Last week myself and our Regional Coach, Marko Brezic, had the unique opportunity to teach the teachers. We were invited to Las Vegas to participate in the annual in-service training for the Clark County School District physical education teachers. It was refreshing to talk about our sport to a group of people who, for the most part, already knew what team handball was. What was disconcerting was first, how few knew the correct rules, and second, how few were actually using handball as a regular part of their curriculum.

We had the opportunity to make our presentation and demonstration to three different groups of teachers with each group having about 40-50 attending. The common misconception was about the dribbling and steps rules and I heard just about every variation of the three steps and dribble that you can imagine. I would guess that only about 10% were using handball in their curriculum.

What I left excited about was the response we got from the majority of the teachers. Many wanted us to come to their school and do demonstrations and we will, some vowed to start a club program with the goal of competing this summer in Colorado Springs or San Diego, while others were excited to add the sport to their regular teaching models. I think we are well on our way to making Las Vegas the latest growth area for youth handball. We know we’ve got a great sport and we know if we can educate the educators we can be well on our way to our goal of having 100,000 kids playing handball in the US. If you’d like to set up a demonstration at your local schools I would be more than happy to assist you in your goal.