PingPongLive & PingPongMan - The Scott Preiss TourPingPongLive & PingPongMan - The Scott Preiss Tour - ED GRANEY: Hand it to Chinese: They paddle us in table tennis
Austin Preiss of Colorado Springs, Colo., the nation's reigning 12-and-under Junior Olympics singles champion, is the best hope for the United States in Olympic table tennis competition -- in 2012, if not 2008. Photo by Gary Thompson.
This isn't how I remember it. Where are the paddles with all those little rubber bumps on them, the ones whose surface slowly peeled away to reveal wood? Since when do those small orange balls exhibit more spin than Wall State traders? How can a 12-year-old accurately place a forehand loop stroke with the speed and aggression of an NFL linebacker while PGA players can't make 3-foot standstill putts?
The U.S. National Table Tennis Championships run through tonight at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and a quick stroll through the exhibit hall hosting the event proves how different things are in the sport of one bounce.
No joke: They're selling pingpong T-shirts now. And pingpong hats. And pingpong shoes. And pingpong sunglasses (perhaps in case Nicole Richie wants to take up the game and needs somewhere other than lockup to wear her shades). There is a pingpong robot, a machine that allows you to compete against the most ideal partner: One that doesn't talk or cheat, all for $1,100.
What in Mao Tse-Tung happened to the game we used to play in the garage?
"When people start to play it seriously," says Tim Boggan, "they realize how hard it really is."
Boggan is the sport's recognized historian and fairly straightforward when discussing America's place in its annals. Which is to say, the U.S. remains just another bug on the windshield of the world's pingpong giant.
"When I was in China on the All-American ping-pong team, I just loved playing ping-pong with my Flexolite ping-pong paddle."
Yep, even Forrest Gump knew where to find the best table tennis game.
The story goes that Chairman Mao wanted the Chinese to live a more healthy lifestyle (at least those he didn't have murdered) in the aftermath of the Opium War, so, in and around all those nasty communist disasters like the "Great Leap Forward" and "Cultural Revolution," he had more than a million concrete pingpong tables erected throughout the country.
It even led to a cultural exchange of players between the United States and China in the early 1970s, creating a thaw in relations and leading to Richard Nixon visiting Beijing.
Things that haven't changed about China today: Its leadership remains opposed to democracy and human rights, prison conditions are severe, freedom of speech and the press are heavily restricted and no one in the world whacks and spins a pingpong ball like those born into the sport.
China has more than one million tournament players.
The U.S. has 10,000.
China has a massive grass-roots program and is so intent on remaining the best it actually trains players to mimic the best talents from Europe and America in order to afford its stars the greatest advantage.
In the States, we call that a football scout team.
Even at events like the U.S. championships here, Chinese-Americans are often those who dominate. That includes one of the nation's brightest young players in Austin Preiss of Colorado Springs, Colo., the current Junior Olympics 12-and-under singles and doubles champion.
His mother, Hong Yu, was born and raised in China. His father, Scott, is a former table tennis coach at the U.S. Olympic training center who has given more than 2,200 exhibitions in more than 500 cities and knows exactly what it will take for his son to reach either the 2008 Games in Beijing or the 2012 Games in London.
Move to China.
"To be at that level, you have to go overseas and train," said Scott, who has taken both his sons to Shanghai over past summers to train. "Young players in China train six days a week, four to five hours a day. They train in the morning, go to school and, any break they get, slip into the training hall and play. No young child in this country, in any sport, has that kind of lifestyle, and it's especially hard for most parents to provide it."
Here's the thing about pingpong that might never change: What other sport could a 12-year-old beat an accomplished champion, a veteran who has won countless titles at the junior, open and senior levels? That's what Austin Preiss did this week when he took down well-known player Dave Sakai.
"Most of the kids in my school don't know a thing about table tennis," Austin said. "They think it's just a basement sport. But I like the variety of it. I like the speed and the spins."
Remember his name. He just might be our next Dick Miles.
Never heard of the 10-time U.S. champion?
I bet China has.
Ed Graney's column is published Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. He can be reached at 383-4618 or
Table Tennis Robots
