The basics of handball are deceptively simple: wear tennis shoes, grab a rubber ball and smack it against a wall.
If that sounds like a simple sport to master, the answer is yes — and no.
Kids on the Line — members of the volunteer-driven and St. Paul-based Minnesota Youth Handball association — recently demonstrated the straightforward yet intensely cardiovascular exercise at the dedication of two new outdoor handball courts in St. Paul’s Hamline-Midway neighborhood.
In fact, the courts at Clayland Park are the only two regulation-sized outdoor handball courts in the Twin Cities.
A three-walled handball court was located by Lake Phalen roughly a dozen years ago.
“They tore that down, and since that time there hasn’t been one place in the Twin Cities where a kid can go outside and throw a ball against the wall,” said Rich Ryan. Ryan is one of the four-member committee that went door to door in the neighborhood getting signatures in favor of the courts.
Ryan, who grew up playing handball in the streets of Brooklyn, N.Y., said the courts were painted Monday, and plenty of players have trickled out on their own despite the limited publicity and late start in the season.
By next summer, he expects tournaments.
“Two Sundays ago, we had 25 to 30 players,” he said.
The new back-to-back, one-wall handball courts debuted last week over paved green space adjacent to existing tennis courts. Each court is 34 feet long and 20 feet wide and has a blacktopped surface.
The courts, which border Newell Park, are located south of the Pierce Butler Route along Hewitt Place, between Fairview Avenue and Clayland Street. They’re free to access for all ages.
Minnesota Youth Handball director Mitchell Lallier runs a free Saturday afternoon kid’s handball program at the Midway YMCA, a teen program at the University of Minnesota, and two or three tournaments a year.
“We want to run programs with the city of St. Paul where we offer training and maybe even a tournament, so neighborhood kids can learn to play the game outside,” he said. “We had two kids last year playing the Junior Nationals in Portland, Ore., both taking second-place in the nation.”
St. Paul Parks and Recreation donated the land but was unable to fund construction of the handball courts.
So the Midway Men’s Club, the Hamline-Midway Coalition and former Warning Lites owner Scott Sayer stepped up.
“My son and I contributed $2,200. We also had a lot of smaller contributors,” Ryan said. “We collected over $50,000.”
Construction was also provided at a discount by a handball player — Paul Frerichs of Frerichs Construction.
