(The NTTC has since moved into a new building and is now the MDTTC.)
Two and a half years ago I saw an article in a local paper about Cheng Yinghua and the National Table Tennis Center and since then my life has radically changed. I had moved to Maryland from England as a teenager and now, more than twenty years later I discovered that I was living in the best area for table tennis in the whole country! As kids in England my brothers and I had played ping pong with really dead paddles (bats) in our garage and in this country we played sporadically in the basement. We thought we were really hot. Nobody in the neighborhood could touch us. But I had never seen "real" table tennis until the first night I walked into the NTTC, in January 1993. Director Larry Hodges emerged from his office area and greeted me with a stupefying barrage of table tennis trivia: famous players back to the fifties, equipment, technique, USATT politics etc., etc. Eventually I escaped, found a seat and just watched for a while. It was amazing. Later I found out that on this "average" night there were more highly rated 2200+ players just practicing there than you might normally find at many tournaments. What impressed me the most was how many of them were looping and counter looping from waaay off the table, something I had previously seen only once or twice on TV.
I joined the club and started playing with people near my own level, entered my first tournament, receiving a humbling initial rating of 600 or so. I joined a group beginning class taught by Larry Hodges, Cheng Yinghua (U.S. #1) and Jack Huang (then U.S. # 2) and started on the long road to try to shed old bad habits and learn better technique. After a few tournaments and a few months of weekly private lessons with Jack, I progressed to about 1600 before leveling off for a while. I have some goals in table tennis, but at 38 I am realistic enough to be in it mainly for fun and exercise. On any night I could be practicing with another "hacker," a talented junior or a wily senior. On the next table could be almost anyone Ð from first timers off the street to visiting pros from exotic countries; from the newest phenom, tiny 8 year old Han Xiao, to his teacher, Cheng Yinghua. I'm totally hooked and absolutely have to play at least twice a week. My wife and two children are still adjusting to my healthy addiction. Over the years there have been several smaller clubs in the Washington DC area, most notably Yvonne Kronlage's club in Columbia. But table tennis really began to take off through the Potomac Country Table Tennis Club (PCTTC), which began in 1987 through the organizational efforts of the local Chinese community. From the start, the club emphasized youth and coaching. The PCTTC lured player/coaches Cheng Yinghua & Jack Huang to come to the PCTTC as coaches (joining several other local coaches, including Sean O'Neill, Hank Teekaveerakit and Chang-Shing Hsu), and soon the area began to really explode. Soon, the PCTTC had virtually reached its limit Ñ the club only meets twice a week (with 12 tables). The PCTTC annual tournament is very popular. While only a three-star event, this year's Potomac Open attracted an even stronger field than the U.S. Nationals!
About five miles away in Rockville, about 15 miles north of Washington D.C., the National Table Tennis Center (NTTC) was begun in 1992 as a private venture by Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang and Larry Hodges. The NTTC has survived without any funding from the USTTA whatsoever. The original center had ten tables, but late in 1993 we moved to a new 10,000 square foot center, with three playing rooms, 16 tables, an ofÞce/pro shop and lounge areas. The NTTC is open seven nights a week (and daytimes for top players in training), runs popular monthly tournaments (36 so far) and regular coaching camps. The tournaments attract an eclectic mix of enthusiasts from Maryland, D.C., Virginia and Pennsylvania as well as top players from further away, such as David Zhuang, Abass Ekun and Virginia Sung. Over 100 hours of coaching takes place each week at the NTTC, both in private coaching and group classes. Hodges, the director of the center since its opening, bought the entire club from Cheng & Jack in 1993, although they continue as head coaches. Brian Lonergan was hired recently as full-time manager for the club. Staff coaches include Cheng, Jack, Hodges, Brian & Sean Lonergan, Todd Sweeris, Masamichi Kubo, Gary Elwell, and Huazhang Xu (who coaches regularly at PCTTC).
For the first couple of years Larry Hodges thoroughly frazzled himself by trying to do most of the chores involved with the club: manning the phones, cleaning, organizing tournaments, designing and circulating publicity, running classes and camps etc., plus he often worked on the magazine through many wee hours at night. A few months ago, Hodges voluntarily gave up much of the control of the NTTC to local volunteers, and the NTTC now has an elected Board of Directors. They are: President Bob Slapnik, Operations Director Cathy Lonergan, Sales & Public Relations Director Brian Lonergan, Treasurer Matthew Murad, and Program Director Larry Hodges. There are numerous other volunteers, from League Directors Sean Lonergan, Frank Fuhrman & Gary Elwell to Vending Director Randall Henri. I should add myself to the list, having designed the all-important logo for the club as well as helping out in other ways. I also designed a distinctive black plus 3-color sport shirt for NTTC. Cheng Yinghua has worn it to win several major tournaments and Gao Jun wore it as she beat Amy Feng in last year's U.S. Open in Anaheim.
The cornerstone of the NTTC coaching is Cheng Yinghua and Jack Huang, both former long-time members of the Chinese National Team. Cheng has been the top-rated player in the U.S. since his arrival in 1988 (except for a 1-year absence in 1990). Jack has often been ranked #2 in the U.S., and was #1 in 1990. Both coach 40 or so hours each week, and their junior players have won 19 of the 30 national junior singles titles awarded over the past three years. It is amazing that both these great coaches are in their late thirties and can still win major tournaments considering that they spend all of their time coaching and no time at all training!
Never in recent table tennis history has there been such an accumulation of top players in one spot in the U.S. as there is now in Maryland, congregating around the sister clubs NTTC & PCTTC. The area dominates in nearly every category--top men, women, college students, junior boys & girls. Currently, the players in the area include:
All of these players training together has led to a substantial amount of publicity. For example, they've been on TV 33 times in the past three years, and in over a hundred articles in newspapers. There was a 3.5 minute special on them on Headline News and CNN, played over 50 times over a 24 hour period, going to 177 countries. They've also been on ESPN, in Sports Illustrated, Boys' Life, The Washington Post and Baltimore Sun. NBC's Dateline is doing a special on them airing sometime in the next few weeks. Andre Scott, U.S. Wheelchair Champion and a member of the University of Maryland National Collegiate Champions, especially seems to attract attention from the press.
Players from all over the U.S. keep moving to the area to train. Recently, Barney J. Reed and Dave Fernandez, the top two junior players in the U.S., started to train at the NTTC twice a week, with Cheng Yinghua and the U.S.'s top youth players, Todd Sweeris (22) and Sean Lonergan (20). They spent last summer training at the NTTC, living at Hodges' apartment (which he shares with Todd Sweeris and Huazhang Xu).
The NTTC surely has the most active group of tournament players in the U.S. The U.S. Open Team Championships (10 hours away in Detroit) had about 750 players last year and about 10% of the players were from NTTC/PCTTC. (We chartered a 55-passenger bus for the trip, but it wasn't enough, so several vans and cars full of people also went, as well as a number who flew.) The finals were played between teams led by "our guys" Cheng Yinghua & Todd Sweeris (with Dan Seemiller) and Jack Huang (with David Zhuang and Abass Ekun). Along the way the finalists beat teams representing England and Slovakia among others. On the women's side, "our gals" Gao Jun and Amy Feng teamed with Virginia Sung to cruise through the competition. Gao Jun's husband Frank Chang was there to cheer on his talented wife, with the occasional interruption of having to play on my team! The Sun TV Open in Pittsburgh last year (4 hours away) had about 240 entries, with over 25% from NTTC/PCTTC. (If you were there you may have seen a lot of my black NTTC shirts walking around and in action) The Junior Nationals and Junior Olympics get nearly 1/3 of their players from NTTC/PCTTC each year, with a typical contingent close to 30. NTTC players who stay home enthusiastically root for their fellow members who are off at big tournaments. When we heard that Cheng had beaten Jean-Philippe Gatien (the eventual winner of the tournament) there were loud cheers and high-fives all around.
Training camps at the NTTC have become more and more active, with 33 players in the December 1994 Christmas camp, and 28 players in the April 1995 Spring Break Camp. These have been run by Hodges with Jack, Cheng and other coaches. Dan Seemiller sometimes comes down from Pittsburgh to train and to teach camps, the last one with help from Dave Sakai and others. Currently, there are four group classes being taught at the NTTC--a beginning class, an intermediate class, a beginning junior class, and an advanced junior class. However, private lessons remain the backbone of the coaching program.
The NTTC definitely feels like a home away from home. Entering the club, you see no tables at first, but a central enclosed ofÞce, restroom, snack area and a large casual area with tables, chairs, friendly den furniture and an antique TV. A dedicated group of fans stop play at 9 pm every Thursday to observe the ritualistic Seinfeld hour (watching it at home just doesn't feel right any more!). There is a safe family atmosphere at the club where players encourage each other and all strive to improve. Younger kids are routinely dropped off by their parents for a safe evening of coaching and practicing, maybe with a little basketball mixed in. At PCTTC the emphasis is on playing matches and defending the table, but NTTC is more relaxed and even lower level players do a lot of practice drills. During struggles with counter looping or my more consistent backhand looping in my lesson with Jack, Amy Feng or Gao Jun will often look in, smile at me and say to Jack in Chinese, "His strokes are looking better!" (maybe they are actually saying, "wanna go for some pizza?") Junior players often bring their homework to the NTTC to study between practicing, with homework help from Larry Hodges or other local players. When not practicing, many members of the NTTC go out together for Chinese food, basketball or movies. Late in June, 20 NTTC members took in a Baltimore Orioles baseball game, and a trip to Kings Dominion for the kids is planned.
School is both a strength and weakness for the NTTC junior players. It is a strength in that so many of them are in advanced classes, with GPA's averaging about 4.0. Unfortunately, academia places quite a bit of stress on their training schedules--most of the junior players have to squeeze table tennis practice in between studying. Few have the time to train as many hours as many of their peers around the country, a tradeoff since the training they do receive is of such high quality.
The junior players are about to begin serious training for the 1995 Junior Nationals and Junior Olympics. Defending National Champions include Boys' Under 16 champion Richard Lee; Boys' Under 14 Champion Sunny Li; Girls' Under 16 Champion Vivian Lee; Girls' Under 14 Champion Jessica Shen; Girls' Under 12 Champion Caroline Oppenheimer; and Girls' Under 10 Champion Katherine Wu. Wu, Oppenheimer, Shen, and Li are also defending Junior Olympic Champions, as is Margaret Lu (Girls' Under 16). Top-ranked junior Jimmy Yeh made the finals of Under 18 Boys, defeating top seed Barney J. Reed in the quarterfinals and fellow NTTCer Richard Lee in the semi's before losing 19 in the third in the final to Dave Fernandez. College students are beginning to flock to the area. University of Maryland (current squad: Huazhang Xu, Todd Sweeris, Ernest Hung, Larry Hodges, Andre Scott, & Rungkai Tsay) has won the National Collegiate Championships in Princeton three straight years, and Montgomery College of Maryland (Sean & Brian Lonergan, Masamichi Kubo, Pal Jonsson) made the finals this year for an all-Maryland final.
One of the best new activities at the NTTC has been a league Ñ ten teams, three players to a team, playing once a week until everyone has played each other. Each evening's tie consists of nine singles matches and one doubles match. Our league includes players of varying skill levels. For example, one team (the eventual winning team) consisted of Todd Sweeris (2565), Andy Li (2017) and Jonathan Wilhelm (1190). Although I lost many of my matches I thoroughly enjoyed the league and delighted in at least taking single games off Jessica Shen, Andy Li and others. The league was a great way for many of us to get to know each other better and develop team spirit. There was a good deal of coaching between games and a lot of cheering for teammates. Crowd support reached a fever pitch when three of us actually did the wave while watching one of the last doubles matches! Lower players were able to play against much higher rated people than they would normally. Most of the time the higher players played lower ones pretty seriously without too much gratuitous lobbing. I often gaped and shook my head as the league's top players such as Todd Sweeris, Sean Lonergan, and Masamichi Kubo casually and apologetically loop-killed balls past me at impossible angles, apparently quite unfazed by my blinding lack of spin and leaden footwork!
The league and greater volunteer support have been very positive and there is a renewed feeling of excitement at our club. Director Larry Hodges has been tireless in his energy and generosity toward the club and for the good of the sport, particularly for the juniors. He continues to be a driving force, but now with a quieter voice. As always, Hodges is full of ideas for the future. "I'm currently looking into a number of things," he says. "I'm trying to turn the NTTC into a real country club type of table tennis club. I'm also trying to set up a resident training program at the NTTC. I'd also like to set up National Junior Cup Championships, or perhaps National Youth Championships. I'm in contact with several top players who are planning to move here, and we're making the arrangements for them now. But it'll take a lot of time and money to get any of this accomplished."
For the last twenty years as a graphic designer and calligrapher I have put an awful lot of effort into my work and career. It now feels very good to be passionately involved with something totally different, something physically and mentally challenging and rewarding. I have only two complaints. We don't have enough women players and we don't have enough players who use anything other than the standard inverted rubber on both sides. With the beautiful shakehand blocking and looping style exemplified by Jack, Cheng and their protŽgŽs, we all want to emulate that. At the club many of us play basically the same way, so we are often weak when faced with "junk rubber" opponents. There are only a handful of members who play differently: a pips-out pen holder here, a chopper there etc. There are only two pretty good 1900+ level long pips regulars at the club, and one of them, Terry Lonergan, is more or less a pure chopper. It's all very well playing opponents who hit a nice clean ball! But how about the guy with the multiple sweatbands and knee braces who flips between long pips on one side and anti on the other, who uses annoying head fakes, blocks back unpredictable knuckle balls, and has that wild homemade paddle and those funky illegal serves. If you fit this description - please move to Maryland. We need you!