April 17, 2015

USA State Championships and Other Listings

As the USATT Regional Associations Coordinator, I'm preparing to start working with members around the country to set up regional and state associations. However, as I've blogged before, creating these associations is NOT the goal - they are a MEANS to a goal, which is a huge increase in table tennis activity and USATT membership. I'm using a three-pronged approach toward this. I've blogged repeatedly about two of these - creating training centers and coaching programs, and regional team leagues. The third prong is state championships.

The goal is 50 state championships in 2016. (DC as well!) For you non-Americans, there are 50 states, so yeah, we want one in every state.

Of course, the word "goal" isn't the right one either, since once again it is not really the goal, but another means to the goal of huge table tennis activity and USATT membership. But you need sub-goals to reach final goals, so we'll call 50 state championships a goal.

Once we have regional and state associations, they will be responsible for organizing their own state championships. (Since regional associations and state associations don't always coincide, there'll be some negotiating between associations to make sure each state gets a championship.) I will work with them to make sure each association has contact info for all the major media in their region - newspapers, TV, and radio. And so before and after each state championship there should be a flood of press releases, leading to lots of press coverage.

I envision every year at the USA Nationals in December a "Parade of Champions," held between major matches in the arena, where every state champion present marches by, with each one identified by the announcer by name, title, and state.

I've compiled a listing of USA State Championships. (The listing comes from the USATT tournament schedule, rating histories, online searches, and a state-by-state search of each State Games.) As near as I can tell, 12 13 states (just added West Virginia!) have State Championships, and another 15 have State Games. (A few have both, but in those cases the State Championships takes precedence.) This is by no means a final listing; I'm guessing I've missed some. There is also a dispute in one state over who is running the state championships this year, but for now I've put down the one listed by USATT.

If you have info on any USA State Championships I've missed, mistakes to my listing, or are interested in running a State Championship in a state that doesn't have one (including ones that currently only have State Games), please email me.

Soon I'll be writing an article for USATT Insider where I try to get final info on the four different listings below. Please email me if you have additional info on any of these, or if you are interested in organizing one of them.

Disabled Veterans Camp

Here's info on the upcoming Disabled Veterans Camp I'm running at MDTTC, May 18-21. (I ran one last year as well.) The camp is free to veterans with disabilities and members of the armed forces with disabilities (that seems redundant, but that's how it's listed), whether standing or in a wheelchair. Special thanks to Jasna Rather, USATT Director of Para Programs, for helping set this up.

Arm Problems

They are still ongoing. I cancelled all my private coaching this week and weekend, and expect to do so for next week as well. I'm still running group sessions but I'm bringing in an extra coach each time to feed multiball, since I can't. I hope to be able to at least feed multiball by next week. I've had this type of arm problem before, in my forearm just below the elbow, and all I can do is rest it.

Devising Tactics for Playing Left Handers

Here's the new coaching article by Matt Hetherington.

Allen Wang's School Table Tennis Club

They have reached $1020 of the $1600 needed. $1020 is only 63.75% of $1600. So my faith in human nature is only at 63.75%. Help restore my faith in human nature to 100% by donating NOW.  Otherwise you will be on my list of every human being who didn't donate.

Navin's USA Paralympic Table Tennis Journey

Navin Kumar, a student of mine, needs to raise $3000 to go to his first international tournament this June in Spain. If he does well, he'll "…have a shot at making the team that will represent the USA at the next Summer Paralympic Games in Brazil in the summer of 2016." He's the "…first Parkinson's athlete in history to represent the USA in international table tennis competitions as part of the Paralympic Program." Here's the donor page, and the ten donors so far that have gotten him to $673.

Pär Gerell Doing Multiball with Coach Ulf "Tickan" Carlsson

Here's the video (30 sec). Gerell is #63 in the world (was #35 just one year ago), and fellow Swede Carlsson was the 1985 World Men's Doubles Champion with Mikael Appelgren.

Pips & Bounce Takes Ping-Pong to New Levels of Fun

"This Portland ping-pong bar has everything, including food and drinks."

Worlds to be Most Followed Table Tennis Event EVER

Here's the ITTF Press release.

International Table Tennis

Here's my periodic note (usually every Friday) 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). Butterfly also has a great news page.

Jorgen Persson Playing in Outdoor Park in Moscow

Here's the video (6:33) of the 1991 World Men's Champion.

Table Tennis Clocks

Here are my two table tennis clocks. Why don't you have one? (Here's where you can buy your own TT clocks!)

Ten Hilarious TT Links from Mike Mezyan

Recently Michael Mezyan (yes, the famed table tennis artwork creator, with such creations as his latest, Table Tennis Dreamscape) has been finding numerous of these hilarious table tennis links. I've used a number of his finds in past blogs. Here's a few he found recently. (I could use these one at a time and stretch them out, but why wait?)

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