November 18, 2024

Tip of the Week
How to Loop Against Deep, Heavy Backspin.

MDTTC Open and My Books
Here are the results of the MDTTC Open, held at my club this past weekend. Winning the Open was Stanley Hsu (2521), who recently turned 16. (He defeated MDTTC coach Bruno, rated 2558, in the final, 9,9,9.) In the semifinals were Mu Du (16, 2376) and Ryan Lin (just turned 15, 2399). James Zhang (17, 2275 but recently over 2300), was up 7-5 in the fifth against Stanley in the quarterfinals. All four started out in my beginning classes. (Mu Du technically started in our summer camps, but spent the first month or so in my beginning group.) They spent years since in private and group sessions with our other great coaches (and I’ve also worked with them since), but I helped get them started back when they could barely see over the table!!! They (and their coaches) have worked incredibly hard to get where they are. It’s hard to believe that they’ll all be heading off to college soon.

I set up a table at the tournament (paying MDTTC $100) and sold my books there, both table tennis and science fiction. I had 20 on sale. 11 were table tennis and 11 SF, which adds up to 22, since two of them were hybrids, i.e. my two table tennis novels, “The Spirit of Pong” and “First Galactic Table Tennis Championships” (technically a novelette, since it’s only 41 pages long). I ended up selling 41 books – one for every page of the “Galactic” novelette. The choices were wide-ranging. Here’s the breakdown of sales for the weekend:

In my free time between selling and chatting, I did the final proofing of my next book, “Even Yet Still More Pings and Pongs,” the latest collection of my short stories, which will likely be on sale by next Monday – I’ll link to it in that blog. (I managed to work table tennis into a few of the stories.) I sell the science fiction & fantasy stories to various magazine and anthology markets; they pay me varying amounts from roughly $50 to $1500 for the stories and publish them; typically 3-6 months later the rights revert back to me, and then I compile them in the next collection. (I explain in the forward to each book that I adopted the “Pings & Pongs” as the name for my short stories because of my table tennis background.) You may have noticed the parallel naming paradigm I’ve been using for my Tips and Pings & Pongs series. The two series includes:

USATT Election and My Choices
=>NOTE – skip ahead if you have no interest in USATT politics. My interest there is also waning.
I strongly considered running in the current USATT election. If I did, I’d have run on specific issues on developing our sport via grass roots and as a partner with Major League Table Tennis, and on cleaning up our sport (i.e., USATT following their own governing rules). However, I concluded that I’d spend the next few years in the minority, arguing with the majority about these issues and unable to get anything serious done, especially in terms of something as simple as following our own rules, as I’ve blogged about repeatedly. My arguments that we should follow our own bylaws, or that we should address the problem that we’ve lost over 2/3 of our USATT certified coaches, have fallen on deaf ears. (Quick note – I voted for Alex Figueroa and Dell Sweeris – see my reasons below.)

For example, the current chair of the board, Richard Char, is on his third consecutive term, and the bylaws say you can only serve two consecutive terms and so he is not legal. But few on the board are willing to point out the obvious – and they are not happy that I keep bring such uncomfortable issues up. They used a maneuver where they made Char’s re-election in Dec. 6, 2021 effective Jan. 1, 2021, eleven months before, thereby claiming his first term was not a full term and so didn’t count, when of course he had already served a full term at the time of the election on Dec. 6. The bylaws are very specific that a term continues until the next election, not when the board arbitrarily makes it “effective” as they did in this display of political abuse. But there's no longer any accountability. I’ve blogged about it a number of times, including Feb. 12, 2024 and Feb. 19, 2024. I would not be popular on the current board, just right – and being right when you are in the minority can be highly frustrating. As readers of this blog know, this is only one of numerous issues like this.

Just for the record, we’ve now had an illegal chair for 93 weeks (651 days), since Feb. 6, 2023. Unless they do more shenanigans – less likely now since they’ve been called out on it – his term ends in a few weeks, on Dec. 31, 2024. And once again, no accountability for this blatant abuse. 

Another reason I decided not to run was the “USATT Board Member Code of Conduct” and the “USATT Board Member Social Media Policy.” (Both are on the USATT Policies and Documents page.) The Code of Conduct the statement, “As a member of USATT Board I will not…”

  • Be critical, in or outside of a board meeting, of other board members. This does not restrict me from respectfully disagreeing with another board member
  • Interfere with the duties of the CEO or undermine the authority of the CEO

Anything I write critical of USATT, as I often do here in my blog, would be taken as violations of the above. They might not actually be violations, but in recent years USATT has interpreted things however they want to, and they’d be looking for anything they could say is a violation, whether it was or not. All the CEO or chair has to do is bring in one of their hand-picked lawyers who, as a lawyer, will argue their case to the board, and then the board can rationalize they are just going along with the lawyer. They’ve done this over and over, and is literally how board members have explained to me why they’ve gone along with some of these shenanigans. “I just followed the lawyer’s advice” is almost a mantra for some.

For example, see my Oct. 14, 2024 blog, where in the USATT Election segment (where I also wrote about why I decided not to run), I point out how when board member Thomas Hu, an MBA, saw possible discrepancies in the budget. Rather than let him see the detailed financials, they brought in a lawyer to argue that he had a “possible” conflict of interest and so shouldn’t see them, even though the bylaws clearly say board members need access to these financials. Putting aside that there is no conflict in owning a club and seeing the USATT financials – Thomas even said they could keep anything about sponsors out of what they sent him –the even bigger issue is they didn’t even try to pretend it was a conflict of interest, the lawyer argued it was a “possible” conflict, and that’s all the board needed to rationalize going along with it. If Thomas has seen the financials and taken advantage of it in some way, then they could have gone after him in all sorts of ways. But that wasn’t the goal – the goal was to keep him from seeing the financials, and they succeeded.  Result – Thomas, one of the very few board members over the last four years to ever vote against the CEO or chair, including arguing against the illegal third term for the chair (and even running against him, knowing he had no chance), decided it was pointless staying on the board, and so isn’t running for re-election.

A third reason I didn’t run is that I find the election somewhat less significant than the bigger one the US recently had – and no, I’m not happy with the result. We’ll see how that works out and I’ll refrain from writing more on it in this table tennis blog.

One thing that comes up whenever I discuss the shenanigans of the current USATT administration with board members or other USATT people is that they quickly try to change the subject to reciting the apparent accomplishments of the administration. Three problems. First, it’s almost a recitation, as if they are just repeating what they’ve been told over and over. Second, it’s generally an exaggeration that mostly falls apart when scrutinized. And third, I get frustrated because I can either point out they have changed the subject to avoid the issues I’ve brought up – and thereby not refute the exaggerations – or I can refute the exaggerations, and thereby let them change the topic away from the shenanigans. Welcome to political talk 101!!! (Much of this is reminiscent of the “Nixon defense,” where he was defended not by refuting the corruption charges, but by trying to change the topic to the good things he’d done. It’s the typical autocrat defense – “but he got the trains to run on time,” where they often didn’t actually get the trains to run on time, but it successfully changes the topic from corruption to whether or not the trains ran on time, and with control of the media, they could convince the masses that the trains did, in fact, run on time. And even if they did, that doesn’t excuse the abuses.)

Regarding the election, there are four running for two spots, Alex Figueroa, Dell Sweeris, Tuan Le, and Danny Leung. I originally didn’t plan to get involved, but what the heck. I voted for Alex and Dell. Below is my analysis, with * by my two votes.

I’ve linked their names to their campaign statements. I wasn’t impressed by any of the campaign statements, alas. They were all generic. If I were advising them, I’d strongly advise them to come up with some specific issues they’d fight for, so as to stand out. As it is, none of them really stand out – most give credentials (good), and then make a few general statements about fighting for us or advancing the sport, etc., without giving specific reasons why you should do so. Specifics are important in a campaign statement.

  • *Alex Figueroa. He’s the only one of the candidates that has been critical of USTT for some of the issues I’ve pointed out, and the most likely to continue to do so. In his campaign statement he rightly argued for better Communication and more Transparency, two of the few specifics in the four campaign statements, though I’d have liked him to have been a bit more hard-hitting on why these are needed. (Ironically, many of the USATT abuses are done right out in the open, where all you have to do is read the minutes. There’s currently no serious oversight of most USATT matters or repercussions for abuse.) Some USATT people are very strongly opposed to Alex being on the board, and I’ll likely hear from one or more of them for voting for him. If you like things exactly as they are, don’t vote for Alex. If you want some changes and feel USATT should follow its own governing rules, vote for him. (I haven’t actually met him, though I’ve had some discussions with him online.)
  • *Dell Sweeris. Very nice guy, previously on the board in the 1980s, and a member of the US Table Tennis Hall of Fame – surprisingly, this was left off his campaign statement. He’s done more for the sport than any of the others, as a player, coach, and administrator, and only a handful in the sport have credentials as strong as his. He has a strong financial background, with an MBA. My only concern is that he seems to see the best in people, and so may go along with some of the shenanigans we’ve gone through these past few years. Board members are often stuck in a bubble, and if you focus on seeing the best in people when you are in a governing role, it’s easy to just go along to get along, especially since the ones abusing the rules are often the friendliest, though in a glib way. We’ll see.
  • Tuan Le. I’ve only met him briefly, and I’m told is another nice guy and apparently good regionally. But he’s strongly supportive of the current administration and appears to go along with their shenanigans. Shortly after he was elected he told me to contact him if I had any concerns. I sent him an email outlining my concerns, but he never responded. When I emailed the board about the illegal chair, he also did not respond.
  • Danny Leung. I don’t think I’ve met him, and know nothing about him other than that he’s a coach at Table Tennis America and what’s in his campaign statement. Since he’s generally lesser known than the others (at least nationally), it was important for him to come out with a strong set of specific issues in his statement, rather than general statements. Since he’s a fellow coach, I’d have liked to have found a reason to vote for him. Maybe next time.

On a related note, I’m disgusted about the Club Rep “election.” Four years ago they had an election for Club Rep, and Will Shortz, another nice guy who’s good regionally but goes along with the various shenanigans I’ve outline, was elected. (In four years and over 200 votes, he’s voted with the chair and CEO 100% of the time, and never raised an objection to the abuses I’ve pointed out. See my note on this and more in my Oct. 14, 2024 blog, USATT Election segment, second bullet list, third item.) This time around the USATT Nominating and Governance Committee decided to simply appoint the position (presumably Will, though that hasn’t been announced that I know of), and so there will be no election for the position. Sorry, you aren't really a club rep unless you are elected by the ones you are supposed to represent. The USATT membership, which funds the bulk of USATT activities, now only gets to vote for two of the 12 board positions, which is a travesty that someday needs to be changed.

Butterfly Training Tips

Hate Long Serves?
Here’s the article by Tom Lodziak. “These simple tips will help you return these nasty serves.”

One Forehand One Backhand Drill with Robert Gardos
Here’s the video (2:56) from PongSpace.

We React To THE MÖREGÅRDH SNAKE
Here’s the video (3:13) from Pingispågarna.

540 Hours to Make a Table Tennis Player?
Here’s the video 8 (14:04) from Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis.

JOOLA’s Talkin' Smash: Do Players Focus on the Wrong Areas for Improvement
Here’s the video (46:47) with Matt Hetherington interviewing Thiago Monteiro.

Major League Table Tennis
Follow the action!

The Broken Promises of a Table Tennis Olympian
Here’s the New York Times article on Michael Hyatt. Wow. Just wow. 

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

USATT Announces Results of First and Second Elite Athlete Board Positions Election And Opens Nomination Process for Third and Fourth Elite Athlete Reps Election
Here’s the USATT news item.

New from ITTF

LA Times Crossword
On Thur, Nov. 14, the 16 across question was, “Reason for copyright suits filed by Atari?” The answer: “APINGPONG,” i.e., “Aping Pong.” It was a play on the “Ping Pong” with “A” added at the start. This fit in with the puzzle’s theme, which came from 57 across, where the question was, “’Haven’t seen that before,’” and an apt title for this puzzle.” The answer was, “ITSAFIRST,” i.e. “It’s A first.” The puzzle had four answers where a regular phrase was changed by adding an “A” at the start. Here’s the puzzle – alas, you have to go through a 13-sec ad and then select the proper date.

Incredible Forehand Block
Here’s the video (14 sec)!

Incredible Point
Here’s the video (20 sec)!

Mad Table Tennis
Here’s the video (2:38)!

Climate Change is a Hoax
Here’s the cartoon! Amazingly, there are people who still believe it’s a hoax.

Non-Table Tennis - Galahad Returns
My fantasy story, “Galahad Returns,” is in this week’s issue of Black Cat Weekly!

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