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Handball in Missoula was played before World War II in the
basement of the St. Anthony's Church and in the wrestling
room of the Men's Gym at the University of Montana. The
origin of standardized play was a picture painted by Bob
Curry and Jim Mayes. Dr. Bob Curry, Grizzly team physician
and campus health service official, improvised a mini-court in
his barn up Patty Canyon in 1960. Along about that time Jim
Mayes, ex-Grizzly premier pole vaulter, put in an area above
the old Florence Laundry on East Front Street. Mayes used
plywood with ceramic tile attached, products of the Weyerhauser
Corporation. Today he runs the Court House on S.W. Higgins Avenue,
one of the best facilities in the Northwest. Racquetball participants far
outnumber handball zealots, but as Mayes puts it, "it can't ever replace
the two-handed sport." Handball has come a long ways in Missoula - all
the way from a church cellar.
John T. Campbell, Missoulian
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