The tough-to-believe part for Reber isn’t just that he’s among 31 world-class athletes vying for 15 spots on a U.S. Olympic team. It’s that the sport is team handball.
“The biggest reaction I get,” Reber says, “is ‘Handball?’ Nobody ever knows what it is.”
While many in the U.S. may be slow to recognize the high-paced game, others around the world have embraced it. The sport is played by 39 million people and in 159 nations.
On the weekend of July 30-31, Reber will be at Emory University in Atlanta where 15 players and up to three alternates will be selected to represent the U.S. on its handball team that will compete in the 2012 Olympics in London.
Reber likes his chances.
“I really think I have a good shot at making it,” says Reber, who parlayed his all-conference basketball skills at Hopewell into a spot on the roster at West Point. When he was introduced to team handball, he was drawn to the game, which the Washington Post has dubbed “the coolest sport you’ve never seen” and Time magazine says links elements of basketball, soccer and lacrosse. So Reber left the basketball team and took up handball.
“It’s water polo without the water, soccer but you can use your hands; lacrosse, but you don’t use the sticks,” Olympic veteran Thomas Fitzgerald told the Washington Post, trying to explain the sport.
Reber says the many similarities between basketball and handball made the transition simpler. In handball, athletes dribble, pass and shoot. They post up, set picks and pivot. They have the equivalent of a point guard who organizes the team’s set plays. Fans complain about the referees. Some teams will slowly walk the ball up the court, trying to dictate a slower tempo. Others, like Army’s team, withyounger, better-conditioned athletes, try to keep the game at a high pace.
Played on a court approximately 66 feet by 131 feet, there are six players plus a goalie on each side. The object is to get the ball — roughly the size of a soccer ball —into the opponents’ goal. Teams play two 30-minute halves. A typical game might end in a score of 30-25.
When Reber left the Army basketball team, he wanted to keep busy. Friends on the handball team encouraged him to try out. He quickly became one of the top players on a team that has won five consecutive college championships.
He spent one year on the junior varsity team that was among the toughest challengers to the Army varsity team. The past two years, he has excelled on varsity.
After the 2011-12 season, Reber will be a second lieutenant and will hold an engineering degree. When he finds out where he will be stationed, he will look to play on a club team, where he should have several options.
The former Hopewell star says lessons learned playing basketball for Eric Davis helped him in handball.
“The one thing is, always give everything you have,” says Reber. “That’s one thing coach Davis always preached that has carried over. It helps a lot. You can’t just go through the motions.”
