Handball-World.com: Let's Go Dormagen

Christian Hentschel, director of the Sports Academy in Dormagen and friend of USA Team Handball, helped coordinate the youth national teams' time in Germany. He was recently interviewed by Handball-World.com about his involvement with the trip. Below is a loose translation; read the original (in German) here: http://www.handball-world.com/o.red.c/news.php?GID=1&auswahl=22002

If it is not handball to the prophet, the prophet goes to handball: This was likely more or less the motto under which the U-18 youth teams of the USA Team Handball recently studied in Germany; more precisely, in Dormagen, where the Knechtstedener sports boarding school offered accommodation and logistical support for the boys and girls from the United States. It is not the first and will not be the last time that Americans are guests in Dormagen, hopes Christian Hentschel, who coordinated the trip. Training games, contacts and much practice was planned for the young hopefuls, with USA Team Handball try to make handball more popular in the United States and lay the foundation for a powerful national team.

Christian Hentschel, director of sports boarding school and partner of TSV Dormagen and graduate sports scientist with coaching license, had work to do in recent days. For the first time in its - still young - history of USA Team Handball had the U-18 youth teams combined into one course. However, not all the guests had a long journey.

"The players and players who have gathered here in Dormagen, a not insignificant part in Europe has grown up and live in individual cases, even here. Two of them actually come from Germany. For the guys, there is a player who is responsible for the regional league side of the Rhein-Neckar Löwen in use. And Sophie Fasold one goalie, who lives in Munich and was even for the DHB in use,” said Hentschel.

“The U18 team includes players with dual citizenship, such as Thomas Duringon from Sao Paulo, Sophie Fasold and Christopher Koerner of Rhein-Neckar Löwen from Germany, Devin Holman of the HSG Leimental from Switzerland and Morgan Thorkelsdottir from Iceland,” said Steve Pastorino, general manager of USA Team Handball. “The U.S. has historically been a great melting pot of nationalities and in handball is not that different. We are actively looking for players with dual citizenship and a high level in Europe.”

The ‘locals’ could then even act as interpreters when the Americans to train in the sports center or while sightseeing in Cologne. In the games of the Bundesliga VFL Gummersbach and TSV Dormagen was then probably no more important work of translation, the handball study was a central part of the course in Germany. In addition to spectating, the active games was the focus: the U-18 male came here against the U17 of the TSV Dormagen (32:41), the U19 (23:34) and the U19 II (31:23), also had a game against TSG Benrath on the program (40:23). The girls played against SG Zons (25:9), the Pulheimer SC (25:14), the TSG Benrath (40:11), the Neuss-HV U19 (28:30), and U19 of the TSV Bayer Leverkusen (30 : 32).

That the training took place precisely in Dormagen was no accident.

“We’ve been in contact with West Point since 2006. What was more by chance than the Americans made a training camp in the spring in Dormagen, Germany, has now become a permanent replacement,” says Hentschel. “My role was initially that I had helped the West Point team. For that I am also flown to the U.S. and they have been training there in 2007 and 2008. In January, I asked the former assistant coach at West Point, Matt Sabatino, if I would serve with him, the A-team. I gladly agreed. Unfortunately he had to cancel the trip for the four-nation tournament in Lubeck, but I managed, along with Boban Zivovic, a former first division players in France and Croatia, the team against Ireland, Luxembourg and Bad Schwartau.” As a result, Hentschel should further courses in Germany or the rest of Europe there and help with his contacts so that American players can find a club in Germany. "Furthermore, I advise USATH, in terms of structural development, training content and trainer," said Hentschel.

And so the question came to support the course of the young Americans who could, together with the TSV Dormagen, be braced. “Now we are very pleased that the organization was very smooth, the teams felt comfortable and the cooperation with USA Team Handball has been strengthened further. The next year, a former player from our U23, which I myself have trained for many years and is now studying the Sports Economy in Cologne, making his internship at USA Team Handball. This allows the relationship to Germany, especially after Dormagen, to be further deepened,” says Hentschel, who coaches at the training course as Mika Maunula or Kathy Rex, athletics coach from 1988, has supported. Manula, incidentally, already with Mikael Kaellmann, the former Wallauer, played together.

For the headmaster in Knechtsteden, working with the young athletes is a unique and fascinating experience.

“Due to the broad American sports training in schools and universities, they have an enormous movement experience that enables them to learn new sports faster than others,” says Hentschel. “They're of a very disciplined, inquisitive and cooperative manner, which makes this incredibly easy work. Americans who receive the opportunity to see the sport, or even try, are immediately on fire and want to know more. However, it is at present so that it only with 18, 19 years or later come into contact, and whether it succeeds or a development to the national, German or even international leaders, is questionable.”

The trail is rocky in any case, but there are definitely players who are currently on this path. “One example is Gary Hines, who plays at the moment the DJK Waldbüttelbrunn in the Bavarian League. An incredible athlete,” says Hentschel. “Unfortunately, he begun at 20 years of age playing handball. Now he is 25, plays in the Bavarian League at the DJK Waldbüttelbrunn and scored over 10 goals in section. He is technically and tactically trained not for long. But he manages the leap? Anyone who undertakes a 25-year-old to his Bundesliga team, and will develop it further? I'm sure that would be worth it,” asks Hentschel. And of course, hopes that in the near future, other players, perhaps even from the ranks of young Americans in Dormagen, the path toward higher category, take training and to create and provide such assistance to start handball in the USA.