September 26, 2022

Tips of the Week

Pan Am Under 11 & Under 13 Championships and a Short Blog
I just returned from ten days in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where I was one of the USA Team coaches for the Pan Am Under 11 & Under 13 Championships, along with Qi Wei, Wu "Jennifer" Yue, Xinhue "Taylor" Wang, Cheng Yinghua, and Thilina Piyadasa. We won 9 of the 16 golds, plus 7 silvers and 4 bronze! (Here's a team picture.) I coached both Under 11 (Hopes) and Under 13 boys (Mini-Cadets), with four players in each, but was in charge of Under 11 boys. The Under 11 Boys' Squad (Kyler Chen, Jason Liu, Caillou Chen, and Arjun Kumar) won gold and bronze in Boys' Teams (the two teams had to play each other in the semis or it might have been an all-USA final), gold in Boys' Doubles, Gold in Mixed Doubles, and silver and bronze in Boys' Singles. See below for my more extensive writeups.

The current human population on this planet is about 7.8 billion, and all but one of them messaged me during the ten days I was away, asking if I could do something for them. What, you weren't one of them? Then you are the only one who didn't. (I was also messaged for help by a number of chimpanzees, gorillas, blue whales, dolphins, giant squid, and a grey parrot from Uganda with questions on proper forewing technique.)

Because of this rather long todo list, this will be a short blog. However, I've got two lengthy articles on the USATT news page about the USA Boys' Teams in Santo Domingo, with two more coming in the next day on singles and doubles play. (LiFeng Yu has two articles on Girls' Teams, with another coming on singles and doubles.) Here are those articles – make sure to check back tomorrow when the rest should go up.

Brian Pace GoFundMe – On the Road to Recovery
Coach and former championship player Brian Pace was recently in a terrible bicycle accident. If you'd like to help, here is the GoFundMe page, which has so far raised about $39,000, with a $100,000 goal. Any help would be appreciated. (See Brian's updates.) How did it happen?

Brian was on his weekly 5 am training ride where he had the right of way at an intersection. A work van took a left turn in front of Brian, striking him on his left side and knocking him down an incline where he was only stopped by hitting a cluster of trees. His bike lay close to him with his shoes still clipped into the pedals

The driver of the van attempted to help Brian but could not due to Brian's injuries. The fire and rescue teams were first on the scene, followed by the paramedics and police. They worked to remove his helmet, placed him on the gurney, and finally got him into the ambulance to be transported to Wake Med Trauma Center.

Injury Assessment
Brian's x-rays revealed extensive injuries: 1) Multiple fractures and dislocation of the hip socket and pelvis, 2) Multiple left rib fractures, 3) Broken Left Arm, 4) Broken Right Knee, 5) 5" laceration on the left hand, and 6) 4" laceration on left knee

Here are some other pages you might check out.

Bounce the Ball, Win $1000
Here's the video (10:48) from Pongfinity! They challenged about 30 players to bounce the ball on their paddles as long as they could, with whoever went longest winning $1000! As someone commented on the video, this is more of a mental exercise. Toward the end, they began to do things to distract them or raise the difficulty level, such as having to lift one leg. (Otherwise, a good player could do this essentially forever, until they lost their focus or their arm got too tired.)

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