World champion handballer David Chapman, a unique figure in Long Beach sports lore, died last week. He was 42.
Known as the “Michael Jordan of handball,” Chapman won his first national championship at the age of 14 and was a Wilson High alum. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Champan died Oct. 10 at Progress West Hospital in O’Fallon, Missouri. The cause of death was not disclosed.
Chapman began playing handball when he was just 3 years old with his father, Fred, against the side of their house in Long Beach.
“It was kind of like when Tiger Woods’ dad took him to the golf course at the age of 3 and put a golf club in is hand, or like so many kids who started playing catch with their dad at the same age,” Chapman said in a 2012 interview with the Press-Telegram’s Bob Keisser.
“I was fortunate that I grew up playing at the Long Beach Athletic Club, which was the premiere handball club in the nation when it existed,” Chapman said. “There were six courts, just for handball, and a lot of the best players came to Long Beach to play in major events and local tournaments.”
Chapman won his first title at the LBAC when he was 7, and was the national amateur champion at 14, winning his first pro event at 17. He won all five junior age-group national titles (ages 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19) and won the national collegiate singles title all four years he attended Missouri State.
Chapman was ranked No. 1 in the nation from 1993 to 2004 and then retired at age 29, having won eight professional national titles. Chapman returned from retirement four years later and held the nation’s top rank from 2008 until 2011, adding another national title to his trophy case.
Chapman won two international championships and a dozen doubles titles.
When Chapman won his first pro event at 17, he became the youngest in American history to do so — by three years.
After attending Missouri State, Chapman settled in St. Louis, where he worked as a financial director for Mercedes-Benz.
He was inducted into the Long Beach Century Club Hall of Fame in 2012.
WPHLive.tv, a website dedicated to coverage of handball, paid tribute to Chapman with an obituary titled “Remembering the Greatest.”
Author David Fink wrote, “Chapman’s genius was unmistakable, drawing the admiration of the game’s greatest players, those who were watching the game for the first time, and all in between.”
The WPH Tucson Memorial Tournament will be held in Tucson, Arizona, from Nov. 10-12 and will include a memorial service for Chapman as well as tributes to him throughout the weekend.
