Handball in the United States is a minor sport. The U.S. is represented in international competitions, such as the Summer Olympics and the Pan American Games, by the

United States men's national handball team The United States national handball team is controlled by USA Team Handball. Due to disputes over funding, general lack of fiscal discipline, and accusations of incompetence, on February 14, 2006, the USOC revoked the governing duties of handball ...

and the

United States women's national handball team The United States women's national handball team is the national team of the United States. It takes part in international handball competitions. At the 1982 World Women's Handball Championship in Hungary the U.S. team placed 11th. ...

. The U.S. men's and women's teams have struggled in international competitions against nations where handball is more popular. It is governed by

USA Team Handball USA Team Handball is the governing body for handball in the United States. USA Team Handball is funded in part by the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee. Previously, the governing body was the United States Team Handball Federation. USA Team H ...

, which is funded in part by the U.S. Olympic Committee. Previously, the governing body was the United States Team Handball Federation, but was revoked of its governing duties by the

United States Olympic Committee The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is the National Olympic Committee and the National Paralympic Committee for the United States. It was founded in 1895 as the United States Olympic Committee, and is headquartered in Col ...

. Handball is starting to be recognized by a few notable universities, such as

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

, UNC,

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

United States Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (US Naval Academy, USNA, or Navy) is a federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as Secretary of the Navy. The Naval Academy ...

United States Military Academy The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a fort, since it sits on strategic high groun ...

United States Air Force Academy The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is a United States service academy in El Paso County, Colorado, immediately north of Colorado Springs. It educates cadets for service in the officer corps of the United States Air Force and U ...

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

and others. Those schools and academies along with other amateur teams participate in the Club National Championships and Collegiate National Championships, one for men and the other for women. There are also several club level leagues in various sections of the country, like the Midwest Team Handball League, Northeast Team Handball League, and the Great Lakes Team Handball Association.

History

John Jakobs was the founder of the first handball section (

First German Sport Club of Brooklyn First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number 1 (number), one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, D ...

) in the USA. On 26 May 1926 he made a call in the New Yorker Herold to promote handball. On 28 October 1926 the first

field handball Field handball (also known as outdoor handball or grass handball) was a form of what is now handball and was played at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. The sport is played on a grass field (similar to an association football field) between l ...

game was played between the Turnverein Union City and the

. The game ended in a 9 to 9 draw. Newark TV joined the other two and they played some friendly games. In 1927 the German American Athletic Union (GAAU) started to sponsor field handball. The first handball chairman was Gustav Ricke from First German Sport Club of Brooklyn. In the season 1927-28 only friendly games were played. Because handball was part of the 1936 Summer Olympics the

Amateur Athletic Union The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is an amateur sports organization based in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs. It h ...

(AAU) started to sponsor field handball in 1934. Many of the handball leaders of the DAAV were chosen to lead the handball committee of the AAU. In 1942 the

Office of Alien Property Custodian The Office of Alien Property Custodian was an office within the government of the United States during World War I and again during World War II, serving as a custodian to property that belonged to US enemies. The office was created in 1917 by E ...

seized all records of the German American Athletic Union. After the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

handball had no national body until 1959 as the

United States Team Handball Federation United States Team Handball Federation was the governing body for handball in the United States from 1959 until 2006. The successor USA Team Handball is funded in part by the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee in 2008. United States Team Handba ...

was founded. In the same year the United States Handball Federation League was found. The

Elizabeth S.C. Elizabeth SC is an American soccer club based in Union County, New Jersey that is an inactive member of the Cosmopolitan Soccer League. History Elizabeth SC was founded in 1924 as Elizabeth Germans in Elizabeth, New Jersey by a group of Ge ...

won at least all season until 1967. In 1962 nine teams from New York and New Jersey played in that league as a winter conditioner for soccer. In 1963 already 20 teams with 200 players played handball.

Middle school

San Francisco Bay Area

The Youth Team Handball Middle School League and Youth California Cup organized by San Francisco CalHeat THC are the only competitions accommodating middle school in the USA. Current members of the Youth Team Handball Middle School League: * Bret Harte Middle School (Boys & Girls) * Castillero Middle School (Boys & Girls) *

Stanbridge Academy Stanbridge Academy is a K–12 school for students with mild to moderate learning differences and social communication challenges. Stanbridge Academy was founded in 1982, and its campus is located in San Mateo, California, United States. Descri ...

* Sterne School * John Muir Middle School Past members of the Youth Team Handball Middle School League: * Lycée Français de San Francisco * San Francisco CalHeat THC

High school

San Francisco Bay Area

The Youth Team Handball High School League and Youth California Cup organized by San Francisco CalHeat THC are the high school competitions in the SF Bay Area. :

¹ Youth Cup was cancelled due to bad air quality because of the

Camp Fire (2018) The Camp Fire was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California's history, and the most expensive natural disaster in the world in 2018 in terms of insured losses. Named after Camp Creek Road, its place of origin, the fire starte ...

. Lycée Français got the title because of their regular season record. Current members of the Youth Team Handball High School League: * Cali Kings Handball * Pioneer High School * SF CalHeat * Sterne School Past members of the Youth Team Handball High School League: * Bayhill High School * Leland High School * Compass High School * Lycée Français de San Francisco

Montgomery County, Maryland

The MCPS Athletics offers team handball as corollary sports. Current members of the MCPS handball: *

Clarksburg High School Clarksburg High School is a public high school located at 22500 Wims Road in Clarksburg, Maryland. It is part of the Montgomery County Public Schools system, Maryland's largest public school system. The school is named after the community in whic ...

* Sherwood High School *

Thomas Sprigg Wootton High School Thomas S. Wootton High School or Wootton High School (WHS) is a public high school in Rockville, Maryland. Its namesake is Thomas S. Wootton, the founder of Montgomery County. The school was founded in 1970 and is part of the Montgomery County P ...

Montgomery Blair High School Montgomery Blair High School (MBHS) is a public high school located in Four Corners, Maryland, United States, operated by Montgomery County Public Schools. The school's total enrollment of 3,600 makes it the largest public high school in Montgo ...

* Walt Whitman High School Former members of the MCPS handball: * Watkins Mill High School *

Colonel Zadok A. Magruder High School Col. Zadok Magruder High School (#510) is a secondary public school located in Rockville ( Montgomery County), Maryland, United States. Magruder is named for Colonel Zadok Magruder, a Revolutionary War patriot and farmer. He was colonel in comma ...

* Northwest High School *

Seneca Valley High School Seneca Valley High School (SVHS) is a U.S. public high school (grades 9-12) in Germantown, Maryland. It is part of the Montgomery County Public Schools system. Its enrollment for the 2019–2020 school year was 1,226 students. The new building ...

Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School (B-CC) is a public high school in Montgomery County, Maryland. It is named for two of the towns it serves; it also serves Kensington and Silver Spring. It is located at 4301 East-West Highway, in Bethesda. In May ...

Walter Johnson High School Walter Johnson High School (also known as Walter Johnson or WJ) is a public upper secondary school located in the census-designated place of North Bethesda, Maryland ( Bethesda postal address).Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Hawks,

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Chiefs,

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Comets, New York Stags,

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

Warriors and

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

Points. The NTL (described as an "Americanized" version of team handball, with faster play and higher scores) was bankrolled by Aben Johnson, Jr., owner of WXON-TV in Detroit, and WXON aired the league's first game, a 48-26 victory by Detroit over Chicago. The match, played in front of about 800 people at Macomb County Community College in

Warren, Michigan Warren is a city in Macomb County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The 2020 Census places the city's population at 139,387, making Warren the largest city in Macomb County, the third largest city in Michigan, and Metro Detroit's largest suburb. T ...

, was taped in early December and aired on WXON on Friday, December 8, 1978, and again the next day. The Hawks-Chiefs matchup was the only NTL match known to have been televised; in fact, it was one of the few known to have been ''played'', as press coverage of the loop was almost nonexistent. A local Boston-area newspaper, the ''Charlestown Patriot and Somerville Chronicle'', covered at least one of their matches, as the Comets played at Medford Street Gym in Charlestown, Massachusetts with several local players. After a win over Detroit (the Hawks' first loss of the season) on February 3, 1979, the Comets record was reported as 4-0, including two victories over Philadelphia in December. Whether the league's first season (scheduled to run through April 1979) was completed is unknown; most likely, the NTL died quickly and disappeared. ("National Teamball League, Inc." was incorporated by Johnson in August 1978 and dissolved in March 1980.) In 2020, former

CEO Barry Siff stated that plans were in development to create an American professional team handball league. The new, unnamed league's launch is scheduled for 2023, with 10 teams initially worth three to five million dollars apiece. There are also plans to cooperate with NBA or

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

owners in one-tenant arena situations, and perhaps create multisports clubs like

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football. Found ...

Paris Saint-Germain Paris Saint-Germain Football Club (), commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain, Paris, Paris SG or simply PSG is a professional football club based in Paris, France. They compete in Ligue 1, the top division of French football. As Fr ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Handball In The United States

History

Middle school

San Francisco Bay Area

High school

San Francisco Bay Area

Montgomery County, Maryland

See also

References