Most of you know I played a lot of baseball, basketball and soccer growing up. But you might not know that I picked up handball in college. My freshman year I took a handball class for my P.E. credit, and I was hooked. There aren't actually a lot of pictures of me playing, but here's one from a tournament at the U my senior year.
I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, "Handball, that sounds easy." But, not so much. I like to tell people it's like playing racquetball, but instead of a racket you get a thin pair of leather gloves. Oh, and you have to be ambidextrous. Playing handball is where I learned how to throw left handed. And you see that old man? That's Jim. He was one of the instructors, and he beat us young whippersnappers most of the time.
My sophomore year, I started heading to the national collegiate handball tournaments. Here I am looking tough in the rec center at Texas A&M. Some schools had actual handball teams with scholarships and everything. We were technically a club team, but we usually fared well.
My junior year we traveled to Cali. I don't remember much about the tournament, but I remember what they gave us to eat for every meal: chicken and rice. At the end of the tournament, they have a banquet for everyone to dress up and attend, and they hand out awards. Do you want to guess what they fed us? You wouldn't be wrong if you guessed chicken and rice.
It was tough to beat the sun, though, when the temperatures hoovered in the teens in Minneapolis.
Between regular practices at the rec, the state tournament, the university tournament and the Monday night league, I was playing two or three times a week most weeks. I'm sure if I tried to do that now, my arms would probably fall off. But I'd give it a go anyway.
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