August 15, 2016

Tip of the Week
How to Deal with Nervousness and Play Your Best: Magic, Best Match, Tactics.

Dan Seemiller vs. Larry Hodges
As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m hard at work editing Dan Seemiller’s autobiography. It’s got some great stuff! It’ll be out by early September, and you have to buy this. You’ll get to live out the great moments in his career as he won five USA Men’s Singles titles, as well as Men’s Doubles 12 times, plus lots of international play at the Worlds and elsewhere. Plus lots on his playing rivalries with players like Eric Boggan, Sean O’Neill, and others!

But this is my blog, and guess what? As I read about Dan’s playing Career (capitalized) I can’t help but compare it to my own playing career (no caps).

Dan played in the Second Division at the Worlds in 1975, 1977, and 1981, going a combined 66-1, including 26-0 and 22-0 the last two years. I played with a weaker team at the U.S. Open Team Championships in Detroit in 1996 and 1997 (average rating in our division those two years was about 2000), and I went a combined 52-0. That’s always been one of my proudest achievements – Dan himself couldn’t have done better in that division!

Dan was down 16-19 in the fifth in the Men’s Singles Final at the 1982 USA Nationals with Eric Boggan serving, and won all five points on Eric’s serve to win the title. I was down 13-17 in the fifth in the final of the 1980 North Carolina Open to Fred King, and won all five points on his serve to lead 18-17, and went on to win 21-19 – my first major title. (Back in those days games were to 21 and you served five times each.) Dan came out of nowhere – unseeded – to finish first at the 1972 U.S. Team Trials; I came out of nowhere – also unseeded, with about an 1850 rating – to win that North Carolina Open (as well as my other three events – Open Doubles, Under 22, and Under 2000).

We both ate choppers for breakfast. He was beating choppers like Norio Takashima (world top ten) while I went 20 years without losing to a chopper under 2500, while beating seven over 2400. I’m guessing he’s gone well over 40 years without losing to a chopper under 2500.

Dan was a star second baseman and leadoff hitter back when he was in middle and high school – you’ll get to read about his baseball, football, and basketball exploits. I too played second base – but I did so because I couldn’t make the throw from third base, and so couldn’t play third like Brooks Robinson, my idol back then. I also argued all the time with the coach that I should be the leadoff hitter since I drew so many walks – but that was because I refused to swing the bat until I had two strikes, and even then would only swing if the ball was pretty much lobbed right down the middle. I had made a wooden baseball plate for my room, and put up strings over it from the walls and ceiling so I could see the actual stroke zone, and would spend hours standing there, memorizing it, determined not to swing at anything that wasn’t a strike. And so I drew a lot of walks, constantly struck out looking, had very few hits, but because 12-year-old pitchers don’t have much ball control, had a surprisingly good on-base percentage. But the coach was always yelling at me to “Swing the bat!”, and would either sit me on the bench or bat me ninth.

Dan and I attended a number of Dan Seemiller camps. Okay, he did so hundreds of times as head coach. I did so as a player twice in 1977 and 1978 (which greatly helped my development), and then became his assistant coach for his summer camps for two years in the early 1990s. Recently he was one of the head coaches for the USATT Supercamp in New Jersey, which I also attended as a coach, manager, and writer. You can learn a lot listening to a guy with his experience. As he once said, he should have a Ph.D in table tennis.

And now the killer – I once beat Dan Seemiller in a USATT sanctioned tournament! You heard that right; I beat him!!! Okay, it was in hardbat singles, which I probably practiced more than he did at. We’ve played twice and split. We won’t talk about our head-to-head record with sponge – Dan early on recognized that I couldn’t cover the whole table effectively in rallies, and while most players blindly put the ball where I could rally, Dan, like a machine, would put every ball to the one spot on the table I didn’t have covered. Dang him.

But now, watching him play at age 62, with his rating “down” to 2419 (but over 2500 just one year ago – have we ever had someone in his sixties rated over 2500?), I sometimes wonder if the Larry of 1990 could take the Dan of 2016 down. I keep thinking yes, but I’m sure Dan would just smile and say, “Sure, Larry, sure. How much you want to play for?” (That 2419 might be deceptive – he’s been mostly 2450-2500 the last few years, and one bad loss mostly brought him to 2419.) I might have to wait until he’s 70 or 80. 

Killing Your Game: Sit Less . . . Win More
Here’s the new coaching article from Samson Dubina.

USATT Announces Youth National Teams for 2016-2017
Here’s the article and team listing.

A Rio Table Tennis Lament: That’s the Way the Ball Crumples
Here’s the article from the New York Times on the poor quality of the ball being used at the Olympics.

Olympic Coverage

How Table Tennis Champs Are Produced in China
Here’s the video (46 sec). It’s in Chinese, but you don’t need to understand the words to see what’s happening.

Ping Pong for the Homeless
Here’s the article on the charity event hosted by KEYS for the Homeless, to be held Saturday, Aug. 27 in Washington D.C.

Results 24
Here’s a site dedicated to giving results from sports all over the world – including table tennis (see the “Other” tab).

Will Ferrell Taunts Clayton Kershaw at Celebrity Ping Pong Tournament
Here’s the article and video (4:40).

Table Tennis Player Uses Sport to Recover
Here’s the article and video (2:39) on table tennis player and physics professor Paul Selvin.

Kwame Alexander Dunks Over a Ping-Pong Game
Here’s the video (41 sec)!

***
Send us your own coaching news!