American Handball Associates
We consider ourselves players first,
promoters second.
Our love for playing the game ...
and introducing others to it
... is always what drives us.
AHA has not been created as an alternative to the current team handball national governing body, USATH, and has no designs on positioning itself as such. Over the years, we, as individuals, have worked with USATH and its predecessor, USTHF, and we have noted certain areas of development that never seem to get the attention and/or funding they deserve. It has now been over 2 years since the strategic 10-year plan was made public and very little has been accomplished in achieving its four main goals: a top 6 finish at the 2028 LA Games, financial self-sufficiency, weekly television appearances and a collegiate league, perhaps the most important objective of all. AHA fervently believes the key to success with the collegiate league, as with almost any endeavor within the handball world, is making the American sporting public aware of the game and its culture and the opportunities they present. Thusly, AHA will focus its efforts on three distinct areas of activity.
Three Areas of Focus
Live and Media Events
Members of American Handball Associates have been staging handball tournaments at local, national and international levels for over 40 years. We’ve also been publicizing them and working with local and national media during that same time, wherever we’ve set up shop. Along the way, we have gathered first-hand experience, working with broadcast television initially, now with live streaming. We’ve produced video press releases and other digital deliverables linked to social media and written traditional press releases, making AHA uniquely qualified to present the game of handball to the American public on a professional, yet audience-oriented basis.
Three Days in May tells the story of the 2015 Team Handball Open Championships for men and women which was live stream-lined by AHA Creative Director Mark Wright. Mark also did the play-by-play announcing.
Traditional Public Relations
AHA intends to initiate a strategy of regular contact with the print and electronic media, continual reminders to writers and editors, reporters and producers, of just what the sport is and what the local angles are, particularly as they relate to the proposed collegiate league. We will be putting together a national database for both print and electronic media so that appropriate representatives can be immediately contacted about any past handball alum of note, any current national or club team member, or any club or collegiate team of note, as the story comes up. Contact will be by a combination of print and video press releases with appropriate followup. AHA already has access to the most extensive American handball video archive in the country and we will be adding to it as we continue produce material.
The Columbus Challenge Cup is one of two club team “leagues” that play in the United States and its format features a rotating band of Midwestern teams arriving in Columbus to try and knock the champ, the Columbus Armada, the top-rated team in that area and a perennial national power. AHA is currently working with the organizers of the Cup to help publicize the competition by issuing a digital press release featuring a 4 minute video promoting the weekly game. The DPR features as well the link to the live stream coverage of the game, which is always played on Sunday at noon and 1:30. Here’s our latest promo, which went out to the media in the Flint/Bay City/Saginaw Michigan, the area from which the next opponent, Flint City Handball Club, hails, as well as to the local Columbus press.
Digital Press Release
Online Training
The need for online training for the development of the proposed collegiate league was already paramount as manpower requirements were assessed and compared. Now, the demands of the pandemic, a situation unlikely to change substantively in the next year, have made its importance even more critical. It also points to the importance of creating a truly American product so as to better combat the failures of distance learning products, as we have seen recently from school efforts. AHA has the experience in creating interactive, online training products required for an implementation of this scale, the video shooting and editing skill to put it together, plus the knowledge of the game within its associates’ ranks to provide all content needs. We also have contacts in the online sports training world that can serve as foundational models for development, providing us a path for high quality content development at a very reasonable cost.
The AHA Team
The men and women of American Handball Associates have been hanging around handball courts, in America and around the world, for years. The core of its leadership and operational team is made up of two people, creative director, Mark Wright and strategic planning director JD Orr. Other past players and organizers will be recruited to serve on associate advisory committees and the board of directors.
Here are some of the key players of AHA.
Mark Wright
Creative Director
Mark Wright’s fascination with team handball began the day he walked on to a court in the Women’s Gym at UCLA in January, 1977, when he played with the Bruin club team for the first time. By September of that year, the one-time Bruin football and basketball player was on the U.S. national team handball team, competing against Canada for the right to go the World Championships in 1978. He would be a member of the national team for the next quadrennial, eventually moving to the USOC in Colorado Springs with the rest of the men’s team in order to train to qualify for the Moscow Games in 1980, traveling the world and learning the game. Even though Moscow didn’t work out, his devotion to the development of the game took definite hold and he went on to become head of the PR committee for the USTH Federation as well as promoting the sport on his own, utilizing his professional skills as a writer and TV producer/director. In 2015, he produced four-camera live streaming coverage of the USTHA Open Championships for Men and Women from York, PA. Through it all, he has used traditional public relations methods, such as print and video press releases, phone calls and social media, to successfully plant team handball stories in local media.
JD Orr
Strategic Director
Synonymous with Midwestern team handball, JD Orr is the visionary behind The Ohio State program, one of the most successful collegiate programs in America. After founding the program in 2012, he has served as the team’s head coach and promoter ever since, serving in a variety of other handball-related positions as well. A goalie by player trade, JD competed with the U.S Junior National Team in 2013, then served as assistant coach for the junior team in 2017, followed by the senior team in 2018. In 2018, he was named USATH Volunteer Coach of the Year while being elected to the USATH Board of Directors as well. Professionally, JD works as a Validation Engineer for Hikma Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical manufacturer and packaging company, where his skills at managing teams and relationships have been duly noted with awards and advancements. His understanding of social media and its supporting digital tools, vehicles like podcasts, live streaming and online training, has allowed his passion to take flight and he looks forward to seeing the international sport of handball truly grow in America in the years leading up to LA 2028.
Dennis Berkholtz
Senior Advisor
Dennis Berkholtz is commonly referred to as a Player One in the American team handball movement. As the initial player selected to join the Army Champs program in 1969, he was the first significant American-born athlete to be taught the game. His selection was a natural. Hailing from Whitefish Bay, WI, where he was chosen the state’s high school athlete-of-the-year in 1963, Berky went on to be a three-year starter at guard for Tex Winter’s Kansas State’s basketball team from 1964 to 1967 and was, as well, a three-year member of the golf team. The next year, he was drafted, not by an NBA team, unfortunately, but by the Army during the most savage year of the Vietnam War. He ended up in the Army Champs program, captain of the team that qualified for the Olympics in 1972 and beat a top ten power, Spain, during the games. He was also the captain of the 1970 and 1974 World Championships team in Paris and Berlin, respectively, then served as head coach for our 1976 Olympic team in Montreal. It’s safe to say to say that no American team handball player has as much experience playing and coaching the game of team handball on an international level as Dennis Berkholtz. Fewer still have the breath of experience developing and promoting the game, in its various manifestations, as Dennis. While in the Army, he traveled to almost every fort in America, and several overseas, conducting clinics about the indoor court game that would become part of the Olympics in 1972. He organized and managed the relocation of the USA Men’s and Women’s national teams to Atlanta, GA, in prior to the 1996 Summer Olympic Games where he, as well, was able to raise $1.25M sponsor in cash and $250,000 in-kind donations promoting the teams and handball in the Atlanta area. Dennis served as president of USA Team Handball, the national governing body for the sport, from 1996 to 2000. More recently, he was Director of USA Beach Handball from 2015 to 2019.
Mike Cavanaugh
Senior Advisor
There is no other person more responsible for the development of the game of team handball west of the Mississippi than Mike Cavanaugh. One of the original members of the Army Champs team who learned the game while stationed at Fort Myer in the Spring of 1971, Cavy, as he has been affectionately called for over 50 years of play and service to the sport in this country, has also been the game’s leading executive, paid and volunteer extraordinaire, with an international resume that is both long and distinguished.
He has served as the CEO of both of team handball’s national governing bodies, the United States Team Handball Federation and the current NGB, USA Team Handball, as well as serving in the same capacity for USA Table Tennis. He was the father of the club team at UCLA in the 70s, helped start the team at Cal State Hayward (which led to current national champion SF Cal Heat) and held clinics at numerous colleges and outposts in the West. It can be said that very few team handball teams developed in the West from the mid-70s on came to exist without his direct involvement. That influence continues today as Mike marks over 20 years as head coach of the Air Force Academy team. He has coached too many Olympians, male and female, to mention. He was also the head coach of the Saudi Arabia men’s national in 1976 and the U.S. men’s team from 1978 to 1980 and has held numerous coaching advisory positions with the International Handball Federation.
At each Handball Heroes legacy banquet, celebrated annually by American Handball Associates, the Cavy Award is given out to the person who deemed by the AHA Advisory Board to have significantly added to the development of team handball in America. That award is named in honor of Mike Cavanaugh.
Michelle "Michi" Mensing
Senior Advisor
Michelle "Michi" Mensing, the godmother of beach handball in North America, has been the driving force behind the recent development and the success of the the sport in the USA. As third generation handball player, she participated in high performance development programs in Germany in her youth, eventually named one of the 30 best players for her age group in the country.
When Michi moved to the United States in 2015, switching from her former club Fuechse Berlin to SF CalHeat, she immersed herself in the local Bay Area handball community. Sensing a need for leadership, she quickly expanded her role from player to organizer, joining the board of directors for SF CalHeat and leading the beach handball and youth development efforts for the club. Michi has also been among the leading handball live streaming advocates and, because of her professional background, one of the few who know the sport and the technology. During her tenure, SF CalHeat grew from a struggling club to a national club champion across all disciplines, genders and age categories.
In 2016, she started working with the newly formed USA national team program for beach handball which she continues to support as a coach. Two years later, she founded the US Beach Handball Tour, through which she facilitates tournaments and referee growth for beach handball in the US, Canada and other NACHC nations. Michelle is the first international referee for the US in beach handball and led the US Women's National team to it's first international (non-continental) medal.
Professionally, Michelle works as a software engineer for SAP, the market leader in enterprise software and ambassador for design thinking. She uses her entrepreneurial spirit and technology skills to improve access and processes for the US handball community.