Issue date: 11/15/04 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Xavier Mascareñas Greg Tezik makes a backwall shot during the final game of the 50-and-older doubles category of the Dog Bowl handball tournament at Midtown Sports and Wellness on Sunday.

The aroma floating around this weekend in Midtown Sports and Wellness was hard to ignore. It smelled of sweat and hot rubber and barbecue and beer all blending together in the air.

It smelled like handball.

This weekend was the annual Dog Bowl Classic, a tournament held every year in Albuquerque that draws players from all around the Southwest.

I was there, headband and deerskin gloves in tow, to compete in my third-straight Dog Bowl. Unlike my last two trips, this year's tourney was like an afternoon trip to the dentist - quick but excruciating. I teamed with my doubles partner, Bob "Big Man" Parker - Dad to me - to lose our one and only match in the B-doubles bracket. We fell quickly and quietly to a pair of old friends who berated and chastised each other as they picked us apart like MJ and Scottie.

The next day wasn't much better. One singles match and I was done. I was shellacked by a 17-year-old from Phoenix who I more than trumped in experience - seven years to his one-and-a-half - but not skill.

Yes, this is a humbling and exceedingly frustrating sport.

But it's also beautiful.

Look around the tournament and you'll see strangers becoming fast friends, bonded by a game that's harder to master than any other. They joke and jab each other as they watch matches in surrounding courts, some from bleachers behind a windowed back wall, but most from high above, looking down on the action like Romans at a gladiator fight.

"Handball players are definitely a tight-knit group," said Dan Armijo, the only pro at the tournament. He's currently ranked 11th in the world.

"It's such an obscure sport, but we all love it so much," he said. "We play, and it gets competitive, but then you go out with the guys you play and it's like you're partying with all your friends."

There's a respect handball players have for each other that stems from remembrances of our zygote stage in the game. When you first pick up a handball and start smacking it around, the thought comes quickly: "This sucks."

Continued...

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