Padded leather gloves, heaven-sent leases, and an extremely passionate community—those are the pillars on which Jeff Streibig and Matt Krueger have relied this year to accomplish their ambition of bringing the U.S. National Handball Center (UNSHC) to life in St. Louis.
In January 2025, Jeff Streibig and Matt Krueger set off to fill a void they noticed within the handball world: a nucleus for the niche sport’s fandom, play, and competition. Still under construction but now open for partial use, the UNSHC is the manifestation of that dream. Much like a baseball or football Hall of Fame, the goal of the facility is to act as a symbolic hub honoring the game.
Are you a CITY SC fan?
Subscribe to the CITY Scene newsletter to get a fan’s guide to the pro soccer scene in St. Louis.
Streibig and Krueger aren’t just aiming to create a recreational facility, however: The hope is that the new Hazelwood facility at 8701 Dunn Road will be the site of national tournaments in the coming years.
The Space
The downward trend of handball awareness and popularity has led to an increasing loss of court space for handball players both nationally and locally. The St. Louis Hinder Club–a handball homebase for members to play, compete, and socialize for more than 50 years–lost its court lease in Arnold in 2024. While this was initially devastating for the club, Streibig–president of St. Louis Hinder Club and the Missouri State Handball Association –says he’s sure the universe was working behind the scenes to offer an even better home: the former building of the Spalding Racquet Club.
When the space became available, inspiration drew Streibig and Krueger–the United States Handball Association executive director–together. The bones for regulation handball courts were already there, with “dimensions [that were] exactly what we needed,” says Streibig, as handball and racquetball are played on the same courts. It was the perfect choice for a more permanent home for the sport, he adds, and in January, the deal was done.
The building was previously intermittently used as a gymnastics studio, so the team at the USNHC is currently working to restore the roots of the building, by first exposing, and then revamping, the existing foundation. While construction is ongoing, six courts are currently playable, with nine total on the horizon.
All of this manual work has been done without the help of a contractor, but instead by devoted members—an unbelievable feat, Streibig explains. Brandon Muir, avid club member and “key-grip” in all things renovation, adds that one would be hard-pressed to find “another group that could pull this off strictly voluntarily. The type of people you would find on the court is the type you would find building out with us.”
The Sport
Not to be confused with the more aggressive-style contact sport of European Handball, the new center in Hazelwood is centered on American handball–sometimes referred to as wallball–which is played atop hard floors and where singles or doubles matchups rally by hitting a small rubber ball against the wall. Wallball can be played indoors or outdoors, with one, three, or four walls. Aficionados will tell you it requires agility and strategy above all else.
Players wear padded leather gloves and protective eyewear commonly affiliated with the game, but plenty more equipment has gone into the making of the USNHC. “We have been resourceful throughout the entire process,” says Streibig. This includes sourcing lockers from a nearby Gold’s Gym closing sale, and a bargain-hunting road trip to buy viewing glass from the Texas A&M handball team, at an impressive value of $200 for $60,000 worth of materials.
This sort of ingenuity is typical of Streibig, according to Krueger, who describes Streibig as “this scrappy player and really just tenacious” since their first meeting at a national tournament. That unwillingness to relent has helped the club not only fight the closures of handball and racquetball facilities nationally, but also to actively challenge the narrative that theirs is a declining sport.
The Community
The best part of this brand new lease “is the fact that it’s ours,” says member Matt Balcer, met with a chorus of agreement by fellow members Mike Benkelman and Mike Rogers. “Jeff’s our guy,” Benkelman says of Streibig’s efforts.
Finally free of restraint from relying solely on third-party courts found in rented spaces or parks, Krueger highlights that the USNHC will “mirror the connection that handball players only have with each other,” adding that the new space is destined to become “the epicenter of our sport.”
Already proving its ability to streamline the handball love, pockets of players from across St. Louis City and County have been congregating at the new center. The “Forest Park Guys,” a group of outdoor players, have now crossed territories into the indoor waters at USNHC, and Streibig says now “love the club the same way we do.”
The choice to have St. Louis serve as the national hub of the sport was easy, Kruger explains, with the city being accessible in four hours or less from anywhere in the country. “Why not St. Louis?” Krueger muses. “It’s an awesome sports town.” Fans from across the world hail to Cooperstown, New York, and Canton, Ohio, for the Baseball and Football Halls of Fame, respectively. Now, Krueger explains, St. Louis has its turn to similarly serve as a handball magnet.
The USNHC offers children free access on behalf of the St. Louis Youth Sports Outreach, spearheaded by Billy Mayhall. “Our overall goal is to expand handball and figure out how to get it into public parks and schools,” says Muir, whose wife Michelle Muir is part of the team of architects at incite Design Studio working on the renovations. A true family affair, Streibig’s wife, Janaki Streibig, also was on site at the Hazelwood center helping paint boundary lines on the floor on Christmas Day 2024.
The ultimate aspiration for the center locally is to let St. Louisans know what handball can offer them–from the lifetime health benefits the sport can offer to the community itself. “You know the thing is, we always hear we’re a niche sport, but we just want everybody to know what a great game, what a great community, and what a great effort this [center] is going to be,” Krueger says.
