It's emotional addiction

Hey folks!

Wow, not even a week of blogging and I'm already running out of ideas. No, just kidding, I just thought that today, I'll throw in a little something about myself so you actually know the guy sacrificing his sleep to promote the Olympic Values ;) Don't worry, I don't want to give you a blow-by-blow account of what I've done in life from the day I was born until today. Over the next couple of month, I'll rather pick out a couple of episodes I think were important on my way or that at least I find entertaining to remember. For a start, I feel obliged to write about the topic that probably had the biggest impact anything ever had on me in my life: Playing (team) handball.

Handball, or team handball as it is called in the United States, is a sport mainly played in Europe. It consists of six players on the field and one goal keeper. Apart from that, each team has another 7 players and up to 4 officials on the bench. Substitution is like in basketball, i.e. unlimited and substituted players can re-join the game. When describing the sport, I usually draw comparisons to other sports: The underlying principle is, like in soccer/football, to score a goal. However, as the name indicates, we take the ball in our hands like basketball players, only that the ball is small enough to be held comfortably in your hand. And unlike basketball, the physical contact is more intense (Not as bad as rugby, however sometimes things can get really messy). I found this nice video, uploaded by Manchester Handball Club to give you a little illustration.

I was introduced to handball at the age of 7 by my dad, who was a former Austrian national team left wing. He was also my first coach until I was about 13 years old. Since I am left handed, I played my entire career as a right wing, which is the far right position on the field (And thus being left handed gives you a better shooting angle). I remember that I was only mediocre at best at this time and thought about quitting several times. However, instead I talked to my dad (he wasn't my coach any more back then) if he would give me some extra lessons outside of regular practice. So he taught me some moves for my position and worked on my 1-on-1 skills. Over the time, I got much better and was eventually nominated to play on the Lower Austrian state team.

Until I reached the age of 18, my teams won several youth championships with one third place and one runner-up at the Austrian Championships. Funny enough, I got more runner ups than wins in the Lower Austrian Championships, but that's a different story. In addition, in my last season with the adults team, we won the Lower Austrian championship and the League Cup. It was my last season because I was already 19 and it was time to go to college. Since college was 450 km away, I signed up with a team there. And since the only team in the area was first league, I took up the challenge.

Playing first league was an experience I don't want to miss in a thousand years, although the credit side remained rather empty: I hardly ever played on the first team and in the whole season, I scored two goals (A good player has an average of ~7 goals...per match!). Still, in this one season, I really learned what it means to work hard for a goal and constantly push yourself to keep going. Usually, I would have classes all day and at 5pm take a two hours train ride to practice, work my bottom off for 2 hours and go 2 hours back, where my homework was comfortably waiting for me. So after a year of this, I hope you get how happy I was the day I scored my first, and only, two goals in the first league.

After that season, I ended my career. Not because it was too tough, but rather because I had to decide between playing handball and focusing on my studies. I admit, handball was, still is and probably will always be the biggest passion of my life. Yet I knew that if I continued playing it, many other dreams and visions I have in life would be left behind. And although I quit playing, handball is still a vital part of my life. At the moment, I'm working as a project manager for my old club and I started training to be a coach as well. And the funny thing is that nowadays, I get the same feeling of satisfaction I used to get when playing a good match when signing another sponsoring deal or seeing a youngster performing a trick I taught him. So I guess even though I thought the day I'll quit playing will mark the end of my life, it is eventually only a question of perspective. After all, sports is much, much more than just being physically active.