Potential players must be aware of court dimensions, equipment, positions and eventually the rules.
Owen McFadden is the director of recreational sports at Furman University. Of the 22 years he has held the position McFadden has coached and played the sport of team handball since 1997.
McFadden knows the rules and the eventual penalties in the sport of team handball.
Team handball is just like any other sport in that it has rules and penalties that keep it going.
"On offense you can have an offensive charge like in international basketball," McFadden said. "Whenever there is a turnover you don't have to wait for the referee to touch it, you just pick it up and go with it."
"If you delay the restart, if you take the ball and don't set it down, they can give you a yellow card for delaying the game," he added. "They can also give you a two minute penalty. The foul is how hard you hit the person who has the ball. The idea is, one person is shooting and another person is going to try and block the shot."
"If he jumps with him and blocks the shot, that's fine," he said. "But a lot of times, as a defender, they come up and meet the offensive player and grab and pull down their shooting arm so they can't shoot."
So what are some ways be penalized on defense?
"There is also a hip check," McFadden said. "That's how you play defense. You can't get the block if he gets really close to you, so that's when you want to try to pull their shooting arm down. The degree of how hard you pull the arm is where you get a foul call. But, you are not going foul out. If you repeatedly foul somebody over and over and over again you may get a yellow card and you may get two minute warning."
Having played the sport of team handball for many years, McFadden has tips for playing solid defense.
"For one, once a defender or an offensive player gets by you, you should go to grab their arm," he said. "If they are strong enough or they can move around you and you have part of their arm or their body once they get equal or by you, you have to let them go. That way you are not grabbing their arm as they are passing for safety reasons. Keeping a hold of the arm is how you really wind up with penalty shots."
"It's legal to tie somebody up," McFadden said. "If you stop a fast break you can run up to the person who has the ball. You can't wrap your arms around them, but you can hold them and that stops the play. The referee is going to blow the whistle and then you put the ball back into play. If somebody is dribbling and you want to go up and tie him up, that's fine. If it's not inside the nine-meter line, then wherever the foul occurred is where they put the ball into play."
