US Team Handball Women's National Team

" The Pan Ams for us is a big tournament, because it's our Olympic qualifier," said U.S. women's captain Lisa Eagen, a veteran of two previous Pan American Games. "This one has been the best one so far. It's amazing what the Santo Domingo people have done."

Only the gold medalist from Pan Am team handball advances to the 2004 Olympics in Athens. That's the goal motivating players on every team.

" I'm kind of looking at it like just making a phone call home, and saying, 'Mom, I'm going to the Olympics,'" Brittane Martin said. "That's one thing that's driving me on right now; that would be the best phone call I could ever make."

To win, the women's team must dethrone Brazil, the regional power in the sport that combines aspects of basketball and soccer, with more physical contact near the goal. Brazil and Argentina are the men's favorites.

The United States automatically qualified as the host country at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Playing before the home crowd was an experience the veterans of the Pan Am team will not forget.

" That was a great thrill," said U.S. men's captain Tom Fitzgerald, whose younger brother, Joe, also is on the roster.

The Fitzgeralds are representative of many American players who started out playing other sports and later in their careers picked up team handball.

Tom Fitzgerald played basketball at St. Bonaventure and started playing team handball while in college. Eagen played softball at Iowa State. Divine Jackson, at 18 a rising star on the men's team, played football, basketball and baseball at his high school in Hempstead, N.Y., before being introduced to team handball two years ago.

Jackson and Martin, from Marietta, Ga., are part of the next generation of American handball players. In preparation for the Atlanta Olympics, youth handball programs were set up in Georgia, which encouraged middle schools to teach the sport. Martin picked up the game there, and at only 17 has been training with the national team for 18 months. Jackson learned the game in the club handball hotbeds of Long Island, N.Y.

Construction delays and organizational problems have plagued these Pan American Games, which begin play Saturday. While most facilities have been approved by the various international sports federations, not all have been completed.

The 2,700-seat handball pavilion was ready for play, although during scrimmages Wednesday night, a handful of workers were making small adjustments to the facility. Empty metal brackets adorned the walls behind the goals, waiting for scoreboards to be installed.

The American women were supposed to scrimmage Uruguay on Tuesday night, but the lights went out in the Parque de Este athletic complex, where several venues are located, leaving both teams in the dark.

Even at night, the heat and humidity in the semi-enclosed pavilion affected the players, leaving spots of slick perspiration on the playing floor, which was frequently mopped by volunteers.

" We try to make light of everything," Eagen said. "We know that there's going to be a lot of things that go wrong, like for example, the wet floor -- you see everybody's dripping like crazy and probably losing five pounds every game."

Handball competition begins Saturday, with the U.S. women playing Brazil in the morning. The men open with Puerto Rico later in the day.

Despite the organizational problems, Tom Fitzgerald, a veteran of the 1991 Pan Ams in Cuba where the handball facility was below standard, remains upbeat.

" The rumors before this event were that it was going to be worse than Cuba in 1991," he said. "I've been pleasantly surprised. This is a topnotch venue that we have here. As long as the power stays on, we'll be fine."