Former UNC handball players hope Olympic spotlight helps grow the sport’s popularity
Every four years, people from around the globe tune into the Olympics to watch the world’s best athletes compete in a variety of sports.
In the past, the quadrennial event featured the talents of Michael Phelps, Simone Biles, Usain Bolt and other household names. Fans look forward to seeing their favorite basketball players, track athletes and gymnasts compete in the Olympics.
But in the United States, there’s one sport typically that gets overlooked: handball — not to be confused with wall ball or four square. And even though the United States will not be represented in the sport in this summer’s Tokyo Olympics, several former University of North Carolina players are hoping handball’s exposure on the big stage will boost its popularity back home.
UNC alum and former club handball player, Myles Bacon, often details the game to passengers in his car as a part-time Lyft driver.
“In soccer, you watch people do everything with their feet,” Bacon said. “Internationally, it’s called football. This is doing everything with your hands, thus it’s handball. It’s the same concept: a ball going into a net against a goalie and defenders. So it’s much more like soccer or water polo or lacrosse than it is like racquetball or squash or any of those variants.”
Aaron Hamm, the new head coach for Carolina Handball Club at UNC, points out that handball tends to be more high scoring than soccer. The low-scoring nature of soccer, to him, draws some people away from the game, as handball offers more opportunities for offense.
“It’s not out of the ordinary 30 goals for each team game,” Hamm said.
The future of handball in NC and the US
At the moment, handball does not hold the same level of popularity as basketball, football or baseball in the United States. The country has a handball team, known as USA Team Handball, which reformed in 2008 after originating in 1959.
USA Team handball will receive an automatic bid for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles for both its men’s and women’s teams. Neither team has competed in the Olympics since 1996.
Julia Taylor, a semi-pro athlete for Aulnay Handball, began her handball journey as a student at UNC. Taylor, also a graduate of St. David’s School in Raleigh, said she missed the competitive nature sports offered her in high school and looked to find it again in college.
When her friend introduced her to it, she began to learn the sport. When she first began, the team was going to New York for a tournament.
“Ended up picking it up pretty quickly so they invited me on the trip,” Taylor said. “And I went and I just kind of fell in love with it.”
With this introduction to the sport in her home state of North Carolina, Taylor soon learned that handball was a global game. After a semester, the U.S. national team recruited her and Taylor’s journey continued abroad. Taylor said she did not realize how big the sport was in other countries until she began playing in France.
“And when I say I play handball, people are like, ‘Oh, yeah, I know this player,’ or ‘I’m a big fan of PSG’ or a big, professional team,” Taylor said. “So just that, you know, having people recognize the sport and being fans of it and loving it and supporting it. It’s huge.”
Bacon, a UNC student from 1998 to 2002, gave a similar reason for joining, as he dabbled in many sports — even video game competitions — before finding his niche. His football coach, as it turned out, would point him in the right direction.
“Looking at me, he said, ‘You know, you’re not particularly good at one sport, but you play a lot of different sports pretty well. So this might work out for you if you ever get a chance.’ And I’m thinking to myself, ‘Sure coach, if ever I get a chance,’ because, of course this is well before YouTube. So it’s not like I’m just gonna look up handball.”
During his freshman year, he went to the iconic UNC common area known as The Pit to visit a club sports drive, where he saw handball once again. From there, he began to play for Carolina Team Handball as a UNC student.
After his time at UNC, Bacon remained in the Triangle area to compete with Carolina Blue, an alumni team from Carolina Team Handball. Carolina Blue participated in different tournaments in the state while also competing around the country, even competing in the men’s U.S. Open Nationals.
Bacon later transitioned to coaching, as he coached the men’s team for 11 seasons and the women’s for five. During this time, he saw the popularity of the game in a variety of different places. He believes that exposure to handball in certain locations will help grow the game as a whole.
“Teams like Boston, New York City, San Fran, Chicago, these are all entities that have large international components,” Bacon said. “And you have a lot of European, Asian, African, South American people who, for instance, if they get handball early in their lives in a place like Sweden, you know, you could start playing as early as 4 or 5.”
Serving as a member of the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee for USA Team Handball, Bacon’s goal is to broaden the sport of handball to HBCUs as well. He believes that UNC can serve as a hub for a number of different schools in the state, and has spoken with people at different schools through his connection with his fraternity.
“I’ve lined up with people from A&T and Duke and Central,” Bacon said. “It doesn’t cost much to get the sport going. All you really need is the interest of the players in a fool like me to get them excited about.”
As someone who began in the college handball scene, Taylor believes that a great way to expand handball is on college campuses.
“The college scene is just rife with great athletes who maybe don’t have a level to play D1 in their original sports, but they’re still looking, you know, they could still be good candidates for handball.”
Hamm, who was coached by Bacon while at UNC, believes that the United States still has steps to take in their efforts to make handball more popular. For instance, developing a signature style of play, to him, would help their efforts.
He also cited countries such as Brazil, Japan and South Korea as places where the style of play is unique to the region.
“And they do it because they don’t play the same style that the European countries are,” Hamm said. “And they can’t if they really want to compete because they need to bring something different to the table.”
To better compete with other countries, Hamm believes America needs to adopt a faster-paced game. At UNC, he hopes to stress floor spacing and more emphasis on speed rather than just power.
“And it’s just changing the outlook of how it’s viewed by people that don’t play handball,” Hamm said. “I don’t think there’s much respect for us, outside of the handball community, just because they don’t really know what it is and kind of what it takes to play.”
USA Team Handball can be found on Facebook and Instagram at @usateamhandball.
This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Former UNC handball players hope Olympic spotlight helps grow the sport’s popularity."
