Why Timmy Wore a Dunce Cap and Other Fascinating Stuff
As readers here know, I'm working with Tim Boggan on Volume 18 of History of U.S. Table Tennis. Tim had some old Executive Committee reports that he wanted in – but he'd unthinkingly underlined a number of passages that he wanted to focus on, forgetting that when I scanned them, the underlines would show. He asked if I could remove them in Photoshop, and I said yes, though it'd take about ten minutes. (I'd have to zoom in, and use the eraser tool at a very small size and go through it meticulously to avoid deleting any text.) I agreed to do it, on one condition. I rolled up a sheet of paper into a dunce cap and made him wear it until I was done with the corrections. He took it well. I think.

We've now done the covers, the four intro pages, and 13 chapters, totaling exactly 200 pages with 637 graphics. There will be 26 chapters, so 13 more to go. Figuring that the covers and intro pages are about as much work as a chapter, we're 14/27 of the way through. There's a lot of articles in this volume written by me, especially coaching articles and player profiles.

Here's the content, in order, of the last chapter we did, Chapter 13, pages 190-200:  

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 18 – Status, Plus Other Stuff
We've been at it all day starting Thursday morning, excluding Saturday (when I ran the MDTTC June Open), so it's been five long days so far. We've done the covers, the four intro pages, and 11 chapters, totaling 169 pages with 421 graphics. There will be 26 chapters, so 15 more to go. Figuring that the covers and intro pages are about as much work as a chapter, we're 12/27 of the way through. (Alas, some of the latter chapters appear to be rather long.)

We're hampered by the fact that I'm putting in a good eight hours every day in addition to working with Tim from 7AM to 2:30PM each day. Mon-Fri I leave at 2:30 for the afterschool program, then private and group coaching, and then I return after 8PM or so to a huge backlog of work to do – last night I started work about 8:30PM and didn't finish until 2:30 AM – and went to bed right as Tim was getting up! (As I've mentioned, he keeps strange hours.) So we had a "late" start this morning, starting at 8AM instead of the usual 7AM. Tim was good about it, only smacked me across the face a few dozen times.

There's also the problem that on Friday afternoon I have to leave to drive to the USATT board meeting in New Jersey, and won't return until late Saturday night. Even worse, the MDTTC summer camps start on Monday – and though I might try to get out of them that week, I might be needed in the morning sessions (10AM-1PM). The good news? Four of my regular private students are all out of town (or about to do so), meaning I'll have more time with Timmy.  

Good news – last night was the first full night of sleep I've had since last Thursday morning – I got to bed at 11:30PM, was up at 6:30AM. There will be few of those in my future over the next couple weeks.

I mentioned "Other Stuff" in the headline above – and there's been a few:

Tip of the Week
The Difference Between a Drop Shot and a Short Push.

Will Shortz – 50 States, 1348 Consecutive Days!
On Sunday, Will Shortz did something we're pretty sure no one else has ever done before – he's now played table tennis in all 50 U.S. states! The final state was Hawaii, where Will played at the Aloha club. But it wasn't just 50 states – it also marked his 1,348 consecutive days playing table tennis! (That's every day for about 3.7 years.)

He's not through. Over the next three days during his Hawaii adventure he'll be playing in the Kona TTC, the North Kohala TTC, and the Waimea TTC. Accompanying him on this journey is Westchester TTC coach Robert Roberts.

There are pictures at the Aloha TTC Facebook page, including a nice one of Will with a cake commemorating both the 50 states and 1,348 streak. (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

What, you don't know who Will Shortz is? Yes, you, the one staring at the page in befuddlement? Shame on you, you illiterate klutz! He's the puzzle editor for the New York Times as well as the owner of the Westchester Table Tennis Center. Oh, and he can probably beat you – he's rated 1842, using the Seemiller grip.

Well, it finally happened - just too busy to do the blog this morning. I ran the MDTTC June Open on Saturday (here are the results), and got all the results sent to USATT for ratings that night, then on Sunday worked all day with Tim Boggan on the History of U.S. Table Tennis, and coached all night. (Yes, I also watched Game of Thrones, but who doesn't?) This morning I was up at 6AM, but have spent it all on publicity work for the upcoming Maryland State Championships. I promised Tim I'd be ready to work with him by 9AM today (we usually start at 7AM), and it's now past 9AM, and I haven't even been able to start on the blog or Tip of the Week. So let's skip today - but here's 45 seconds of four-table pong to tide you over! See you tomorrow. 

Day One: Tim Builds a Wall Around Me and Makes Me Pay For It
Tim arrived precisely at 9AM yesterday morning. I'd just put up my blog, and had about one minute of relaxation . . . and then it begins. Within one minute of arriving he's already handed me a stack of pictures that need scanning. 

Then we do the covers. The front are nice shots of the 1990 USA Nationals Men's and Women's Champions, Jim Butler and Wei Wang. The back cover is ten different pictures – Joe Ng, Eric Boggan, Bill Meiklejohn, David Zhuang, Lily Yip, Johnny Huang, Insook Bhushan and Pete May, Sean O'Neill, Diana Gee (with a Parisian backdrop), and Huazhang Xu.

Then we began the interior: Copyright, About the Author, Dedication (to Jim McQueen), and Acknowledgement pages. And then we did Chapter One, which ran from page 5 to 29, and was subtitled, "1990: USTTA Non-Tournament Potpourri." It started off with the political battle and exchanges between President Mel Eisner and (soon-to-be president) Dan Seemiller. There were a number of letters to the editor (published in the USATT magazine, then called Table Tennis Topics). Then came articles such as "Chinese Team Inspires Call for Renewed Ping Pong Diplomacy (by Sheri Soderberg Pittman); "Making Money at the Top" (by me!) and one on Confidence (also by me!); "What is Wrong with the USTTA and What Should We Do About It"; a column by Tom Wintrich where he criticized USTTA's lack of marketing; "Taking the High View"; "White Shirts, Anyone?"; Coaching Corner (by Richard McAfee); "Judge and Decide" (by Dr. Michael Scott); "Rub of the Green" (by Tim Boggan); "Celebrity Golf"; a few obituaries; and a lot more! My quick counts says we've placed 59 graphics so far – but believe me, Tim's barely gotten started!

So it's 29 pages down, about 420 to go….

Tim Boggan Arrives
It seems like only January that USATT Historian and Hall of Famer Tim Boggan arrived at my house for his annual two-week stay, where I do the page layouts and photo work for his History of U.S. Table Tennis volumes. And lo and behold, it was just in January that we did Volume 17! (Yes, you heard that – he's done 17 volumes, and it's only gotten us to 1990.) So what happened? Tim's picked up the pace, partly by scanning entire pages from past USATT Magazines rather than typing them up, and then relying on me to fix up the pages so they're readable.

And so here we are, just five months later, about to do Volume 18! This one covers 1990-1991, and like past ones will likely be in the range of 450 pages with over 1000 graphics. Volume 17 was exactly 450 pages, and had exactly 1500 graphics. (I cheated – I think it had 1499, so I added one.)

In recent years, he's been covering roughly two years with each volume, and doing one volume every year. The problem is that every time he covers two years, another year goes by! At that rate it would have taken us 28 years to catch up – in the year 2044, he'd be doing Volume 44, covering 2043-2044!!! (Let's see, I'd be 84, and Tim, who is 84 now, would be 112 and in the prime of his life. Addendum: Tim informs me that he's actually 85, but likes the idea of being only 84.)

If he now does two volumes every year, then he'd be covering four years each year. At that rate, it would take him only eight years to catch up – in the year 2024 we'd be doing Volumes 33 and 34, covering 2021-2022 and 2023-2024. I'd be 64, and Tim 92.

Can You Beat the Guinness World Record for Fastest Table Tennis Ball Hit?
Here's the video (1:08). The record was set on Monday, in Poland, at 116 kilometers per hour – which, to us non-metric Americans (that includes me), is 71.92 mph, or about 72. But as you can see from the comments, the form used isn't exactly ideal for table tennis. As one person wrote, "Possibly the worse advert for table tennis. Check out his posture. Surely he ain't the fastest or is it a case that no one else can be bothered."

It's commonly said that table tennis balls are hit up to 100mph. This has been pretty much disproven over and over. Jay Turberville wrote extensively on this back in 2003. In the "Fastest Smash Competition" cited there, the record was 69.9mph. Of course it makes a huge difference where you measure the ball's speed, as it slows down quickly due to air resistance. Speeds are normally measured either by radar guns (which should give the speed pretty close to right off the paddle) or by doing frame-by-frame analysis, where you see how far the ball travels between frames. (You can also measure it by measuring the time between the sound of the ball hitting the racket and the sound of it hitting the paddle, as Jay explains.) 

Disabled Veterans Camp
Yesterday we had our third annual Disabled Veterans Camp. (Technically, it's a camp for Veterans with Disabilities and members of the Armed Forces with Disabilities.) The camp was 10AM to 1PM, with six players (all marines), five of them more or less advanced beginners who played at a military base. I was the coach, with local Steve Hochman assisting for the third year in a row. Here's a group picture. I'll try to put in names later – being bad with names, I discovered afterwards I wasn't sure about all of them, and so will have to double check. That's Steve on far right, me third from the right. Standing between us is Sergeant Marvin Bogie, who came to the camp two years ago, and is now about 1600 – and is a USATT certified coach!

Trying to do a three-hour clinic is like trying to recite all the digits of pi, the entire history of mankind, and jogging around the world, all in 180 minutes. So I did the best I could. I divided the camp into seven segments. Since there were six, I split them into two groups of three, and Steve and I took turns with each group. In my group, I'd work with one (mostly multiball), one would be on the robot, and the third was on ball pickup. Steve did both live and multiball, with the other two hitting with each other live.

Tip of the Week
What to Focus on to Improve.

Things Are About to Get Busy
Life is about to get really, really hectic for the next two months. Yikes! (But don't worry, I plan to continue blogging through most of it.)

Starting this morning I'm running a three-day camp, Mon-Wed, at MDTTC for disabled veterans. This is the third year in a row I've run this. This'll also be the third year in a row that Steve Hochman comes in to help out! (We only have one person signed up for days two and three, so unless get some last-minute signups, we may cancel those days. Meaning I'll only have about three hours of coaching those days.) I'll likely blog about the camp tomorrow.

On Thursday morning USATT Historian Tim Boggan moves in with me so we can do Volume 18 of his History of U.S. Table Tennis. As usual, it'll likely be around 500 pages and 1000 graphics - and I have to lay out all those pages and fix up all the photos. Yikes! (Mal Anderson helps tremendously by scanning all the photos in advance.) We'll be on this for about two weeks, normally starting about 7AM (yikes!) with the slave labor continuing until about 2:30PM, when I leave to do afterschool pickups each day (followed by group and private coaching). 

USATT Date of Birth and Citizenship, Ratings Searches, and Nationals
If you are a USATT member, you should go to USA Table Tennis; click on the Update Profile link (on right, under the "Get Your USATT Merchandise Here" ad); log in; click on "Edit my Info"; and check your Date of Birth and Citizenship. If either needs to be added or corrected, email USATT Membership Director Jon Tayler. And then explore the pages, adding additional info as you choose. If you find any problems – and some of this is still being tested – email Jon. (Note that if you are thinking about giving a false DOB or citizenship – DON'T. You will likely be asked to provide proof at tournaments!)

On a side note, there is a chance that when you click on Update Profile, it'll take you to a page that says, "Sorry, you're not authorized to view this page." If so, click on the Dashboard on top right. They are fixing this problem, but as of this writing I'm still getting that. [UPDATE: As of now, shortly after noon, the link now takes me directly to the Dashboard, so I think this problem is fixed.]

On another side note, there have been numerous database problems with age searches in USATT ratings searches. USATT knows about the problem – I've brought it to their attention approximately ten million times – and they are working on this as well. (There seems to have been a problem I think with the Date of Birth field being filled in with Date Last Played, leading to numerous older players being listed as being under one year of age, and so showing up in all the junior age searches. This is being worked on.)