Greg Morava and I are back from Vienna where we attended 3 and 1/2 day long intense Top Coaches Seminar organized by the EHF and Austrian Handball Federation in conjunction with 2010 Men’s European Championships. It was a great privilege to represent USA team Handball during those days, learn about newest trends in modern handball, watch 6 games live in Vienna’s Stadthalle, and share passion for handball with close to 100 coaches from all over the world including Australia, Japan, Iran and many others.

Please follow the link toward the bottom of this blog to find my personal summary of the seminar along with key observations and thoughts that I would like to share with you. Greg is working on his respective report and we will post it for your reference as soon as it becomes available.

I would like to draw your attention to our website and coaching resources listed at www.usateamhandball.org/pages/6432 which are posted under various categorized tabs and frequently up-dated for your professional development and reference. Lauren just added new section called “Teaching Tools Videos” where you can find all visual materials from EHF’s website and in near future our own productions.

In the next several weeks, and in collaboration with the Human Kinetics and its American Sport Education Program Division, we will be launching long awaited USATH Coaching Education and Certification Program. I encourage you to visit the site often for full details and take advantage of up-coming developmental opportunities.

Similarly, in close cooperation with EHF’s Coaching and Methods Committee and its on-going initiative to unify coaching education and certification standards under the “Rinck Convention”, we are in preliminary stages of considering benefits and plausibility of signing the convention agreement which could potentially provide our most experienced coaches with an opportunity to be put on the fast track of being recognized as EHF’s Master Coaches and in turn make them fully employable in the EU market as well as all other coaches with perfectly streamlined certification process.

Further, as this blog’s title indicate, I would like us - American handball coaches to take more pro active role in our own continuous professional education and provide our players with scientifically based but practice embedded daily instruction that they all deserve. We have to raise to the occasion by taking more responsibility for the “product” we are turning in. The sport is growing again and it is time to wake-up from lethargy. Our attitudes of complacency and mediocrity must be replaced by those of renewed curiosity, exploration and innovation. 

To initiate the process of communication and open debate, please the “USATH Athlete Development Pipeline Model - Application Guidelines,” which I would like to subject to your review and seek some feedback before it becomes a template for all organizations operating under USATH overarching umbrella. This document, in addition to the EHF Coaching Seminar Summary, can be found at http://usateamhandball.org/pages/6783?ngb_id=42. Also, it is my intention, at some point this year, to form more structured coaching forum and/or small advisory group for USA Team Handball. Perhaps, before or after 2010 Club Nationals we would carve some time to get together and put  forth  preliminary plan of action.   

Please contact me at any time at mariusz@usateamhandball.org with your concerns, comments, recommendations, and/or new out-of-the-box ideas how to improve coaching across all levels of handball advancement in the US and how we at USATH can serve you better?