State Handball Team Seeks Players

Two newly created teams to play the international sport of team handball against other teams in the New York metropolitan area as well as across the United States and subsequently seek roster positions on the United States National Team are scheduled to begin holding tryouts this month in Garden City. The tryouts are sponsored by The New York State Team Handball Federation, Inc., a Garden City-based organization.

The New York State Men's Handball Team and the New York State Women's Handball team coaches start examining players at Adelphi University's Woodruff Hall on South Avenue in Garden City on two consecutive Sundays, November 18 and November 25, at 12:00 noon under the direction of former U. S. national coach Lazlo Jurak and his staff.

Coach Jurak said he is looking for young men and women who have the stamina, size, foot speed and ball throwing ability to make them competitive on an international level.

"From my thirty years' experience with the international sport of handball all over the world," the coach stated, "I am confident we can establish not one, but two or even three top-flight handball teams right here in Nassau and Suffolk counties that will compete favorably against college teams and community teams around the nation. I look around at all the youth here in Nassau County and in my mind I compare them with international players all over the world that I know or have seen. To me, our youth compare very favorably. They should be aware of the possibilities of making a team that could in time take them all over the world to compete."

Coach Jurak has been leading United States teams, instructing them and teaching a long line of young players the game here on Long Island for over thirty years and now desires to start fresh with this area's large supply of talented boys and girls.

"Boys and girls of the United States have an edge over almost all team handball players around the world," the coach said, "because foreign players are taught to move a ball around with their feet, rarely with their hands. Our children, conversely, are throwing balls from their earliest years and they will sparkle in this sport just on that skill alone." However they also have another advantage, the coach explained.

"Our boys and girls play basketball from early years and the sport of international team handball is almost exactly like basketball. It is played on a basketball court by six field players plus a goalie and requires field players to hurl the ball into a goal that is larger than a basketball hoop-almost the size of a hockey goal."

Young men and women, preferably between the ages of fifteen and 23 years, seeking to tryout for either team must supply their own sneakers acceptable on top quality basketball courts but their playing outfits can be informal--just shorts and shirts.