January 9, 2015
Leagues, Leagues, Leagues!!!
I blogged about the Capital Area Super League a few days ago - here's the flyer. If you live in the Maryland/Virginia region, sign up now!!! It looks like it's catching on, with more and more players talking about signing up on a team. Soon to be added will be a "Players Looking for Teams" page. (Note that they had another organizational meeting last night, and have updated the web page and flyer. For example, the format has been decided - it's going to be straight three on three team matches.)
Of course the long-term purpose of such a league isn't just for current players, but to bring in new ones. But that'll start happening when the league is established. And then it can grow and grow. And USATT, the national organizational body for table tennis in this country, can and should be a part of this.
Now I'll be honest - my true interest in table tennis, and especially USATT matters, is coaching. (Also writing!) But unless we want to spend the rest of our lives in a small sport, constantly scrambling to get more players and never succeeding, leagues have to be one of the two or three top priorities for USATT, and probably #1 if we want to have membership numbers like they do overseas. (Have I mentioned Germany has 600,000 paid members and 11,000 clubs, and how countries all over Europe have similarly large memberships? Oh yeah, about once a week….)
Assuming we're successful, the next step is to package it as a prototype league that can be spread to other regions. I hope to have something like that by the end of the year.
Here's an interesting incentive. I'm offering a free signed copy of my book Table Tennis Tales and Techniques to anyone who signs up for the Capital Area Super League this year. (Due to a large print overrun when it first came out, I have hundreds of extra copies.)
USATT Election Results
When USATT published the results, they didn't give out the voting figures. But they have since decided it is public information, so I can give out the results. I received 561 votes (83.6%) to Jim McQueen's 110 (16.4%).
Now these numbers tell us several things. First, the turnout wasn't great - only 671 USATT members voted. I'm guessing there are something like 5000 active adult USATT members, a little less than 13.5%. That's pretty low. Part of this is because the online voting procedure was a bit trickier than the way we used to it, with paper ballots where you just checked the candidate, stuck it in an envelope, and mailed it back. But 13.5% is low no matter how you look at it.
I think it means that much of the membership has simply given up on USATT. We've been a stagnant organization since its beginning in 1933, with embarrassingly low membership figures - basically a round-off number, as I call it. (We are listed as having 9000 members, but many of those are inactive life members, honorary members, institutional members, clubs, etc., plus something like 1500 junior members. At some point I plan to look into the actual breakdown of these numbers and how they have changed in recent years.) So the membership simply isn't excited about USATT, and the turnout reflects this. This needs to change.
The high percentage I received shows that those who voted really are looking for a USATT that actively develops the sport, in particular in the ways I campaigned on - developing regional team leagues, creating regional associations, recruiting and training coaches, turning the U.S. Open and Nationals into major events, and professionalizing our sport. Too often our boards have acted more like judges, judging the issues before them - but rarely taking initiative themselves or implementing anything substantive. This needs to change.
I really don't think the vote totals reflect on Jim at all. (In fact, a good part of the reason I received such a high percentage is I simply campaigned more.) Jim's a good guy, a USATT Hall of Famer who's done a lot for our sport, and who chairs the USATT Editorial Board. (As I've blogged before, I hope to work with him on magazine and possibly other issues.) It was more a vote to change the focus of USATT from just the day-to-day running of it to actively developing our sport. It's not something we've ever really focused on. This needs to change.
Oh My God!!!
Yep, that's me on the USATT Board of Directors page.
1985 US Open Photo
As part of USATT's continuing effort to embarrass and humiliate me*, they published this picture of me on the USATT Facebook page. Yep, that's me on the right! On the left is Jeff Harris, a local Maryland junior at the time. We won the event, I think Under 3800 Doubles. I'm 25 in the picture, one semester away from graduating college and going to the Resident Training Program (RTP) at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs as (at various times) player/assistant manager/manager/director/assistant coach/Special Assistant to the Executive Director, and who knows what other titles. (See Jim Butler's comments on this - they are all out to get me!)
*To the humor-challenged, yes, I'm kidding!!!
If you desperately want to see an action shot of me from long ago, just go to the home page here, and there's a picture of me looping a forehand at the 1983 Pan Am Team Trials, when I was 23. Note the high follow-through? You wouldn't do that with modern tensor sponges like Tenergy!!! (I was using unglued Sriver back then. Now I use Tenergy 05 on the forehand, Tenergy 25 on the backhand.)
Thursday Night Junior Class
Montgomery County runs junior table tennis classes at MDTTC on Thursdays from 6-7 PM. We started a new session yesterday, with 12 players ranging in age from 9 to 14. I ran the session, with Chen Ruichao ("Alex," the recent Westchester Open champion, rated 2654) and John Hsu assisting. The first session for such classes is always the easiest, surprisingly. They're all a bit quiet and not sure yet what's going to happen. As the sessions continue they become bolder and things get louder. In yesterday's session we covered the grip, stance, ball-bouncing, and the forehand. (I also introduced them to our robot.) The last seven minutes of the session they took turns trying to hit my Gatorade bottle - if they did, I had to drink the "worm juice" inside.
Online Training for Table Tennis Program
Here's the promo video (3:25) for the new DVD from Dynamic Table Tennis (Brian Pace). Here's the description:
Online Training for Table Tennis is the first training program that consist of 4 different training programs that cover every way that you can improve in the sport of table tennis.
The Technique Plan - The Technique Plan consist of receiving a professionally edited video of your tournament or training footage that will highlight exactly where the error is being made with regards to technique.
The Tournament Stats Plan - The Tournament Stats Plan consist of your tournament or practice match video footage being put through the Tournament Table Tennis Software that will show you exactly what skillsets are responsible for your tournament result.
Tournament & Video - The Tournament & Video Plan takes your video footage and creates a training program to improve your performance based on your tournament results.
Training Plan - The training plan is a comprehensive training program that consist of 8 Training Videos per month that every skill set in the sport of Table Tennis. This is the type of training program that will teach you how to become a Tournament Player. This program will start on Feb 15th, 2015.
International Table Tennis
Here's my periodic note that you can great international coverage at TableTennista (which especially covers the elite players well) and at the ITTF home page (which does great regional coverage).
2015 World Team Cup
Here's the ITTF home page for the event, Jan. 8-11 in Dubai, United Arab Republic. Here's the team seeding list - nope, no USA teams. Here's the Shot of the Day (34 sec) for the first day (really rally of the day), between Zhang Jike and Robert Gardos.
Is Zhang Jike a Sure Bet in 2015?
Here's the article by Matt Hetherington.
Croatia's Champ Aiming for Top 10 and Olympic Medal
Here's the interview with Croatia's Andrej Gacina (world #26, formerly #18) by Matt Hetherington.
Roger Federer Warns Against the Perils of Pushy Parents
Polar Pong
Here's the picture of two diehard players - and considering the temperature here in Maryland dropped to 6 degrees yesterday, it's oddly appropriate - but you'd never catch me out there!
2014 Mousetraps and 2015 Ping-Pong Balls
Here's the new video (2:05) - what happens when we put these together? You have to see it to believe it - and in slow motion!!! "Ahead of the 2014 New Year's Eve celebrations, Pepsi Max helps its fans get in the party mood with a vibrant video that brings to life the sentiment of the social season. Instead of the traditional fireworks, Pepsi Max created its own explosion of color using 2,014 mousetraps and 2,015 Ping-Pong balls to set off a spectacular and mesmerizing chain reaction."
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