Minor Sport Becomes First Love For Handball Champion Phil Collins

While I watched the stock market report on my living room television set on a recent afternoon, Phil Collins, once the top-rated handball doubles player in America, came strolling up to my front door.

I shouldn't have said "strolling." The 76-year-old Collins, who lives in Lantana, needs the help of a sturdy cane to get about due to an ailing hip.

Through the years, I've written about many less publicized sports: curling, hurling, bowling, billiards, canine field trials and canvas canoe racing. Why not do a little digging into Collins' handball career?

It developed he gained fame in the sport as a doubles player teamed with an aggressive Johnny Sloan. For five years, starting in 1955, they won three national AAU titles, five AAU crowns and five YMCA championships. Both are in the sport's Hall of Fame in Tucson, Ariz.

Although he helped win 17 important doubles titles, Collins never has topped an important singles tournament.

"For our major tournaments there would be starting fields of as many as 128 players," he explained. "So, in playing singles, I tried to save some of my stamina for doubles to be played that same night. As a result, I never finish better than fourth in a major singles event."

Both from Chicago, the pair became known as the Windy City Whiz Kids. At the height of their careers, they participated in two nationwide tours in New York. They performed in exhibition matches at the New York Athletic Club and the Brooklyn YMCA. I had seen them play at the Y during one of their visits east.

They demonstrated that teamwork was what made them so successful. Collins had a bombastic serve and was superb in bottom board shooting - making "killers" impossible to return. Sloan rounded out their team efforts with his superb retrieving ability and shot placement.

Their most prestigious victory was in the World Series of Handball in 1958. Represented in that tourney were nationally known YMCA, AAU, and U.S. Handball Association players. That event was held only once because the Y group and AAU withdrew.

In Collins' recent visit to my home, he revealed he became interested in the sport by chance.

"As an 18-year-old, I found myself watching our local fellows whack the ball against the wall at the local Y," he recalled. "It was obvious they were having lots of fun. I decided handball would develop strength in my left hand, as well as my right. I thought it would provide me with two strong arms and would help me improve in basketball, my first love at the time."

"But it became sort of an entrapment," he continued with a grin. "I became so enamored about hitting that ball against the wall. I forgot about basketball - even baseball. I found handball particularly appealing because only one other player is needed to enjoy it. In basketball, you need two teams."

Collins enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in the early 1950s and was stationed in Bryan, Texas. The Lone Star State was another hotbed for handball. He soon found himself playing in a number of local tournaments, including the prestigious Dallas Athletic Club Invitational.

He told me he thought his athletic genes must have come from his father, Phil Sr., who, starting in 1923, was a National League pitcher for eight seasons. He played for three teams, the Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs. He was nicknamed Fidgety Phil because of unusual pre-pitch nervous movements while on the mound.

"On the day I was born, my dad, while with the Phillies, hit his only home run of the season, quite a feat for a pitcher," Collins said. "I always considered that quite a tribute."