Midstate residents make a racket playing ping pong
Aficionados may call it table tennis, but to most of us, it’s still ping pong, the fast-paced game that became a medal Olympic sport in the 1988 Summer Olympics.
According to the PongWorld Web site, it’s the most popular racquet sport in the world. It’s ranked second in overall participation with more than 10 million players competing in sanctioned tournaments every year.
So it’s probably no surprise that McMinnville’s own Parks and Recreation Ping Pong Tournament, held last weekend, drew 24 entrants in the competitive division from around the state – including players from Knoxville, Chattanooga, Shelbyville and Gallatin.
There were even a couple of nationally ranked players from the U.S. Table Tennis Association, including Bill Neely from Knoxville, who is ranked 1,840, and Tracy O’Neal from Chattanooga, who is ranked 1,737.
According to Parks and Recreation assistant director Mandi Franklin, even though there have been some extra ping pong tournaments at other times during the year, the main event is held in January. The tournaments got started mainly because of community interest.
Last weekend’s tournament drew players from varied national backgrounds and age groups. Dr. Paul Hua, who came to the U.S. from China, is 72 years old and has played competitively in his age group since 1995.
Hua, who is from Palmer, Tenn., says he plays because it’s good exercise, but mostly because he enjoys it.
“I feel much better since I play, and I enjoy it,” Hua said. “If I beat him,” he added, indicating his next opponent, “then I feel good!”
Another luminary who showed up was inventor and table tennis player Joe Newgarden, who developed the Newgy RoboPong, a machine that allows players to practice even if they don’t have a human opponent on the other side of the table. It’s a robot that attaches to one end of the table and hits the ball back to you.
Newgarden, who is from Gallatin, markets the machine nationally and says he came up with the idea for a very simple reason.
“Just needed someone to play against,” he says. He started on the machine soon after he became interested in playing table tennis.
“In 1972 I started on it,” he said, “and put it out for sale around 1988. It has a net system, so if you hit the ball back on the table, it goes in the net and feeds back again.”
Anyone interested in the system can go to www.newgy.com on the Web and check out Mr. Newgarden’s robot ping pong player.