Section B·Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Thursday, September 18, 1997
Club team seeks exposure
By Sara Anderson sports@kansan.com Special to the Kansan
The second most popular sport in the world is trying to get more exposure at the University of Kansas.
Sven Mayer, Germany graduate student (center), tries to push past Mario Pavlovic, Croatia graduate student (right). The team-handball club practiced last night in Robinson Gymnasium. Photo by Geof Krieger/KANSAN
The team-handball club is trying to expand into the intramural program to increase interest in the sport and to recruit players into the club.
"Team handball is second only to soccer in world popularity outside of the United States," said Bobby Lockwood, team-handball coach. "Our goal is to gain popularity on campus, become an intramural team and help find better players for the club team."
Jason Krone, intramural-sports director, said there was no set procedure to introduce new sports into the intramural program.
Rey Lin, Taiwan senior and club president, said one reason the club wanted to become part of the intramural program was to get a broad view of who was interested and willing to learn the sport.
"There are no specific forms to fill out or anything," he said. "The only thing we look for is interest by the students. If 100 people say they want to play a sport, then we try and do it for them."
Krone said that he had talked to Lin about making team handball part of the intramural program.
"It's hard to start in the middle of the semester because we set our schedules last May, so most of our court space has already been used," Krone said. "Anything is possible for next year, but we really need to see a lot of student interest in it."
Team handball combines different aspects of soccer, basketball and football. Teams consist of six players and one goalie. Each team has a goal at the end of the court with a six-meter, circular boundary around the goal. The basic strategy is for the opposing team to get as close to the boundary as possible without crossing it and throw the ball into the goal.
"It's like water polo on land," Lockwood said.
Lin said that many people mistook it for racquetball, creating an identity crisis for the sport.
The club has 20 or 21 players on the roster and gets an average of 14 to 16 players at its practices. The team practices from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. Wednesday and Friday nights. Lin said he had played many sports and thought team handball was the most exciting.
"It's more fun than the other sports," he said. "It's so simple. If you can run, jump and shoot then you have what it takes. It's a real physical sport."
"I think this game would be picked up quickly by the students," he said. "It's fast moving, hard hitting and high scoring. It's a game that Americans would love."
"There are about 15 million players and 136 nations involved in the sport," said Reita Clanton, program director for league development at the National Team Handball office. "I'd be glad to be thought of."
Lockwood said he thought the
sport could become popular at the University.
The team has a tournament Saturday, starting at 1 p.m. in 215 Robinson. Lin said the team encouraged people to come watch.
Lockwood said it was sometimes difficult to get enough players for real games at practices. The tournament will give students a chance to see a real game with experienced players.
"It's hard to get all the club players there at once to play a game for practices, so when people come to watch, they don't get the full effect of the game," he said. "When you see an actual game, people will want to try it."
Volleyball team looks to improve at Classic
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"We need to be more disciplined on our block setup," she said. "We also need to show more consistency throughout the match. We were either playing good on defense for a while or good on offense, and we just couldn't combine the two."
The Jayhawks will face Georgia in their first match at 7 p.m.
tomorrow.
The Bulldogs are 4-5 this season and snapped a five-match losing streak last weekend.
Saturday's noon matchup will pit the Jayhawks against Louisiana Tech. Tech has recorded only two wins this year.
The tourney will conclude for Kansas at 7 p.m. Saturday with a match against nationally ranked Colorado State. The No. 24 Rams
are 6-2 on the year - the losses coming against ranked opponents Arkansas and Arizona.
After last weekend's showing, many of the Jayhawk players are optimistic about a good performance this weekend.
"We need to keep up our confidence," junior setter Laura Rohde said. "These teams are definitely beatable, and it will help us if we do win heading into conference play."