June 21, 2016

USATT Board Meeting
The last few days have been a whir of activity. The main event, however, was the USATT board meeting in New Jersey on Saturday. Alas (or fortunately?), there were no fireworks, no one jumped on the table screaming political slogans, and against all expectations, we didn't vote to build a wall to keep out Chinese table tennis players, and make China pay for it.

I drove up (222 miles) with USATT lawyer Dennis Taylor on Friday afternoon. That night we had dinner with the board and all six USA Table Tennis Olympians – Timothy Wang, Yijun "Tom" Feng, Kanak Jha, Jiaqi Zheng, Lily Zhang, and Yue Wu. I had a long discussion with Cory Eider and Kagin Lee regarding what players should do about hidden serves.

Much of the board meeting the following day was reports followed by discussion. We had a roughly 40-minute discussion with new High Performance Director Cory Eider, where we had updates on the Olympics, National Team, funding, and (most important to me at the moment), the upcoming USATT Supercamp, July 10-24 at the Lily Yip TTC in New Jersey.

Regarding the USATT Supercamp, 22 of the best junior players from around the country will attend it, including the three Alguetti brothers, Allen and Amy Wang, Michael Tran, Klaus Wood, Tina Lin, and more. Regarding coaches, Cory will be there the entire time, and I'll be there for all but the last two days. Coaching for the first week will be Han Xiao, Wang Qing "Leon" Liang, and Richard McAfee. Coaching the second week will be Sean O'Neill, Lily Yip, and Samson Dubina. I plan to blog daily about it, both here and at the USATT page.

Next at the board meeting was a series of reports from CEO Gordon Kaye regarding membership, clubs, sponsorship & fundraising, tournament and league ratings, the Nationals, ITTF and North American events, finances, USOC matters, and a closed session on personnel. My main interest here was the ratings, which some of you may have noticed haven't run smoothly in recent times, due to problems with the database. They are being worked on. Regarding finances, I believe the financial reports will be posted later.

One rating problem that was fixed was a problem with age group searches. Just last week, if you did a search for, say, under 10 boys, you'd get ten players with ratings from 2300 to 2550 – and when you checked their birthdate, you'd find all ten were born in 2016!!! They are working to fix these problems, with one simple temporary fix that solved most of the problems – the ratings searches no longer includes anyone under age five. (I wonder if we have any current four-year-olds with ratings? I doubt it.)

There was another closed session where we went over various legal matters. Then there was the audit report, where the only highlight was the discovery that some reimbursements to athletes were being listed as stipends, which might make them taxable income, or something like that – so that was changed.

The final discussion was about governance – in particular, the upcoming huge overturning of the USATT Board. There are currently nine members of the board. At the end of this year, four will be leaving, due to term limits – At-Large Director Mike Babuin; Independent Director and current Board Chair Peter Scudner; Player Rep Han Xiao; and National Organization Director Kagin Lee. Independent Director Carolyne Savini only joined the board a few months ago (and had to miss this meeting), and Player Rep Ed Levy lives in England, and can't attend meetings. This means there will only be three "experienced" board members at upcoming meetings – myself, Club Representative Ed Hogshead, and Independent Director Anne Cribbs.

So . . . with Mike's spot opening up, who's going to run for the Board this fall? If interested, contact the USATT Nominating and Governance Committee, which is listed near the end of the USATT Committee page. If you are a glutton for punishment, then go through the USATT bylaws on elections.

After the meeting ended, we headed over to the Lily Yip TTC, about ten minutes away, where they were having a Friends with Paddles Fundraiser, which featured a Men's and Women's team match, with the six USA Olympians taking on local stars. One interesting side note for me – a player walked up to me and asked if I knew who he was. I had no idea. He introduced himself – it was Ken Silverstein! He was one of the top players at my club when I started out in 1976 (at the "late" age of 16), about 1900, and a part-time coach. I took one lesson from him back then where we focused on forehand looping, but as I laughingly pointed out, the lesson "didn't take" – it would be several more years before I finally figured out looping.

On Sunday, the six Olympians were honored at a New York Mets baseball game (here are lots of pictures; here's a picture from Butterfly), with Kanak throwing out the first ball, but alas, I had to get back that night so I could be back at my desk at 7AM working with Tim Boggan on the History of U.S. Table Tennis – see segment below. (I had a pile of work that night, and ended up getting to bed at 2:30AM, and was up again at 6:30AM. That can't happen many more times. Last night I wrote most of this blog, and then stayed up past 1AM fixing up photos for the next day. Also did my class accounting; updated entries, sent out press releases, and sent some emails out about the Maryland State Championships; and made plans for some future classes.)

Maryland State Championships
Time is running out – not only is the deadline to enter the Maryland State Championships this Thursday at 5PM, but there is a hard limit of 32 players in each time slot – so enter now!

Capital Area League
The Capital Area Table Tennis League had their league finals this past Saturday. Here's the nice write-up by League Commissioner Stefano Ratti, with links to results – and most important, info on the Fall season! This past season had 24 teams and 126 players, all in the Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC area.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 18
We hope to finish all 26 chapters by Wednesday, and spend Thursday inputting edits and preparing for publication. Tim would then go home on Friday morning. I'm coaching at the MDTTC camps this week, but I'm only doing the afternoon sessions for now, which start at 3PM. This allows me to work with Tim from 7AM to 2:15PM, then I coach the rest of the afternoon and night, and then I come home and do my usual work, and then get a full three or four hours sleep….

Here's the current status:

  • 22 chapters completed, plus covers and four intro pages; four more to go! The bad news – Tim has alerted me that two of them will be "monster" chapters, like chapter 21, which took us about eight hours to complete.
  • 361 pages (plus covers)
  • 1295 graphics

The Best Table Tennis Blades
Here's the new article from Expert Table Tennis. (Note that I use a Timo Boll ALC – which is listed in the article as one of the "really awesome offensive blades" from Butterfly – and I concur, it's a great blade, and easily the most popular blade at MDTTC.

How to Practice with a Player of Lower Ability
Here's the article from Tom Lodziak.

Ask the Coach Show – Yes, They're Back!
Episode #260 (21:30) - Champions Shunned (and other segments).

Top 10 Servers of Table Tennis
Here's the new video (11:09).

Lily Zhang Ready for Olympic Rerun
Here's the article from Olympic.com.

Fan & Liu Bounces Back After Olympic Selection Disappointment
Here's the ITTF press release.

12-Year-Old Harimoto Creates History and Sets Sights on Olympic Gold
Here's the ITTF press release. Here's some video (35 sec).

At Jets Camp, the Fiercest Competition Is the Ping-Pong Tournament
Here's the article from the Wall Street Journal.

Proficiency at Table Tennis Helps LaMonte Wade Turn into a Midwest League All-star
Here's the article.

Witness Olympic-grade Table Tennis Action in City Calm Down’s ‘Border On Control’
Here's the article.

Puzzle Wizard Plays Island Ping Pong
Here's the article on Will Shortz in Hawaii.

Crazy Roller by Fan Zhendong
Here's the video (45 sec, including slo-mo replay and watching player reactions!).

Great Exhibition Point
Here's the video (34 sec) – at least I think it's exhibition, with the lobbing, behind back shots, and crazy finishing shot!

Doubles Behind-the-Back Shot
Here's the video (9 sec).

Angry Paddles
Here's the picture!

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