Cory Eider Named USA Table Tennis High Performance Director
Here's the USATT article. "Eider will be responsible developing and directing all of USATT’s Olympic and National Team programs (Senior, Junior, Cadet, Mini Cadet, and Para), National Team coaches, as well as creating a National Team Development Program."
This could be a landmark for USA Table Tennis. Here is the "High Performance Director Wanted" notice, where it covers in detail what the HPD would be responsible for. I strongly urge you read the section under "Responsibilities and Requirements."
However, it's not just what he's responsible for – it's what he's expected to do. And that's to develop a year-round program where training centers, top players, top juniors, top coaches, and parents around the country work together to develop a national team that'll put the rest of the world on notice that USA, after sixty years of napping, is back.
Of course, those are just words – the question is how. I had a great discussion on some of this with Cory this past weekend at the Westchester Open. (There were some comic moments where I discussed some of these issues with players, but since USATT hadn't announced Cory's hiring yet, I couldn't tell them that the person who was being hired was standing right next to us, and listening in.) Already there are plans for training camps and international tournaments, where Team USA becomes not just a bunch of individuals, but a TEAM. I could go more into this, but it's better to come from Cory directly to the players involved. (I'll likely give periodic reports.) We actually talked about the individual players who are coming up right now, especially at the cadet and mini-cadet levels. As I've said before, we are stronger at the cadet level than at any time in our history, and it's not even close. (I'd start listing them but no matter where I end the list, I'd be insulting those left off.) The potential for great things is there.
Here's a simple progression. Step 1: Top Ten in the World. Step 2: Top Four in the world as we join the small select group of countries that sometimes challenges China. (Or should we go directly for Top Two here?) Step 3: Beat China. This current group of cadets definitely have the potential for steps one and two – and guess what? Sweden, Hungary, Japan, and other countries have shown that China isn't always God when it comes to table tennis. And if they are, then why can't we be co-God?
I've known Cory for over twenty years – but much of it was coaching against him during his junior days. I've had some interesting tactical discussions with him and he definitely knows what he's talking about in that realm. He also knows the current group of up-and-coming players quite well. He's got a strong background for the position, and at age 32, he's old enough to have experience while young enough that he's not yet jaded, with lots of energy and drive. (I jokingly pantomimed the looks on his face during his tenure, from pure enthusiasm on day one to increasing frustration and finally to total disgust by day five - but so far he's proved me wrong.)
Here are some of my thoughts on the HPD position, which I sent to the USATT board a while back before Cory was hired. Some of this came about after discussions with USATT CEO Gordon Kaye.
- Just as the USATT board of directors has mostly allowed the CEO a free hand in most of his actions, we need to allow the HPD a relatively free hand in his job. The only way this won’t work is if we hire the wrong person. So the key to everything is hiring the right person. To some of us, that’s equates to “duh!” But it’s very easy to hire the wrong person – flashy credentials don’t always mean flashy results.
- A key is to rely on the resources of clubs, including the parents who are paying for their kid’s training. USATT may be able to budget one or two hundred thousand dollars to this; many millions are already being spent at clubs. Just for perspective, many clubs already have many parents paying well over $20,000/year for their kids' training, and even more paying over $10,000/year. The HPD needs to find ways to best utilize the resources we already have.
- The HPD needs to emphasize the development of general weaknesses among U.S. players. For example, many of our top juniors don’t do enough physical training – and while there are several reasons for this (coaches get paid mostly for table time, not physical training; lack of time in general due to school and other activities; no one taking the initiative to start physical training programs), a HPD could approach the clubs with strong junior programs and work to get physical training more emphasized. (You only need one coach at each club to run the physical training sessions, which would be group sessions.) There are other general weaknesses among U.S. players, such as receive, so the HPD could also ask that training centers put more emphasis into that, or whatever aspects he believes are needed.
- Because we need training centers all over the country to buy into this national concept, we need three things: a) reasons why they should buy into it; b) a HPD who can sell them on it; and c) a few top training centers to join in early on, so others would follow.
- In general, we need to change the culture from the current situation, where most up-and-coming players focus almost exclusively on winning national events and making national teams, to focusing on beating other countries and becoming the best in the world. At the cadet level (both boys and girls), we can challenge any team in the world outside China, and might even give them a run for it. This is the perfect backbone of a future world-conquering team. Now is the perfect time to start moving in that direction.
- We also need to remember why we suddenly have so many promising cadet players – the dramatic increase in the number of full-time training centers in the country, from 8-10 just eight years ago to over 80 now. This is the source of our future elite players, and if we keep increasing the number of such training centers with top coaches and training programs, our situation will continue to improve. So we need to focus on that aspect as well. The depth of play now compared to just a few years ago is mind-boggling – at the cadet level we now have dozens of players who likely would have dominated their age group ten years ago, while players who used to make the semifinals or even finals likely wouldn't make the final 16 or even 32 these days. I remember one year the final of Under 14 Boys was won by the top seed, rated just over 2100, over a 1950 player who had upset a 2000 player in the semifinals! Those players wouldn’t make the final 32 these days.
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