Pete May and a Proposed Police Table Tennis Program for Inner City Kids
At the USA Nationals, Pete May told me about an idea for a new type of table tennis program. Some of you may remember Pete as the guy who ran much of the table tennis activities in Augusta, Georgia, circa the 1980s and 1990s – 4-star tournaments, the Augusta College Table Tennis Program (with scholarships), and other activities. He was also a 2000+ chopper, and he and Dell Sweeris made the final of Over 70 Men's Doubles last year at both the U.S. Open (losing to a team from China in five) and at the USA Nationals. His son, Derek, was a 2550 chopper who played on the U.S. Pan Am Team. Pete's mostly retired from running table tennis activities, and now is a Disc Golf Champion – see Interview with 3x Legends Champ Pete May, and this video (1:51), The greatest thing about disc golf.

Here's his idea. He tells me that local police departments have funding for local youth programs, especially for inner city kids. So we go to them about setting up table tennis programs for such kids, 12 and under, where they supply the tables, rackets, and balls. Older ones are selected as team captains and/or to feed multiball. There would be divisional play, with awards for the champions. Local newspapers would be brought in as stakeholders, which would lead to coverage. Pete suggests the matches be held outdoors (weather permitting?) for more exposure. The police department would enjoy doing this as they would get a "gold star" for helping kids. USATT would benefit from exposure, more players, and possible new phenoms.

Tip of the Week
Should You Develop Your Forehand Push?

Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions, Table Tennis, and Donald Trump
Since the novel has so much table tennis in it, I'm going to blog a bit about that, about recent happenings on it, and about some table tennis scenes – including Donald Trump being in it! There's also some futuristic table tennis in it – more on that and Trump below. But first:

Good news: It was scheduled to come out from World Weaver Press on Jan. 26 – yesterday. Yay!

Bad news: On Thursday, Jan. 21, five days before publication, I received an email from the publisher saying something no author wants to hear: the publisher was closing down, and so my novel wasn't going to be published. NOOOO!!!!!

Good news: The very next day I received an email from one of the assistant editors that she was negotiating to buy the company, and still wanted to publish the novel. The deal is apparently going through, and so the novel is back on track – but the publication date has moved to March 8.

Bad news: The novel was long planned to come out in the middle of the presidential election, since it's a political novel that covers the race for president of Earth in the year 2100. (With a third-party moderate challenge, a father pitted against a daughter, and an alien ambassador observing and often participating.) The plan was to have it out before the Iowa caucuses, which will be held Feb. 1 (next Monday). So we'll lose some of that.

Good news: Without any advance knowledge that Trump would be running for president and dominating the news, he's in the novel!!! Sort of. Hopefully he'll learn of this and sue me or call me a hack writer, thereby putting sales through the roof. How is Trump in the novel?

One More Day
The snow is being picked up, but the snow on my brain, after four days alternating between long stretches of lazing about reading and doing crossword puzzles, and sudden bursts of inspiration and frenzied work, needs one more day of recovery. (Translation: I’ve been staying up late, and after going to bed last night at roughly late this morning, I woke up with a headache and eyes that feel like they've run a marathon. Also, local schools are still closed, and I generally take the day off when they do so.) I'll get to bed earlier tonight, and start blogging again tomorrow morning. Promise!

Local schools were scheduled to be closed today for teacher conferences even before a few snowflakes blew our way, so as is my continued policy, when the schools take a holiday, so do I! (I have lots of other work planned, alas.) So no blog today. I'll be back tomorrow Wednesday. In the meantime, here's my (non-table tennis) Facebook rant about the snow and Obama's complete refusal to do anything to stop its arrival - and what other candidates would have done! Enjoy!

Fake Ages in Junior Events
One of the more "inside" problems table tennis faces in the U.S. is the problem of fake ages in junior events. In the U.S., it's pretty much assumed – and almost always correctly – that birth certificates are accurate. But this isn't necessarily true in other parts of the world. In particular, I'm told (and my own experiences seem to concur) that in China, it's very easy to get a birth certificate or passport with a fake age. Here's one article on the topic. "While a global problem, the falsifying of ages is considered particularly acute in China due to the massive pressure on coaches and officials to produce victories and the apparent ease with which false documents can be obtained."

Many dozens of parents have approached me on this, mostly Chinese, because there seem to be a number of players all over the U.S. (all non-citizens, as far as I know) playing in junior events with fake ages. I say "seem" because there's rarely any way of really knowing in any individual case. There are legitimate teenagers who look to be in their twenties, and it's not their fault that they look older. For all we know, it's the faster-maturing kids who do well, and that's why there are so many juniors from China who look older than their listed age.

A Blizzard is Coming, a Blizzard is Coming!
Yes, it's true. By Friday night we'll be blanketed in snow, with predictions varying from 12 to 30 inches. This could be historic here in the Maryland/DC area. (It'll also dump huge snowfalls along the entire northeast.) The record snowfall for DC is 28" in 1922. The only other time we got over 20 inches was 20.5" in 1899. We had the infamous "Snowmaggedon" of 2010, but that was only 17.8", only the fourth deepest ever. (What made that extreme is that it fell on Feb. 5-6, and on Feb. 9-10, we had another 10.8" inches fall, so 28.6" total – more than the 1922 storm, which lasted three days.) Here's a listing of the 25 Biggest DC Snowfalls.

I'm sure some of you people up north are snickering at us. But you have to remember it's all relative. If you get four feet of snow, but are prepared for four feet of snow, with lots and lots of snow equipment and supplies, it's not a big deal. If you get six inches of snow and are completely unprepared for it – as Maryland and DC are, since it happens less frequently – it's a lot worse. During Snowmaggedon, schools closed for two weeks. (Stop snickering!!!)

Here some memorable table tennis snow experiences.

MDTTC Tournament Director
Well, I've gone and done it; I'm back to being the tournament director at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. I keep saying I have way too much to do, and now I've got more. I'll be running five tournaments at MDTTC this year, four regular ones plus a Maryland State Championships. The regular ones will be held on April 9, June 11, Sept. 10, and Oct. 22, all on Saturdays. Entry form will be posted soon.

I'll be running them using Omnipong, which works really well. I used that software when I ran MDTTC tournaments a few years ago, I think in 2012, before Charlene Liu took over. She's now running the full-time Washington DC Table Tennis Center, and so someone had to take over the tournaments. (Immediately all eyes turned to me, alas.)

I'm not exactly new to running tournaments. I've run about 150 USATT sanctioned tournaments, including monthly ones at MDTTC through much of the 1990s. I also ran the 4-star 1998 Eastern Open, and dozens of other tournaments, dating back to monthly ones I ran at the Northern Virginia TTC in the early 1980s.

Surprisingly, it's not a big conflict with my coaching, as Saturdays (surprisingly) is not a busy day for me, where I usually only have one or two students. For me, the bigger problem is that by Saturdays, I'm tired from coaching and other work all week, and then I have to run the tournament – and that's exhausting. And then it's Sunday, which is my busiest day. And then comes Monday, where I've got a full weekend's worth of stuff to write about in my blog, plus the Tip of the Week, plus my science fiction blog, plus whatever else I've put off while setting up and running the tournament.

Tip of the Week
On Short Serves to the Forehand, Fake to the Forehand, Then Go Down the Line.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17, Days 11-12
My long national nightmare, I mean my twelve days sitting at a desk with Tim Boggan looking over my shoulder and yelling things like, "the photo goes there, you fool!" ended on Saturday. Between that, my normal coaching/tutoring/afterschool program, and my other USATT and MDTTC work, it was roughly twelve straight 18-hour days.

On Day 11 (Friday) we finished the pages, finishing with 450 pages and 1499 graphics – which I've rounded up to 1500. Then we spent Saturday inputting corrections, which he'd been compiling during in the early morning hours as he edited the pages from the day before. (He goes to bed around 7:30PM each night, gets up by 3AM.) I also did the one-page ad flyer for the new volume, printing 120 copies for him. We finished late on Saturday afternoon, then met Dennis Taylor (USATT pro bono lawyer) for dinner at China Bistro, "home of the best dumplings in the region." On Sunday I had a "restful" day with only five hours coaching at the club. Then I took Monday off (MLK Day), mostly in bed reading and saw the excellent but gritty movie "The Revenant."

With this project over, I can go back to normal stuff, like coaching and writing and eating and sleeping. This week I've got all sorts of issues to blog about –ratings problems (see below), players with fake ages, and my return to running tournaments (alas). And make sure to see the final segment below on my upcoming novel, coming out in one week – it's got table tennis!!!

Here are the final stats:

No blog today - it's Martin Luther King Day! After working twelve consecutive 18-hour days, followed by a "restful" five-hour coaching day on Sunday (yesterday), I need a break. See you tomorrow!

Help Wanted: USA Table Tennis High Performance Director Position
Here's the USATT info page for this – if you think you're qualified and would do a great job, why not apply? This could be a groundbreaking thing for table tennis in the U.S., if we get the right person. As I've blogged before, the U.S. is now a world power at the cadet level, and if we play our cards right, that could lead to the U.S. being a world power. We have the potential to challenge any country in the world outside China, and of course challenging China, something few could dream of doing, is exactly what we should be dreaming of doing. If countries like Sweden and Hungary can develop teams that played even or better than the Chinese for over a decade at a time, why can't we?

The whole idea is not for USATT to take over training our elite up-and-coming juniors, the best of whom are already getting great training. The point is to have someone to oversee all this training, including some group training, but emphasizing the resources we already have at clubs. He'd be working with the actual coaches who are doing the actual coaching, but the coaches at training centers and clubs all over the country would be completely in charge of whoever they are coaching. But as I note below in #3, the High Performance Director would have valuable input on how to maximize our players' potential, as well as running group training. The specific plan would be created by the High Performance Director himself. (Jeez, I'm tempted to apply, but I'm already on the Board of Directors – conflict of interest – plus they are probably looking for more international experience. Alas.)