USA Nationals Dates
As announced yesterday in USATT Insider, the USA Nationals this year will be July 1-7 in Las Vegas. For most of us, those are probably fine dates. However, for the large number of U.S. players attending the World Veterans Championships, June 18-24, also in Las Vegas, it poses a dilemma, since there's a week between the two. Do you attend both? If so, do you fly home and back in between, or stick around for a week?

Ideally, the two would have been back to back, with perhaps one day rest between. That's what USATT would have liked, but it was not to be, for several reasons. The main problem is that the World Veterans Championships has built into the contract that no other major tournaments can be run locally at the same time or the week before or after, since that could draw away entries from them. This makes sense, as it is a large undertaking, and the last thing they want is a competing local tournament. There was some discussion of making an exception, but apparently they didn't agree. (I wasn't in on the discussions.)

Another reason not to run them...

Tip of the Week
Best Way to Learn – Watch, Mimic, Practice.

Board Teleconference – Executive Session
Last night we had a USATT Teleconference from 7PM to 8:40PM. Unfortunately, most of the meeting was in executive session, where we discussed confidential matters (personnel, legal, and/or certain financial issues). So I'm limited in what I can talk about.

We did come out of executive session to approve the 2018 USATT budget. It should be published on the USATT site sometime soon. We went over this previously, and went over it again during the teleconference. We also went over the dates of the USA Nationals this summer in Las Vegas – and the official dates should come out very soon. (There were scheduling complications in regard to the World Veterans Championships, June 18-24, also in Las Vegas, which I may blog about later.)

I've been pretty busy with USATT meetings recently. In December we had two days of meetings at the U.S. Open, plus the USATT Assembly. I flew out to Colorado Springs for a meeting on USATT...

EmRatThich Table Tennis World Ranking System
Here’s the article and ranking list. This is not something he threw together – he goes over in detail the way his system works, which analyzes “43,735 table tennis matches played in 2017 (in official ITTF events) nearly 100 table tennis international tournaments during 2017.”

There have been many complaints about the new ITTF system, which rewards participation as well as level of play, leading to results that often don’t always correspond to actual playing levels. For example, it has Ma Long at #7 in the world, when he’s obviously #1 or #2. Here are the ITTF rankings. If you page down to “Official Documents,” there is info on how they are done. 

When doing such ranking systems, there is always the conflict between trying to set up the most accurate system, versus setting up a system that rewards and thereby increases participation. This is a classic case. USATT has the...

USOC Meeting on Coaching Education and Certification
I returned yesterday afternoon from a whirlwind trip to the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, where I met with USATT and USOC people on creating a USATT Coaching Education and Certification Program. Those attending the meeting were:

• Larry Hodges (Chair of USATT Coaching Committee and member of USATT Board)
• Jörg Bitzigeio (USATT High Performance Director)
• Mark Thompson (USATT Chief Operating Officer)
• Denise Parker (USOC Vice President, National Governing Bodies Services and former CEO for USA Archery)
• Chris Snyder (USOC Director of Coaching Education)
• Avery Wilson (USOC Director of Strategic Planning)

The USOC people have extensive experience in developing education and certification programs for Olympic sports, and so we weren’t starting from scratch. They were very knowledgeable and extremely helpful. We spent probably the first half of the meeting going over where USATT currently stood – who the coaches were, where they coached, the current business model of USATT clubs where the coaches develop...