December 5, 2014

Election Stuff and Other Stuff

If you are sick and tired of reading about USATT and election stuff, jump past the first two items here! However, I think USATT members might be interested in the following USATT vs. USTA comparison.

USATT vs. USTA

I've pointed out for years how, when it comes to promoting and developing their sports, USTA (tennis, 700,000 members) seems to do so many things right, while USATT (8000 members) does not. As I've also pointed out, this is not the norm. Tennis is big in Europe, but in nearly every country there are more paid table tennis memberships than tennis. The U.S. is the big exception here. And yet we're so used to thinking of tennis as "big" and ourselves as "small" that we've come to accept it. But the only reason for this is that tennis does things right, and we don't. Here's a comparison.

Membership Rates

  • Adult Membership fee: USATT $49, USTA $44
  • Junior Membership Rate: USATT $25 (under 18), USTA $20 (under 19)
  • Family Membership Rate: USATT $90, USTA $72

USTA does have the advantage of large numbers that allows them to keep low rates, but low rates often lead to large numbers. I'd like to see USATT lower their rates to match USTA, with the idea that they would likely come out roughly even with the lower rate by getting more members this way. However, USATT is currently facing budget problems, and would be unlikely to lower the rates. Perhaps we can at least freeze them until USTA at least catches up?

USTA Membership Benefits

As a former member of USTA, I have a copy of their main brochure. What do they focus on? In order, this is what the brochure advertises:

  • Annual subscription to Tennis Magazine (a monthly print magazine)
  • Special access to discounted and early ticket sales for seats to the US Open and other major tournaments across the country.
  • Opportunity to participate in USTA League, the world's largest recreational tennis league.
  • Members-only savings on sports gear, hotel reservations, entertainment, and dining.
  • Travel discounts to major tennis tournaments around the world including the four Grand Slams.
  • Special benefits and discounts on tennis instruction and your next great vacation.
  • They also prominently advertise a US Open cap for those who join.

Also note that besides the regular brochure, they have a very nice brochure for the USTA League. Here's a picture, front and back - sorry about the poor resolution.

Let's also look at the USTA webpage and see what they offer:

U.S. Tennis Association ($44/year)

Membership Benefits

  • USTA Leagues & Tournaments
    From recreational leagues to tournaments offering the opportunity to qualify for a national ranking, the USTA provides play opportunities for players of all ages and abilities.
  • Top Tennis Publications
    Adult and Family members receive subscriptions to TENNIS magazine and Tennis Tuesday digital magazine offering tournament previews, insight into the professional game and its players, fitness tips, instruction and other features to improve your game. Junior members ages 11-18 receive Tennis Tuesday digital magazine, while Junior members age 10 and under receive Bounce.
  • Special Benefits at Top Tennis Tournaments
    Beat the crowds! USTA Members have special access to discounted seats and early tickets sales for the US Open, Emirates Airline US Open Series and other major tournaments across the country.
  • Savings & Discounts
    Enjoy a 10% discount on US Open and USTA merchandise, as well as, discounts on dining, travel, retail, and entertainment at well-known hotels, car rental agencies, restaurants and more.
  • Resort & Camp Program
    Bring great vacations and tennis instruction together with benefits ranging from free private lessons, room and package discounts, complimentary restringing and more.
  • US Open Travel Packages
    Steve Furgal’s International Tennis Tours, Inc. offers USTA Members packages to one of the greatest tournaments in the world—the US Open!
  • Tennis Tuesday
    Delivered weekly, Tennis Tuesday provides coverage of the sport from its most renowned players, top instructors, exciting personalities and talented writers.  Each edition offers compelling on- and off-court insight into the pro tours, and offers tips and techniques for players to improve their games, including racquet, apparel and gear reviews as well as compelling features and video instruction.

Now we compare this to USATT:

USA Table Tennis ($49/year)

Membership Benefits

  • Personalized help in locating clubs and coaches in all fifty states
  • Liability insurance during USA Table Tennis Sanctioned Events
  • Certification programs for Coaches and Officials across the nation
  • Discounts with Hilton and United for hotel and travel for USA Table Tennis Sanctioned Events
  • Ratings which allow you to compare yourself to other players who play in sanctioned tournaments. Ratings will be updated after information is received from each tournament.
  • Monthly newsletter
  • Bi-monthly digital Table Tennis Magazine

Quite a contrast, isn't it? USTA's biggest focus is on their print magazine, leagues, and US Open. USATT no longer has a print magazine, it doesn't have any sort of leagues to offer, and the US Open isn't something they advertise much. All this needs to change. (I plan to bring USTA brochures and their magazine to the USA Nationals to show at the USATT board meeting and USATT Assembly.)

USATT Election

If you haven't voted yet, now's a good time! Here's my Election Page, and here's the USATT Election page where you can vote.

I was up past 3:30 AM responding to 162 emails, all table tennis-related, almost all election-related. Lots of interesting comments! The most common theme was the call for the return of the print magazine.

If you are a USATT member age 18 or over, then you should have received the USATT election notice two days ago, and my email yesterday. (If you didn't, and you are sure you are a current member, then contact USATT to see if they have your correct email address.) However, not all adult USATT members received Jim McQueen's email of two days ago, and many former (but not current) USATT members did receive it. Based on a sampling of people from my club, I've come to the conclusion that the email list he used was probably from July, August, or September 2012. There's a member of my club whose membership expired on Sept. 30, 2012. He received the McQueen email, but not the other two. I found another who is a member now (and so received the emails from USATT and me), but apparently was not a member between June 30 and Sept. 30 in 2012, and did not receive the McQueen email. So presumably the email list he used was from July, August, or September of 2012. But we don't really know for sure. 

However, I don't plan to make an issue of this from this point on. I'm very much for transparency and do want to know what happened, but I also told USATT that if they allowed me access to their email list so I could also do a mailing by Thursday morning, that the issue would basically be resolved. They agreed, and so for me the issue is basically resolved.

One of the things I decided not to do in this election is use endorsements. I have a list of prominent players and people in the sport who have endorsed me in the election, but I'm not using those names. (I'm sure my opponent could get some as well.) Why? Because even the appearance of conflict of interest is a problem. The last thing I want is to appear to be favoring or to "owe" people for their endorsements. This doesn't mean individuals can't endorse my candidacy, just that I won't use them myself in the election. I was originally going to use them but I really want to think ahead to when I might be on the board, and decisions come up that involve them. Almost by definition many of them involve some of these prominent players or people. (I'm already planning to abstain from issues that directly involve Butterfly, since I'm sponsored by them - I put that in my application to be on the ballot.)

Regarding my own email to the membership yesterday, some of you may have noted it didn't have great formatting. I spent a lot of time creating it very nicely in Word (here's the original), but USATT uses a program called Constant Contact that lost much of the formatting. (Headquarters did the best they could to match my formatting, which I appreciated.)

Two of the coaches at my club had problems voting with their iPhones. When they tried to input the required date of birth, the dropdown menu wouldn't drop down - and without that, the software wouldn't accept their vote. They showed it to me, and I also tried it, but it wouldn't work. Both of them voted instead on an iPad. I know that the software was tested on other iPhones where it did work, so I don't think this is a widespread issue. (They both probably had the same make and model, and I'm told that the Chinese character set they have on it might have caused a problem.) Did any of you have trouble voting?

Thursday Coaching and Other Happenings

Thursday was a somewhat busy coaching day, with four hours of coaching. (For most of our other full-time coaches, five of whom coach at least 50 hours/week, this would have been a very light day!) In the junior class I taught the focus yesterday was on smashing, which of course is very popular among kids and non-kids alike. One question that always comes up is how much to enforce the "proper" grip. With smaller hands, kids often feel more comfortable with their hands lower in the handle, with their index finger more up the middle. But this leads to a floppy wrist and tightness in the forearm. However, some find it uncomfortable holding it higher. We often have to find a compromise. We do have some smaller kids rackets with smaller handles (which are easier to grip), but some of the kids don't like the smaller racket faces.

In two of my private sessions we had a contest to see who would get the most/least nets or edges. I've done this before, and I always get the least. Yesterday's results were actually among the closer results. In both cases we kept track for perhaps 15 minutes. Daniel got 10 to my 3, and Sameer got 9 to my 5.

On January 24, Saturday night, we're running a fund-raiser at MDTTC for Cystic Fibrosis. Sameer (13) is the driving force behind this. He and I will do a demo and exhibition, and then run a recreational tournament. The Baltimore Orioles promised to donate an autographed item, though they haven't said what yet. More on this later.

World Junior Championships

They are continuing in Shanghai, China, Nov. 30 - Dec. 7. Here's the ITTF home page for the event (results, articles, pictures, video). Here's the USATT page for the event, where you can see USA results, pictures, video, and lots of great quotes from the USA juniors.

Yesterday wasn't a great day for the USA juniors, with four of the five left in singles losing in the round of 64. In Girls' Singles, Prachi Jha lost 4-3 to Bernadett Balint of Romania; Angela Guan lost 4-0 to Soo Wai Yam Minnie of Hong Kong; and Crystal Wang lost 4-0 to Wang Manyu of China. Only Lily Zhang advanced, 4-0 over Giorgia Piccolin of Italy. In Boys' Singles, Kanak Jha lost 4-1 to Kim Minhyeok of Korea.

In Girls' Doubles, in the round of 32, Prachi Jha/Lily Zhang defeated Reem Morad/Aida Rahmo of Egypt 3-1, while Angela Guan/Crystal Wang lost 3-0 to Miyu Maeda/Hitomi Sato of Japan.  In the round of 16, Prachi Jha/Lily Zhang lost 3-1 to Ji Eunchae/Lee Zion of Korea.

In Boys' Doubles, in the round of 32, Kunal Chodri/Kanak Jha defeated Claus Nielsen/Tobias Rasmussen of Denmark 3-0, while Krish Avvari/Aashay Patel lost 3-0 to Tomas Polansky/David Reitspies of Czech Republic. In the round of 16, Kunal Chodri/Kanak Jha lost 3-0 to Liu Dingshuo/Wang Chuqin of China.

In Mixed Doubles, in the round of 32, Kanak Jha/Prachi Jha lost 3-0 to Patryk Zatowka/Natalia Bajor of Poland; Kunal Chodri/Crystal Wang lost 3-1 to Kilian Ort/Nina Mittelham of Germany; and Krish Avvari/Lily Zhang lost 3-0 to Asuka Sakai/Miyu Maeda of Japan.

So the only remaining USA player in the tournament is Lily Zhang, who is in the round of 32 in Girls' Singles, where she'll face Orawan Paranang of Thailand.

195 Tips of the Week

I just put in a direct link so you can browse all 195 Tips of the Week I've written since January 2011. You can buy the first 150 (2011-2013), formatted nicely by topic, in my book Table Tennis Tips! (Coming early in 2017: More Tips of the Week, with 150 Tips from 2014-2016.)

Ask the Coach

Episode 42 (17:31) - Table Tennis Strokes to Master

  • Response to Yesterday's #PQOTD  - 0:40: Should Table Tennis players use a tennis grip?
  • #PQOTD  - 3:22: When should local clubs start using the Plastic balls?
  • Question 1 - 3:40: I wonder how often i need to change my racket if i take care of it. Jasper Nokkosmaki
  • Question 2 - 8:33: It's clear that Alois and Jeff have mastered all the shots, forehand and backhand blocks, topspins, loops, flips and chops. But for the club player, should we focus on the few shots we are strong at or try to master all the shots? Mark Roberti
  • Question 3 - 11:02: Can you please explain the angles required to execute banana flip on short and low serve with large backspin and moderate sidespin on it? Parkash Rawat
  • Question 4 - 13:25: I am 13 I have started table tennis could I play international tt tournaments Gavish Pandya
  • Discussion - 15:00: World Junior Table Tennis Championships

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).

Which is the Table Tennis Star Point of 2014?

Here's the video (4:05) from the ITTF. "Vote for which shot/rally you think should be the Table Tennis Star Point by going to ITTFStarAwards.com!"

Great Rally

Here's the video (27 sec) of this counterlooping duel between two top lefties!

Triangle Table Tennis

Here's a video (5:50) by Jim Butler that features the gigantic Triangle Table Tennis Center in North Carolina. (When I hear "triangle table tennis," I think of a triangular table tennis racket I once saw many years ago. But I was unable to find a picture of one online, though I did find this and this - triangular TT medallions.)

1938 Table Tennis Poster

Here's a picture of a table tennis poster near the end of the Calvin Coolidge Administration.

1971 U.S. Junior Team

Here's a picture of the 1971 U.S. Junior Team to the World Junior Tournament in Canterbury, England. Back, L-R: Coach/Captain Dell Sweeris, Bill Lesner, Jeff Smart, Mike Veillette, and Dan Seemiller. Front, L-R: Kathy Scheltema, Elsie Spinning, Angelita Rosal (now Bengtsson); and Sue Hildebrandt. (Yes, we had a member of the Junior Girls' Team named Spinning!)

Soccer Pong

Here's video (3:45) of the "Top Ten" rallies in this new emerging sport - these are some incredible rallies!

"This is a Table for Two"

Here's the table tennis cartoon!

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