My First Handball Experience

Many of you may not know, but I recently applied to be the Public Relations Manager for USA Team Handball. No, not the handball where a pair of old sweaty dudes use their hands to slap a raquetball against the wall. But team handball is an official Olympic sport. It was the last gold medal given in Beijing to France, who beat the underdog Iceland team in the Final match of the Olympics before Closing Ceremonies.

Needless to say, I didn't get this part-time job due to my conflict of working at the bank 40 hours a week. But my interviewer, Steve Pastorino (former general manager of Real Salt Lake), hired me as a freelance writer for the official website. Apparently, the United States is now committed to getting a team in the Olympics in London 2012. We haven't qualified since 1996, when we were the host country in Atlanta.

It's a pretty cool sports, although many Americans don't even know what it is. I'll admit, I had no idea what Handball was when I applied for the job, but since the headquarters had been moved to Salt Lake City only a few months ago, I figured it could be a way of getting involved in something pretty epic from the ground level.

After writing a few articles and learning more about the sport, I figured it would be fun to actually play it, then blog what it was all about. That led me to a normal Tuesday evening headed to the Taylorsville Rec Center.

I arrived and found a bunch of teenagers doing warm ups with two indoor soccer nets set up on each end of the basketball courts. I figured I found the right place but I wasn't sure.

I went over an introduced myself to the man in charge, Amir (originally from Bosnia). I recognized his face from the team website and my initial interview at the team office. He told me to go and warm up on the sidelines as he was starting to get the drills going.

I went and streched (something I normally don't do when I play basketball and dunkball with the guys) and then a nice gentleman named Fong (originally from Vietnam) introduced himself and started teaching me the basic techniques one-on-one.

In handball, you always throw with the ball high behind your head as if you are throwing a javelin. Chest passes are rare, and you can never be lazy with your passes.

Also, you can take three steps once you catch a pass or pick up your dribble, so 15 years of basketball training is out the window because you feel like you are always traveling.

The ball is slightly bigger than a mini-basketball and is not super leathery like a basketball, but heavy enough that you can get some velocity on your throws. You need to throw the ball hard if you're going to get it past the goalkeeper.

After warming up with Fong for about 20 minutes of throwing, catching and jumping, I realized how out of shape I was. I had to take a water break to run to the bathroom where I felt I was going to hurl. And I hadn't even played a game yet!

It felt like my chest would explode, but after about 10 minutes of heavy breathing the nausea wore off. and I was able to return to the drills. It reminded me a lot like the first week of basketball practice back in my sad glory days of high school that I blogged about last week.

We then started to play the game. It felt a little chaotic at first because I wasn't aware of the rules. There is a 6-meter line around the goal where neither the defense nor offense can enter into this "neutral zone".

Playing defense was pretty basic. It's like basketball where you have to get between your man and the goal, but you are allowed to be a lot more physical than basketball, so it was like the physical ugly-style of Knicks basketball that Pat Riley introduced in the 1990's.

Playing offense felt a lot like the Air Force basketball team, where you pass the ball around a "three-point line" (aka the 6-meter line) and take shots on goal once you feel you get an opening between the defense and the goalie.

It's very fast paced, like soccer or Ultimate Frisbee, even though Ultimate is not a sport. I didn't score any goals, but I did clank the ball off the goal posts twice. One poor kid took a ball right in the face from a much bigger player. Wrong place, wrong time. Just part of the game.

Afterwards I ran into an old colleague at BYU who coaches the goalkeepers on the men's team, and he was also there for the first time. I also met a BYU student who just started up the handball club on Provo campus to help find athletes for the U.S. National tryouts coming in a few months.

The team is looking for exciting new athletes, most likely not me. I would guess the ideal potential Olympic player would be a running back/pitcher/volleyball or just Lebron James himself. You'll also need your speed guys on the wings to be your offensive specialists, and a point guard type player who can score and set up his/her teammates. Not to mention a few bigger guys in the trenches and an experienced indoor soccer goalie.

Would I play handball again? Absolutely! It was the best workout I have had in a long time, and it used muscles that have atrophied over the years at my cubicle. My arms, shoulders, back and legs ache. I just sneezed at my desk and it hurt my entire torso.

I was so ninja-pumped about my experience I immediately went home and watched some highlight's on NBC's website and started spreading the word to my friends. But overall it's still not as fun as Dunkball, Kristi.