‘Minnesota State Nice’ Helps Put Handball Club as Best Collegiate Program in the Country

First in a series on club sports at Minnesota State Mankato

Passion for the sport of handball, whether as elite player or as a new collegiate competitor, has shaped handball club sport at Minnesota State Mankato to national championship levels.

by LENNY KOUPAL, CSU Communications Coordinator

Mike Wells, coach for the Maverick Handball Club at Minnesota State Mankato, has two basic criteria for players interested in joining this national powerhouse sports club.

“I really mean it when someone asks ‘how do you get on the team?’ You have to have a love of handball and you have to be a nice person,” Wells said. “That’s it. We’ll find you a division to play and it doesn’t matter what your skill level is.”

‘You have to have a love of handball and you have to be a nice person.’

Mike Wells

That philosophy has played out well for the club. Blending world-class champions with newbies resulted in the club’s first national men’s and women’s combined title at the U.S. Handball Association’s 2022 collegiate tournament last February. Hosted in Springfield, Mo., it was the first time in 30 years that the combined competition wasn’t dominated by either Missouri State or Lake Forest College. The combined win came after the Maverick men won the national championship and the women finished second.

“There’s nothing better than going onto a rival’s home campus and winning this championship,” Wells stated.

The momentum from that national title continues to build through an Irish connection that brings two national under-18 Irish national champions and Ireland’s 2020 collegiate national champion to the team roster.

Clodagh Munroe and Mark Doyle are the respective girls and boys national champions and graduate student Shane Dunne comes to Minnesota State Mankato with his collegiate title.

“All three of them are super high-level handball players,” Wells said. “When you add three players like that, it’s great for your team, right? The rising tide raises all boats. So whenever you get good players on campus, it not only helps the team, but helps everybody that gets to play them.”

A fourth U.S. junior contender, Nick Kerins from Chicago, is expected to advance the team’s goal for a 2023 repeat. Other handball players include two more from Chicago, two from St. Paul and one from California.

For 30 years, the combined men’s and women’s national collegiate handball title was won by either Missouri State or Lake Forest College. That changed in 2022 when the Maverick Handball team claimed the top honors with the men capturing the championship and the women claiming the runner-up title.

‘We’re really the best handball school in the United States.’

Mike Wells

“All these young men and women chose to come to Mankato, obviously to get an education. But, you know, they wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have a nationally-ranked handball team,” Wells said. “We’re really the best handball school in the United States.”

Wells said being the best isn’t built simply on champions. Athletic ability helps, but interest that leads to passion is a key component. Students who took the intro to handball class or else had friends involved in the handball club make up the majority of the men’s and women’s teams.

“Some of our best contributors have not been the elite handball athlete. It’s nice to have these elite players on your team, but in order for you to have a vibrant and healthy club, you need to have critical mass and that comes from having people that love the sport.”

Wells recalled a student who struggled through the intro class but signed up for the advanced class.

“And, I’m thinking to myself, ‘ Ol’ buddy, you’re gonna have a hard time.’ So I said, ‘Let’s get in there.’ So he got in there and he played for us on the handball team for four years.”

The same player later turned into a team coach working with beginning players. After leaving the club, he continues to support the team financially.

Ciana Ni Churraoin was the #2 ranked woman in the handball Pro Tour while attending Minnesota State Mankato.

Wells said an early step in the development of players often includes defining the game. Many students enrolling in the handball course are thinking European handball which involves throwing a volleyball at a net.

“You have to explain to them how lucky they are that it’s four-wall handball,” he said. “It’s racquetball without the racket.”

Wells said that students with athletic prowess in various sports can be successful at handball. Tennis, baseball, hockey, golf all require the type of hand-eye coordination that translate well to handball.

“What I really want students to know is we’re always open to having people try the sport. There are a lot of athletes on campus that would enjoy the competition part and the camaraderie part of it,” he said.

‘What I really want students to know is we’re always open to having people try the sport. There are a lot of athletes on campus that would enjoy the competition part and the camaraderie part of it.’

Mike Wells

Wells extends an open invitation to any interested student. All they need to do is come any Wednesday after 3 p.m. to the handball courts in Pennington Hall.

“There’s handball going on over there. We’re very open to getting people in and having them try it, and, you know, if they like it, fantastic,” Wells said.

Coach’s Endless Passion = International Reputation

Coach Mike Wells, right, keeps his game sharp by challenging his players. A computer science professor, Wells, a national-level handball competitor, has volunteered as the club’s coach since he and Coach John Stoffel created the team in 2008.

Volunteering his time to coach a national championship handball team for Minnesota State Mankato, Mike Wells’s passion for four-wall handball was fanned in his youth but didn’t catch fire until he started seriously playing as a graduate student at the University of Nebraska.

Coming to Mankato where he is a full-time professor in the University’s computer science department, Wells saw the potential for grooming a club-sport handball program.

“Mankato is an unusual town. We have state, national and world champions that live in this town,” he said. “There’s a lot of handball for a town of this size.”

In 2008, Wells and John Stoffel–friend, University alumnae and one of Minnesota’s top handball players–decided to volunteer their time and expertise to create handball classes and establish a handball club within Campus Rec.

By 2010, the new program won the Division II national title. They repeated in 2011.

“We decided that we would expand and try to win the whole thing. So we started recruiting some junior handball players,” Wells said.

The men’s team claimed the national collegiate title twice and was runner-up three times. The women’s team placed second nationally four times.

Part of that success was due to the Irish connection rooted in Wells’s 2017 visit to Ireland to establish exchange programs. There he met Ciana Ni Churraoin who later came to Minneapolis to compete in the 2019 World Handball Tournament before enrolling at Minnesota State Mankato.

“She gave her mom a hug at the end of the tournament and I drove her to Mankato,” Wells recalled. “She was the number two ranked woman on the Pro Tour while she was here.”

Having a player of Churraoin’s caliber helped give the program “street cred,” Wells said.

“The best recruiters are our students,” he added.

‘We’re set up at this point really to make a really long run of being able to win some national titles.’

Mike Wells

Wells said sights are set on claiming both the men’s and women’s national titles. An upcoming strong recruitment year may continue those winning ways.

“There are triplet sisters in Chicago that play handball that have made a campus visit. That’s like the unicorn of handball recruitment,” Wells said. “I’m hopeful to get at least two of them to come.” 

Both Wells and Stoffel have sons ready to join the team.

“We each have a son that is a senior in high school. Both are very good players. So next year if we add those two and we have a player from Des Moines and we have a player from Montana and we have a player from Mexico and then the three sisters from Chicago, we could have a really big recruitment year,” the coached concluded. “We’re set up at this point really to make a really long run of being able to win some national titles.” 

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