| Darrick Heath | |||||||||||||||||
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| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||
| Born | October 12, 1964 | ||||||||||||||||
| Nationality | American | ||||||||||||||||
| Height | 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) | ||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Darrick Heath (born October 12, 1964) is an American former handball player. [1] He competed in the men's tournament at the 1996 Summer Olympics. [2] After his playing career, Heath became a coach, and coached the national team. [3]
Heath was born in 1964 and attended Finger Lakes Community College. [1] He then went to C. W. Post College where he played basketball. [1] [4]
After playing handball for a local club in Long Island, he eventually made his way onto the US National Team. [1] In 1988, 1989 and 1993 he was part of the team that won national titles in handball. [1] For the next two years, Heath moved to Europe, playing professionally in Budapest, Hungary and Graz, Austria. [1] [5] In 1993, Heath was also named the U.S. Team Handball Male Athlete of the Year. [6]
At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Heath was part of the American team that finished in ninth place in the men's tournament. [7] [8] However, Heath would later suffer a spinal injury in a car crash, which ended his playing career. [9]
After playing for the US National Team until 2003, Heath became a handball coach, [1] [10] and coached the national team during the 2011/12 season. [1] He helped the US team reach the 2011 Pan American Games, the first time that the US team had qualified for the games since 2003. [11] He was also a lecturer at Emory University in Atlanta for ten years from 2002 to 2012, [1] and featured in a university paper. [12]
Since leaving handball, he has entered the automotive industry, and currently is a Genesis Sales Representative at Eastern Shore Genesis in Daphne, AL.
