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What will you find here?
Coaching articles, books, and videos.
Links to other coaching sites and training camps.
A forum to discuss coaching and all other aspects of table tennis.
A daily blog from Coach Larry Hodges - feel free to comment. (Mon-Fri)
A place to hire coaches for camps at your club or analyze your game via video.
The Olympic Sport of Table Tennis (commonly called ping-ping) is played by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, and is the second largest participation sport in the world after soccer. The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) is the world governing body, with over 200 member nations. USA Table Tennis (USATT) is the governing body for table tennis in the U.S., with over 8000 members, 300 clubs, 300 annual sanctioned tournaments, a bi-monthly magazine, and a national rating/ranking system.
(Feel free to ask Larry questions on the forum or email.)
He is a member of the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame for his coaching and writing, and a professional coach at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. He's certified by USATT as a National Coach (the highest level), and is also certified as a coach by ITTF, which ran a news item on an ITTF coaching seminar he ran in the U.S. He has over 1300 published articles on table tennis (these do not include blog postings) and five books on table tennis. (Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers, Table Tennis: Steps to Success, Instructor's Guide to Table Tennis, Professional Table Tennis Coaches Handbook, and Table Tennis Tales & Techniques.)
Larry started playing in 1976, when he was 16, and began coaching before he turned 20. After graduating in 1985 from University of Maryland with a bachelor's in math (he later went back and got a master's in journalism), he went to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs for five years where he was at various times the manager, director, and assistant coach for table tennis. During those years he worked with many of the best players in the U.S. as well as Chinese Coaches Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Li Henan, and Liquo Ai.
In 1991, he joined forces with coaches Cheng Yinghua and Jack Huang to open the Maryland Table Tennis Center (originally call the National Table Tennis Center) in Gaithersburg, MD. The full-time table tennis center has operated continuously since, with arguably the strongest junior program in the U.S. over the last two decades. Larry split his time between coaching, organizing, writing, and two stints as editor of USA Table Tennis Magazine (12 years, 71 issues). During the 1990s, he was the match coach for more table tennis gold medallists at the Junior Olympics and Junior Nationals than any other coach, with over 200 - nearly half of all the gold medals given out. He also coached the USA National Junior Team in tournaments in Taiwan, Canada, Mexico, and USA. He was named USATT Developmental Coach of the Year in 2002 (he was runner-up three times), was elected to the USATT Hall of Fame in 2003, and won the President's Award for contributions to table tennis in 2007.
As a player, his highest ranking was USA #18. At the College Nationals, he's won Men's Doubles once and Teams twice. He's been state champion for Maryland, North Carolina, and Colorado. Though he normally plays with sponge, at the U.S. Open or Nationals, he's won hardbat singles twice, hardbat doubles 13 times, and over 40 hardbat five times. At tournaments, when he's not coaching, he takes on challenges . . . often with a clipboard as a racket. (See his website.)
He also writes science fiction and fantasy.
Books by Larry Hodges
