Top Handball Players Competing in County

Sometime during the last year, David Chapman found the key to winning.

“I quit partying in college,” said Chapman, the No. 1-ranked handball player in the country. He is undefeated on the Spalding/Gatorade Pro Tour this season with a 24-0 record and six tournament championships.

The seventh and final stop on the tour is the U.S. Handball Assn. National Championships, this week at Los Caballeros Racquet and Sports Club in Fountain Valley and the Spectrum Club in Santa Ana.

Seventeen of the top 24 men’s pro singles players in the country are participating in the event, in which 780 players are entered in 47 male and female divisions, vying for $30,000 in cash prizes.

Chapman, 23, a senior finance major at Southwest Missouri State who graduated from Long Beach Wilson, has been playing in pro events for seven years.

Last year at the national championships in East Lansing, Mich., he lost in the quarterfinals to Randy Morones, currently ranked sixth in the country. This season, he has defeated Octavio Silveyra, John Bike and Naty Alvarado Jr.--ranked second, third and fourth in the nation.

Silveyra, the tournament’s defending champion, is the top-seeded entrant; Chapman is seeded second. Silveyra, 26, is a graduate of Los Angeles Garfield High and Rio Hondo College who started playing handball at a parks and recreation facility in Commerce.

“By the time I was 17, I was playing pro events all over,” he said. “Not bad for a kid from East L.A.”

Silveyra, who is playing doubles with his 21-year-old brother, David, also works part time for the City of Commerce parks and recreation department. He makes about $25,000 a year on the tour, he said. This fall, he hopes to get an appointment to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Silveyra defeated Danny Bell, 21-5, 21-6, and faces Vince Munoz in today’s semifinals.

Fourth-ranked Alvarado had an advantage the other players didn’t when he began to play: His father, Naty Sr., won 11 national handball titles and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in Tucson during Wednesday night ceremonies in Costa Mesa.

“I didn’t start playing until I was 15,” Alvarado said. “My dad left it up to us to choose a sport.”

Alvarado, 24, played baseball and soccer at Hesperia High. When he decided to take up his father’s sport, he soon discovered the advantages of being his father’s son.

“I got a God-given gift in the genes, and of course, the right coach,” said Alvarado, who also plays doubles with Bike in this tournament. “He left me alone for the first six or seven years, then started coaching me.”

Alvarado, a 5-foot-9, 155-pound right-hander, was runner-up at last year’s championships. He considers his serve and speed his biggest assets. When he’s not on the court, his best asset is a head for figures: He is an assistant loan officer for a mortgage company.

Non-sports jobs are the rule among the many competitors, even on the pro tour. This summer, Chapman is working as a finance and insurance officer at a St. Louis car dealership. But this week, he’s concentrating on his other job.

“My goal is to win [this tournament],” said Chapman, who defeated Tyler Hamel, 21-12, 21-14, Wednesday. He meets Bike in today’s semifinals.

Cutting out the partying has sharpened his game. “My mental aspects and my defense [are my strong points],” he said.

Friday and Saturday action will shift entirely to Los Caballeros, where the finals will take place. Top-seeded Lisa Fraser of Winnipeg and second-seeded Anna Engele of St. Paul, Minn., are still playing in the women’s pro singles division. Finals are 10:15 a.m. Saturday.

The men’s pro singles championship match is 2:30 Saturday. The men’s pro doubles final is 3:15 p.m. Friday and the women’s pro doubles final is 1 p.m. Saturday.