Looking to coach in high school? Here's what to expect
When coaching in high school, you get a lot of kids just wanting to try out a new sport they have never seen before. Most of the kids join or try out for a high school team because their friend has played or wants to play. Word of Mouth is a key thing for our sport here in Manitoba.
Expected Numbers:
With high school handball, there is usually a lot of interest to check out the sport. Some of the bigger schools such as Sturgeon Heights, Dakota, Glenlawn all have lots of different kind of athletes that come try out the sport. Usually after the first couple practices, you lose kids that aren't interested, or just don't have the time to play. Ideally, you want to have about 15 kids on the roster, which is roughly 2 full line ups. Most high schools in Winnipeg have in between 10-16 on their roster, with some schools having larger numbers than that. Dakota, for example, has had a very high number of kids come out over the last few years. Just last year, they had 34 kids sign up initially to play. After a few weeks of practices, that number dropped to 27. Dakota then chose to make two teams, one of 13 and one of 14 in order to have more playing time for everyone and to be able to have all that wanted to play a chance to try the game out.
Commitment:
Because handball is not considered one of the big sports such as basketball, football, volleyball or hockey in the high school system, player numbers can be hard to come by at times. Our season typically runs from end of April until the start of June. This is just at the end of the basketball season, middle of the club volleyball season and goes into the track season. There are lots of times where kids can't make practices for other reasons and as a high school handball coach you need to realise that early. Also with the age of the high school kids, a lot of these kids are starting to get part time jobs or are enrolled in driver education.
Gym Availability:
Not only is it hard to have full commitment from the kids, but its also sometimes hard to even just get gym time for practice time. Ideally, it would be great to practice twice a week but because of other sports and even non sporting events, its hard to get the gym time you need to help develop these new athletes to the sport. Utilizing the gym time you have is crucial when it comes to coaching high school. Some schools only get 1 or 2 practices even before the first games of the season so they need to develop and learn just by playing.
"I have been coaching at Dakota collegiate for the past 7 years now and every Spring time I get excited to see the new young athletes want to learn and play Handball. Helping grow the sport is a number 1 priority here in Manitoba. At Dakota, we've tried our best to grow as many handball players as possible by never cutting players and having anyone try the sport out. Its an amazing feeling to see these young athletes grow into Handball players and to see them exceed past their expectations. The feed back you receive from the players and even the parents is such a good feeling to have knowing that you are bettering a person's life in some way. We try to push these young handball players to higher levels and show them that its not just about volleyball and basketball opportunities. I've watched kids grow into provincial team players and even national team players in the last few years and its amazing to see them come back and want to also coach and help grow the sport."
- Quintin Kuby: Head Coach of Dakota Collegiate
What Makes an Ideal Handball Player:
Handball is a very fast paced sport. The kids in high school that tend to succeed in the with Handball are the volleyball and basketball players. The agility from basketball and the vertical jumping of volleyball are key parts to handball. Handball is a physical sport, so football players and rugby players also tend to excel in the size aspect of the game. With Handball, you also need to have the hand-eye coordination. The limitation of 3 steps and the large crease area keeps you thinking and its not surprising to see a lot of turn overs at the high school level.