April 14, 2015

Table Tennis and Schools

I was browsing table tennis forums late last night and found a statement where someone wrote, "I find it funny that some people like Larry Hodges think it's not important to get table tennis in schools in the U.S." (He then went on to briefly argue why we need to get into the schools without explaining how, but I won't get into that here.)

This is NOT what I've argued. I actually blogged about this on January 8, 2013. However, this seems a good topic to blog about again, and timely as well since I'm actually working to develop the sport to the point where we can get into schools.

I'll start by simply reposting my response in the forum to the above statement:

This is NOT what I argue. What I've argued is that schools aren't the first step. The first step is to popularize the sport on our own by developing regional leagues and junior programs (like other sports do and how they do it for table tennis overseas) rather than hoping schools in the U.S. will suddenly get interested in a small sport like us out of the blue. They are only interested in us if we send volunteers for free, and we have no way of doing that except in a few isolated cases. When we grow the sport, that's when the people who run schools will notice us and be interested, and that's when we take that step and spread through schools. I'm not going to get into a debate here [on this forum] about how to popularize the sport U.S. other than to say it's been done all over the world and in other sports in the U.S., and we're not magically different here in the U.S.; we just haven't been going about it the right way. I've blogged about this many times. This might even be a blog topic for tomorrow (or rather, this morning). 

USATT has tried going to schools repeatedly over the years, and it never works since we haven't done the groundwork first, i.e. developing the sport to the point that the schools see us as having potential instead of being a charity case. I wish there were an easier way, where we could just snap our fingers and schools would spread table tennis everywhere and we'd have millions of active, serious players, but it doesn't work that way. We have to create a foundation first, and then schools can take us to the next level. 

So our job is to show that we are a growing sport that schools should be interested in. How do we do this? By being a growing sport that schools should be interested in!

And THEN schools can take us to the next level.

There will always be great volunteers who start up school programs, such as AYTTO. But they face a very difficult uphill battle, since they are mostly on their own. USATT barely has the resources to help them, and most (not all) school leaders see table tennis as just a game and a charity case that they have little interest to help. By building the foundation, i.e. becoming a growing sport, we can grease the wheels toward our being accepted as a school sport, and then schools can truly take us to the next level.

I could write many blogs about USATT's past history in trying to get into the schools. There have been many valiant efforts, and we all know how that's turned out. Few schools or (more importantly) school systems are interested in taking on small sports like us. We need to stop being essentially a charity case hoping someone will come and save us, and instead develop our sport on our own, and show that we are a sport worth partnering with, not as a charity, but as equal partners.

Some could argue we already are in the schools. I did my own survey on this about 20 years ago and found that about 1/3 of schools in the U.S. have ping-pong tables - and I'm guessing the numbers are in the same range these days. But having ping-pong tables in schools, and kids playing ping-pong on them, doesn't really develop the sport if it's just another game, like Parcheesi. Otherwise, we can just cite the 15 million people who play table tennis every year in the U.S., declare victory, and we're done. But just as those 15 million people aren't serious players, few kids who play in schools these days are serious.

When will we be ready to go to schools? If we get started now, perhaps not long. Meanwhile, some like AYTTO are perhaps laying the groundwork for a future major initiative to get into schools on a more nationwide basis.

Some bring up the example of how successful badminton is in the U.S. - and yet a browsing of USA badminton's website shows they have a membership of about 2500 (less than 1/3 the membership of USATT), fewer clubs, and also aren't a school sport except possibly in a few regions (like table tennis). They likely face the same problems we face.

Others cite how table tennis, badminton, or other sports are big in schools overseas. However, they are looking at where things are now, rather than how they got there. I've discussed this with European coaches many times, and the one thing they all recommend is that you start with club-based programs, and go to the schools only when the sport is gaining popularity - for the very reasons given above. That's what they did, and that's what we should do. (Asia is a different story. For example, it got big in China because Chairman Mao declared it the "People's Sport," and so the government took the lead in making it a national sport by financially supporting it and putting it in all the schools. We don't have that option here in the U.S.)

I was recently appointed USATT's Regional Association Coordinator as well as chair of the USATT League Committee. (These are unpaid, volunteer positions.) I plan to very actively use these roles to develop regional and state associations. I'm putting together a listing of what associations we already have, with the plan to create others, initially by calling for, recruiting, and appointing volunteers to run state and regional associations. Their primary purpose would be to help set up state championships, regional team leagues, and coaching programs and training centers, using prototypes and plans that we'll supply them with, with USATT support, especially in communicating with current and past members via our database. (Keep in mind these are not the end goal - they are the means to an end, which is basically large memberships.)

I've blogged a lot about my plans already, and will continue to do so, but I won't be going public with a lot of lot of these plans until this fall. I not only need time to develop these plans, but I also have to accept that during the summer I'll be extremely busy coaching, and won't get as much USATT work done during that period as I'd like. If that's not acceptable, then they can cut my salary in half. J

Arm Problems

As noted in my blog yesterday, I hurt my arm over the weekend. It started on Friday, got worse on Saturday (though I didn't realize until the very end of the day how bad it was getting), and on Sunday I had to bring in someone to do my hitting. Yesterday I only had an hour of multiball for our afterschool program, but half an hour into it I had to stop as my arm was inflamed. At Coach Jack's suggestion, I tried doing it left-handed, but that didn't turn out very well. So I'm off this week from all private coaching and most multiball sessions. For the afterschool program today I'm going to use the robot and perhaps feed a little multiball, but only slowly to beginners. (I may try lefty again.) It especially hurts when I feed backspin, so perhaps if I avoid that I'll be able to feed easy multiball without injury. We'll see.

Junior Star Allen Wang is Starting a School Club (Part 3)

After a flurry of donations, Allen was stuck for several days at $775, and is currently at an even $800 (exactly halfway to the $1600 needed). C'mon, people, do we want to live in a world where little kids like Allen Wang grow up disillusioned at their fellow man? Donate now!!! $10, $20, whatever you can afford. Remember, I plan on posting a public list of every human on earth who does not donate. You don't want to be on that list of bad, evil people. Meanwhile, here's the current list of good people who will not be on that list:

  • Fadi Kaddoura ($500!!!)
  • Impossi Chu ($50)
  • Josh Salmon ($40)
  • Xiaota Wang ($30)
  • Alice Yang ($30)
  • Gregory Dell ($25)
  • Anonymous ($25)
  • Sophia Lee ($20)
  • Eric Finkelstein ($20)
  • Larry Hodges ($20)
  • Osvaldo Gold ($10)
  • Emilito Goldrico ($10)
  • Anonymous ($10)
  • Anonymous ($10)

Don't Make Changes For the Sake of Change

Here's the new coaching article from Han Xiao.

Listen and Communicate: More advice for coaches

Here's the new coaching article by Samson Dubina.

11 Questions with David Sakai

Here's the USATT interview. David's a USATT Hall of Famer and Multiple x 2013 US National 65+ Singles and Doubles Champion.

Brian Pace Doing Multiball with Coach Nelson Navarro

Here's the video (1:36).

Table Tennis Training Circuit

Here's the video (15:50) as a coach combines multiball with a sort of obstacle course.

The Ball

Here's the latest artwork from Mike Mezyan. It's rather simple and yet compelling. It reminds me of the stories about former Yugoslavian great Dragutin Surbek, who would work on his concentration by sitting in a darkened room and just stare at a ping-pong ball.

Jordan Spieth Plays Table Tennis

Here's the article from Table Tennis Nation. He plays golf too. "During the [Master's] broadcast on Sunday, the announcers mentioned Spieth’s ping pong a few times, noting that the whole family got involved and that even with all the possible ways to keep his mind off golf, it was the ping pong table that got the most attention."

Rick Carlisle Plays Table Tennis

Here's the USATT page, which links to two articles and a video.

Ping Pong vs. Table Tennis

Here's the difference!

Bus Pong

Here's 28 seconds of Bus Pong! (Is the bus moving?)

Today's Traffic News

Here's the traffic sign table!

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