Residency Program in place, it’s not certain when it will start and it’s doubtful that it will be resourced as well as the program Coach Garcia ran so well in the 1980’s.  Taking this reality into account in then becomes a question as to whether Coach Garcia is the right hire to take on the “other responsibilities.”  As anyone who’s followed or been involved with Team Handball in the U.S. knows there is no shortage of things needed to be done to further advance the sport in this country.  I haven’t seen the list of responsibilities in his contract, but the hiring announcement does indicate that Coach Garcia as well as Coach Latulippe participated in the development of a long term strategy focused on the “recruitment, training, development, and elevating the stature of our National Teams.”  A follow up email from CEO Matt Van Houten further indicated that he would be “focusing his efforts on collaborating with the USOC Coaching Education department to develop several different projects for athlete identification and coaching education” and that he would “also be conducting athlete identification clinics focusing on bringing in new talent.”

These are certainly logical areas that need to be addressed by the Federation and it doesn’t take much investigation to determine that the U.S. is really lacking in the recruiting department.  This problem can be attacked in a number of different ways either through short term fixes, (primarily through cross over athlete identification) or through the slower development of grass roots program.  (This article provides a top level overview of issues related to recruitment/development.)

What’s highly debatable, however, is whether there is anything in Coach Garcia’s background that suggests he has the right skill set to take on recruiting challenges in the U.S.  Don’t get me wrong; give him the players with the raw talent and I’m sure he can evaluate their potential and develop them fairly quickly into decent Handball players.  He’s a proven quantity in those areas.

But, asking a Spanish National to navigate the American sporting culture and develop an effective recruiting strategy?  That’s a tough ask and this huge challenge might actually even suggest someone with a strong understanding of the U.S. sporting landscape and only a minimal knowledge of Team Handball.

This skepticism doesn’t mean that Coach Garcia can’t become the recruiter extraordinaire.  Just that I don’t see that as his strong suit.  From the outside looking in, I can only think why didn’t USA Team Handball just wait and consider hiring this outstanding coach when it would truly need him.

Coach Christian Latulippe:  How bad a record do you have to have in order not to get a 2nd chance?

Unlike with Coach Garcia there are some very pronounced question marks with Coach Latulippe’s record as a coach.  In particular, his stint as the USA Women’s coach from 2004-07 was downright dismal.  They were routinely beaten by many other developing programs in the Pan American Federation and couldn’t even win the Quebec Women’s club league.  Depending on your perspective Coach Latulippe was either fired or resigned his position under a cloud right before a second chance qualification tournament for 2007 PANAM Games.

Following this departure Coach Latulippe got some experience as an assistant and head coach for several women’s club teams in France.  But, again the record here is mixed.  Coach Latulippe’s current club, le Pouzin is leading its pool in Division N2 with a 16-2-1 record.  All well and good, but he left his previous club, La Motte Servolex, before the end of the season.  A season in which La Motte Servolex ended up with a record of 3-22-1 and resulted in their relegation from D2 to N1.  Further, it should be noted that the two clubs are on significantly different levels as N2 is down two levels from the more prestigious and professional D2.  Or to put it another way, there are 48 coaching positions in France above N2 and 48 coaching positions at N2.  To be sure fully assessing the coach’s culpability in club performance is an inexact science especially when your research consists of club records and a few articles on the internet.  Still looking at these results they are nothing to write home about.

There’s also no denying that Coach Latulippe’s program at Cortland was a shoe string operation and he deserves credit for holding it together.  Still, results are results.  It’s not credible to look back at the Cortland years and state anything along the lines of “Look at what he accomplished with negligible resources; Imagine what he could do with a real program.”  Instead, there’s almost nothing to show for.

And, on top of all this poor W-L record there is still no Residency Program in place so the issues highlighted with Coach Garcia also apply to Coach Latulippe.  Further, if one looks at the recruiting that took place during his years at Cortland it should be noted that very few high caliber players were identified.  So, there’s even hard evidence to suggest that recruiting is not Coach Latulippe’s strong suit.

Does all this mean that the 2nd time around can’t be different?  No it doesn’t; and on the plus side Coach Latulippe surely has some ideas on what needs to be corrected.  Still, one has to wonder at what point does such a poor record preclude the opportunity to get a 2nd chance?

Which leads to the next part of this series; Just how exactly did USA Team Handball make the determination that residency programs were the best course of action, that the time was right to start them and apparently hire coaches to run them? Part 6

20 years ago USA Team Handball conducted its own Philadelphia Experiment: A flawed, austere Residency Program for the Men’s National Team that was shut down after only one year. It provides a cautionary tale for the current administration as it apparently makes plans to restart Residency Programs.

In the first part of this series I tackled the basic question of whether Residency Programs were in principle a good strategy for developing U.S. National Teams.  In the next two parts I addressed the question of whether now was the right time to start Residency Programs.  Part 2 looked at prospects for qualifying for the 2016 Olympics and Part 3 addressed financial considerations.  Continuing the “Right time?” discussion I look at some planning considerations that need to be factored into any decision to start Residency Programs.

A Major Decision with Big Consequences

In most everyone’s life there are a handful of major decisions that have to be made.  What we decide for a career, where we choose to live and who we choose to marry are probably the three biggest ones.  Make a poor decision on any of those and be prepared to face the consequences.  No wants to spend their day doing a job they don’t like, residing in a place they don’t like or living with a spouse they don’t like.  In most cases we can recover from our decisions that haven’t turned out the way we wanted them to.  We can start a new career, move to a new city and divorce/remarry.  But, it goes without saying taking those steps in not always easy and without major consequences.

Starting Residency Programs is the rough sports federation equivalent of making all 3 of those decisions at the same time.  It is a huge decision and if USA Team Handball makes a poor choice there are some potentially big consequences.  And this isn’t just random conjecture from “some guy with a blog.”  No, USA Team Handball has been down this road before.  And the decision to pull the trigger sometimes has had disastrous consequences.

A Cautionary Tale:  The Philadelphia Experiment

As I gathered my thoughts for this series, I reflected on my own personal experience with Residency Programs.  Part of the trip down memory lane included a decision made almost exactly 20 years ago in 1993 to move the U.S. Men’s program from Colorado Springs to Philadelphia.  At the time the move was sold with the following rationale:

1. The U.S. population is more densely concentrated on the East Coast and locating in Philadelphia will make it easier to recruit athletes and have them move to join the program.
2. An East Coast location would make it easier for U.S. teams to travel to Europe and vice versa.  The costs of going to/from Colorado were an additional expense that sometimes precluded such travel.
3. USA Team Handball would be embraced by the City of Brotherly Love and we would no longer be one sport of many at a crowded Olympic Training Center.  Philadelphia would become America’s home for Team Handball and everyone would soon forget Colorado.

Needless to say many members of the National Team weren’t pleased with the prospect of moving.  Pretty much everybody liked Colorado Spring and some had started to set down roots in the place.  The move was made right before the National Team headed to Europe for the 1993 World Championships with some players moving their personal belongings and others (myself included) hedging their bets until after the World Championships.  The team gathered in Philadelphia for a few days prior to flying to Finland for a training camp and I caught a glimpse of what the program would be like.  The dorms at LaSalle University were a bit run down and it wasn’t clear if there would be access to a cafeteria or even a gym.  In short there were quite a few questions to be answered.

When the team came back from the World Championship, I personally had to make a decision regarding my future with the sport.  For those that have seen my less than spectacular talents it may seem somewhat laughable to think that I had any real decision, but playing in the World Championships had been a revelation for me.  Somehow, the afterthought player who had actually failed to even make a regional Olympic Festival team a year and a half earlier had worked his way into the starting lineup.  Albeit, only on defense and for a team that didn’t win a single game, but trust me if you are passionate about the sport and you get to play on the world’s stage, you’re allowed to have illusions of grandeur.

I contemplated the possibilities.  Leave the Air Force; find an aerospace job in Philadelphia; go to the Olympics in 1996.  But rationale thought and reality kicked in.  I assessed the odds were too long and the consequences were too severe.  And, easing that decision along for this athlete was an assessment that the Residency Program in Philadelphia wasn’t up to snuff.  It would have been one thing to continue the dream in quality surroundings; It would have been another thing entirely to so in a crappy environment.

And while losing me as a prospect was no real loss, it does illustrate the type of negative impact a shaky Residency Program can have.  I wasn’t the only player to make a similar decision and I can think of at least two talented athletes (Luke Travins and Brian Parath) who probably could have made the 96 Olympic Team if they had kept playing.  Not to mention the fact that the year in Philly was in many respects a lost year of prep for the 1996 Olympics.  I was not there, but the hardship stories are legendary.  It’s safe to say that training really didn’t get into full swing until the Philadelphia Experiment was unceremoniously ended and a Residency Program was established in Atlanta in 1994.  Would have another year of preparation made a difference?  Perhaps a close loss to Sweden becoming instead an upset victory?  We’ll never know, but a consistent training program wouldn’t have hurt.

And, this is but one example.  More recently, the Women’s program trained in Cortland, NY.   The setup there was also less than desirable with the athletes there making all sorts of sacrifices in terms of living conditions and job prospects.  (This ESPN article highlights some of those conditions.)  Not surprisingly, the program struggled to find quality recruits and was not very successful.  Even more recently, the U.S. held a training camp in Edmond, OK and at a press conference the Federation highlighted the possibility of starting Residency Programs there.  Alarmed, I wrote this commentary on that prospect.

Criteria to consider in locating Residency Programs

My commentary included a top level list of factors to consider when evaluating locations for Residency Programs.  These criteria included the following:

1. Quality and Availability of Facilities:  Ready and easy access to facilities
2. Local support:  Will the Residency Program be embraced by the local community
3. Ease of Travel: Both for teams visiting and recruiting. (Yes, there was some logic behind moving to Philadelphia)
4. Academic Opportunity and Quality:  The desired athletes are college age and many will want an opportunity to pursue a degree.
5. Athlete Financial Incentive:  Tuition, room and board, stipends, etc.
6. USOC Support:  An Olympic Training Center would be ideal, but the USOC also has arrangements with other facilities too
7. Intangibles:  Call this factor X; maybe there’s a benefactor out there willing to financially support a program
8. Gut reaction:  Some locales simply by their name will make recruiting easier.

This is just a top level summary, there’s a little more detail in the commentary from two years ago.

Olympic Leverage

In all likelihood USA Team Handball will evaluate these factors and more and will consider multiple locations before making such an important decision.  So, what are the chances that it can secure an arrangement with at least some of them in place?  At this point in time (March 2013) I would assess there’s probably only one scenario whereby a decent arrangement could be started.  And that would be the USOC reversing long standing policy to let a minor sport with negligible chance of medaling in the near term set up shop (beds for 32 athletes, meals in the dining hall, weight room access and dedicated court time) at one of the Olympic Training Centers.  It’s certainly possible, but the prospects seem slight due to the competing demands from a lot of sports, many with smaller footprints and more feasible medaling prospects.  Perhaps facility access might be provided, but room and board is probably a stretch.

Entities with a loose affiliation with the USOC are probably a more likely prospect, but it’s also hard to see them offering up much more than a gym to practice and perhaps in-state tuition rates.  (This should immediately conjure up images of Philadelphia and Cortland.)  The problem is simply a lack of negotiating leverage– as in USA Team Handball has little if anything to offer up at this point in time.

But, maybe there is a point in time, in the not too distant future, where USA Team Handball might have a little leverage. Yes, I’m referring to the prospects of a USA hosted Olympics in 2024.  Hey, that’s over 11 years away, you might say.  Working back the timeline back from that future date, however, shows that host city campaigns and selection isn’t that far away.

2017: IOC selects 2024 Olympic host city
2015: Bid cities selected by nations start campaigning
Late 2014: USOC intends to select USA candidate city Link
Early 2014: USOC intends to narrow USA candidates to 2 or 3

So, might a U.S. city interested in getting selected to host an Olympics be willing to do a little bit more than they normally would to help a minor sport.  Maybe as part of a bid package San Francisco or some other city would include a training program for USA Team Handball at one of the local universities and job employment assistance with Silicon Valley companies.   (Finish your degree at Cal-Berkeley, work for Google and play Team Handball:  wouldn’t that be a nice recruiting pitch.)  With hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, it’s at least conceivable that competing cities will at least entertain possibilities that might make their host city bid package more attractive.

Besides the leverage possibilities in the host selection bid process the advantages of simply co-locating with the city that gets selected are also very significant.  Local sponsorship would certainly be easier to secure.  Start the program in 2015 and you would even have time to implement a Title IX High School program.  And those are just some of the possibilities.

The cart before the horse?

There’s no guarantee, of course, that the U.S. will get the 2024 Olympics, but surely the odds have never been better.  And, perhaps USA Team Handball can get a good deal at an Olympic Training Center without having to wait.  If it’s truly a good deal with good guarantees, why not?  But, if all USA Team Handball can get is a so-so deal for an austere program with a lot of question marks there’s a lot to suggest that it would be a smarter move to wait a bit.  To sum up, here are 3 big reasons to really think twice before moving forward with Residency Programs anytime soon.

1. U.S. National Teams stand very little chance at qualifying for the 2016 Olympics Link
2. USA Team Handball doesn’t appear to have the funding to fully support a program Link
3. Leverage for a better deal might be just around the corner

So that sums up my concerns with starting Residency Programs.  In the next installment I tackle the issue of whether it makes sense to hire full time coaches at this point in time and whether USA Team Handball has hired coaches with the right skill sets to match its current needs. Part 5