Ping Pong and the Olympics

Why is Ping Pong in the Olympics? Everyone has a sport that makes them say “Why is this here?” Ping Pong (table tennis) is mine.

  My first introduction to ping pong was at age 15 when my dad bought a table to set in the basement. He lived alone at the time and had a decent game room size area, perfect for ping pong. It was a long room with close sides that would have been miserable for pool. Any time we visited it was the first thing my brothers and I did. We rushed down the plastic covered steps to the linoleum floor as the temperature became instantly cooler. That musty basement smell that is part slick pipes part laundry room invaded the senses. It had a simple L shaped design with an old pinewood bar tucked into the corner. I could never decide if the bar had been used by the previous owners. It looked like a set piece for a high school play more than a functioning liquor cabinet.

The Ping Pong table entertained us and anyone who happened to visit. Johnsons are fierce competitors. As such, paddles and nets were frequently damaged from tantrums. Ping Pong balls got crushed regularly and the walls developed holes and marks from items hurdled in their direction. If any one brother developed a superior attitude or displayed a fist pump or flexed muscles in a way considered braggadocios, a scrum ensued resulting in even more damage to the walls. Shouting in joyful fits, after a win, was the equivalent of flipping a bat after a home-run. One gets even in the rematch.

 There is always a rematch.

Fights were common because…well…competition.  The house survived despite the abuse the basement, some sucker agreed to buy the place when it went up for sale. I always thought I was a decent table tennis player until I joined the Army and realized I was below average. The years of charging down the steps gleefully to slap the little white ball back and forth hadn’t paid off as much as I imagined.

Being competitive doesn’t a winner make…

Many of the guys I played against in the barracks had also grown up with a table in the basement or garage. They were quicker to return serves, aimed for corners and hit much harder--ditto for college. Every move they made was faster, sharper. I was worse than most of my friends.

After college I did a stint teaching English in China and found out what happens when a country treats a recreational activity with tenacity and purpose. I wasn’t completely naive to the excellence associated with Chinese table tennis, but I was surprised how deep into the culture the roots go. It isn’t a stretch to say nearly anyone in the country can compete at a high level, at least what I call a high level. I don’t mean everyone is an Olympic quality athlete, that’s silly. I mean that everyone has experience with and exposure to ping pong at some level. The same way that a nineteen year old boy raised on a farm in the Midwest knows how to load and fire a shotgun. Country life demands familiarity with firearms and Ping Pong skills for Chinese kids equals hunting skills for Texans.

The Chinese school was a highly rated private school for local and foreign kids, similar to boarding schools in New England. It had a poorly maintained track for running, basketball courts, and outdoor ping pong tables. This was a first for me. The tables were made of concrete and used a 2x4 plywood strip like a net splitting the table in half. To pass the time I used to watch the Chinese kids during their breaks play. It took about 3 seconds to know I had NO chance. It wasn’t that they were better as much as they adopted a different way to play the game. It was wildly different. The players move around a lot more looking to score with short swings and quick stabbing shots instead of the full arm extension swing I used. Gone was the back and forth volleying that I expected.

Volleying was anathema to these kids.

The players held the broad part of the paddle in their palm like an over sized cell phone. They didn’t use the handle. I rarely followed the ball with my eyes once it left the paddle. It moved too quick and I was never sure who had scored when the kids went chasing after a roller. Every kid seemed to be an expert at this game I only had marginal knowledge of.

I can’t bring myself to watch a sport on tv that feels more like an activity for competitive siblings (also see bowling) than a medal worthy affair. Not that I don’t appreciate excellence and dedication in all areas of life, table tennis just ranks a little lower on my scale. Besides, when NBC shows table tennis events I have to imagine how many interesting sports I’m missing. Mercifully they don’t show it too often.

 I think a camera placed in the corner of a family game room would be more exciting. We could call it, An Evening with the Johnsons. Americans would tune in for the cursing, the throwing and breaking, the stomping off, the argued calls and most of all…….the rematch.