OLYMPIC FESTIVAL / VALLEY-AREA NOTEBOOK : Cox Says He Enjoys the In-Your-Face Aspect of Team Handball

Team handball is most often described as a combination of ice hockey without sticks, basketball with too many players and water polo on land.

For James Cox, it is a thoroughly enjoyable combination.

Cox, 27, is among five players from the Ventura Condors who have participated in Olympic Festival team handball competition this week.

A former Buena High water polo player, Cox took to the sport soon after watching his first game as a spectator at the 1991 festival in Los Angeles.

It wasn’t too long after that he became a member of the Condors, a club team based in his hometown.

His first assignment: that of a bull’s-eye in target practice.

The Condors, perhaps by way of unofficial initiation, made him a goalie.

Keep in mind that the object of team handball is to score by hurling a soccer-like ball into a net at speeds of close to 50 m.p.h.

And one more thing: Handball machismo discourages goalies to wear facemasks.

Cox loved it, although he admits, “There is a certain amount of pain involved.”

“I’ve had my nose bent a few times,” he said. “But sometimes that’s good. Sometimes that’s what you need to pull you back in to what you’re supposed to be doing.”

Cox says he particularly enjoys “the satisfaction that goes with feeling that contact and making a block.”

Occasionally, he does not initiate that contact.

“Certain guys will aim at your face, trying to intimidate you,” Cox said. “That’s part of the game.”

Otherwise, Cox considers playing goalie “a no-lose situation.”

Since handball games are expected to be high-scoring affairs, “People expect you to fail most of the time,” he said.

Even a top goalie will still miss more than 75% of the time.

Though the West placed last in the four-team festival field, Cox already had established a good reputation before the competition.

“He’s one of the better goalies here,” said Rod Oshita, the West’s coach and a goalie for the U.S. Olympic team in 1984 and ’88.

“He’s right up there. He has all the athletic ability. Now it’s a matter of gaining experience.”

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New look on the diamond: In previous Olympic Festivals, the softball competition must have seemed like an intramural workout. The same players from the same dominant Amateur Softball Assn. teams competed year after year.

With no softball at the Olympics, the only step beyond the festival was the quadrennial Pan American Games.

Now the players roaming the fields at Lady Bird Johnson Park span a variety of ages and have a new goal.

Catcher Barb Booth of Glendale represents the 30-something set that is holding on for a chance to play in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, the first Olympics featuring softball.

Her East teammates, Jenny Dalton, Krista Gomez and Nancy Evans, are part of softball’s youth movement.

While Booth’s peers, and players in their 20s, hold down jobs while playing softball, the skills of Dalton, Gomez, Evans and their contemporaries will be sharpest by 1996 because of the demanding nature of the college game.

“I’m learning something from every new batter,” said Evans, a star at Hoover High who will join Dalton and Gomez at Arizona next year. “All it can do is make me better. It’s a lot of fun pitching against the best players in the country.”

Gomez, a ’92 graduate of Alemany High, has used the Olympic dream to maintain her motivation.

“There have been times I’ve wanted to quit,” she said. “After I found out that it would be in the Olympics, I have more to work for.”

Added Dalton, a ’92 graduate of Glendale High: “It gives you a purpose.”

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In field hockey, players are awarded “international caps” to acknowledge test matches or official matches in which they have participated.

Mohammed Barakat of Moorpark is the leader among players at the festival with 72 international caps.

Barakat, 26, is playing in his seventh Olympic Festival. He has improved immensely since 1984, when at age 17 he was the youngest member on the entire U.S. men’s Olympic delegation.

Barakat became an Olympian not too long after he was introduced to the sport by Brian Spencer, a former member of the U.S. national team.

It happened by accident. During a clinic at Barakat’s school, Spencer asked a student to come down from the bleachers to take part in a demonstration.

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Christi Tucay had a legitimate reason to switch her emphasis from artistic gymnastics to rhythmic gymnastics four years ago.

Size, agility and ability were not the problem.

Fear was.

“I was too scared to try some of the stuff other girls were trying,” she said.

Tucay, 15, from Burbank, has made a smooth transition, winning the national junior championship in 1992 after less than three years of training.

This year, the sophomore from Burroughs High placed sixth in the all-around at the national seniors championships.

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Cross-training: Archer Mark Hainline of Simi Valley surfs four days a week to increase his cardiovascular capacity. He also supplements his daily archery practice with weight lifting.

The odd combination appears to be effective. Last month, the Moorpark College freshman earned a berth on the four-member U.S. team that will compete in the World Championships next month in Turkey. On Monday, he survived a first-round tiebreaker that came down to the last arrow, and he also upset four-time Olympian Rick McKinney.

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In the hunt: Troy Baker of Glendale gave 1992 Olympic silver medalist Bob Foth a scare in the final of the three-position rifle competition. In earning his first Olympic Festival medal, Baker drew within four points of the substantial lead Foth built in the preliminaries.

“I thought I had a good chance to win because I’ve been shooting well, but I’m not disappointed because Bob shot really well,” Baker said.

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Unspoken bond: Glendale’s Leslie Morse and her horse, Juvel, were in perfect sync Monday night in team dressage.

“He stayed on my aids the whole ride,” she said. “He was listening to my hands and my feet the whole time, saying, ‘OK, I can do that, OK, I can do that.’ It was great. I am so proud of him.”

Morse’s 68.147 points were unmatched and the key to the South’s gold medal.