shooting into a sun background...pics look terible

Went out the other day and the sunshine was the kind that would just about kill your eyes. If you were looking anywhere at the sun you couldnt keep your eyes from squinting. If you had the sun in the background then the person would be dark and the the background blown out.

Im reading up on metering thinking that might be the problem but am not quite sure yet.

What do you do to get around these problems?

fill flash, turn the subject to a different angle, silhouette shooting, using open shade (behind buildings, under trees etc), dual exposure from raw file, deliberate blown background

are several of the ways i handle it

Like somethingsimple explained, there are many ways of going about it. I personally prefer using fill-flash. Meter for the background and use a little fill to properly expose your foreground subjects.

Fill will help with your problem, but choosing your shot & background is a better solution.
Gavin shoots a lot at high ISO with the sun behind the players, & provides fun captions as well. The first & many other images are at ISO Speed Ratings = 1600! Look at pic #4 here which is backlit, but without the sun in the shot:
The week's sporting events in images...

Another example:
Angeline outdoors

See if this helps:
Need an exposure crutch?