Billy Donovan and Zach Arem have a lot more in common than one might think.
Both hail from New York.
Both got their starts coaching at Kentucky.
And both helped rake in two national championships for UF.
But for Arem's squad, the UF handball team, no tickertape parade awaits them on University Avenue, and no fans cheer them as they walk off the plane.
As a club team that plays a little-known sport with limited funding and minimal recognition from the university community, the squad's achievements have gone largely unnoticed.
"Most people don't know about us, but we're a reason why they call this place 'Titletown,'" said Alex Barbag, 21, who joined the team in the fall.
Under the direction of Arem, a 23-year-old senior and physical education major, 15 UF students competed against 44 other schools from across the United States and a few from Ireland at the National Collegiate Handball Championships from Feb. 20-24 at Missouri State University.
UF tallied enough points collectively, 1,125, by the tournament's end to earn the Division II National Championship.
The Gators were led by seniors Barbag and Mike Beach on the men's side and senior Jessica Kornick and sophomore Stephanie Miller on the women's side.
"Football has won two, basketball won two. Obviously we're not at that level, but we've won two national championships in three years," Arem said. "It's part of the Gator tradition: winning championships, whether it's a club sport or a varsity sport."
The team hoisted the championship trophy through airports in Kansas City, Mo., Atlanta and Jacksonville en route back to Gainesville as other travelers congratulated the team, sometimes not completely sure of what they were congratulating the group for.
"Everybody was like 'What's that for?'" Miller said. "It's funny because we'd tell them handball, and they'd say, 'Oh, that's still being played?'"
Handball, like racquetball without the racquet, was a popular sport at UF during the 1960s and 1970s, said Frank Green, a UF employee and 1964 graduate of the school.
School policy then required men to take physical education courses, one of which was handball.
"Then it was a big sport," he said. "There were a lot of people that played."
Green plays three-wall handball every week with other Gainesville residents, including former UF students and current professors.
Now the sport is being resurrected at UF thanks to Arem, who transferred from Kentucky to UF to join his older brother, A.J., who was a graduate student.
A.J. started the handball team in 2004, recruiting players from handball and racquetball classes he instructed at UF.
"He got a couple people and said, 'Wanna try this outside of class?' And they started the club," Arem said.
In A.J.'s final year in 2006, the team won its first national title at Texas A&M. The younger Arem took over as coach for A.J. the following year.
"My brother and I started all of this from scratch," he said. "No one has ever played before we introduced it to them. Now people love it."
Some of his players estimate that he was by far the youngest coach at the national championship.
Said Barbag: "He organizes everything, from the airline tickets to the car reservations to the entry fees to signing us up into tournaments."
Gainesville resident and team supporter Tom Southern said he enjoys watching Arem, who used his final year of college eligibility last year, take time out of his student life to serve as the team's head coach and lead a group of former novices to a title.
"Unlike, say, the basketball team, which probably gets this catered steak dinner and an air-conditioned bus ride to where they are going," Southern said, "it's like a little ragtag army going up there, and they won the damn tournament!"
Miller said UF's camaraderie and cheering made the group the loudest team at the tournament.
Barbag said the experience was like a week's vacation.
But back at UF, it's back to classes and three practices a week for the players.
"Going from a week of playing a sport you love and being with really good friends and not really having anything to worry about to coming back to classes is awful," Miller said.
Like her teammates, she had to explain to professors why she would be missing class the week of the championship.
"I told one of my teachers I'm going to a handball tournament in Missouri, and he said, 'If that's not true, that sounds like a pretty good excuse to make up, so I'll take your word for it.'"
Barbag said he isn't fazed by the lack of recognition on campus for the national championship. He said if it weren't for Facebook pictures, he'd have gotten half as many congratulations.
"I don't care if people know that we won the championship at all," he said. "It's always fun with the team. We all just go out there and try to have fun more than anything else."
Southern said he was "on pins and needles" waiting to hear the results of the championship tournament.
"They don't get the glory, but it's been really cool for me to see them play for the heart of playing," he said.
Arem organizes a handball tournament that UF holds every fall, hosting players from around Florida. His biggest concern now, he said, is keeping handball from dying at UF after he graduates in May.
"The sport is dying," he said. "We need people like my brother and myself and everyone here to continue on the sport, or it's gonna die."
