Pingpong is a game of speed and many types of slices, according to head coach Lee Werthamer. The Club pingpong squad is preparing to play a tournament in Seattle on Feb. 22.
Participating in one of the few events that causes people to stare at a table endlessly, Tong Johnson and Vivien Pong battle for the intramural table tennis championship.
Exchanging volleys at a feverish pace, the duo mesmerizes the surrounding audience.
“Someday,” Nick Gillespie and Eric Reinemann said, as they watched enviously, hoping one day to be as good.
Whack! With the games’ final point, Johnson has won his second consecutive intramural championship, defeating Pong three games to none.
This championship matchup was expected, though, as Johnson and Pong are two of the most talented members of the Oregon club table tennis team.
Johnson, a second-year masters student from China, and Pong, a second-year masters student from Hong Kong, have been playing pingpong, a monster sport in Asia, since they were little.
“I play pingpong like Americans play basketball,” Johnson said.
Pingpong is a game Americans often misunderstand, unaware that it’s more than a garage activity.
“It’s hardly recognized as a serious sport here,” said Gillespie, a sophomore and student coordinator. “Most people kind of snicker when you tell them you play table tennis.”
Gillespie, who grew up in Eugene, has been playing pingpong for eight years.
Club participation has dropped from years past, something head coach Lee Werthamer, 48, attributed to a drop in foreign student enrollment. Along with China and Hong Kong, the club has had students from Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Japan.
Werthamer, who has coached the club for 10 years and has taught table tennis at the University for eight, spends most of his time coaching players how to hit and how to recognize and deal with spin.
“It’s all about spin,” Werthamer said. “It’s all in the wrist.”
Werthamer, who owns an auto repair shop in Eugene, is a talented player in his own right. A junior regional champion in 1970, Werthamer and other junior champs played the Chinese national team in an exhibition in New York. Despite their talents, the juniors were no match for the dominant Chinese.
“They were champions, we were bozos; we got our asses kicked,” Werthamer said.
Hand-eye coordination is essential to being a good pingpong player. Hitting a small, white ball back and forth at high speeds takes practice.
“You’re basically like a robot,” Johnson said. “You know where the ball will be before it gets there.”
The club team is preparing for the Association of College Unions International Tournament Feb. 22 in Seattle. It is a regional qualifying tournament for the 2003 national tournament.
Pong has been to two national tournaments in the last four years. In 1999 she traveled to Houston, and in 2002 she traveled to Baltimore.
“The guys were really, really good,” Pong said. “Half of the girls were good.”
As for now, Pong and the rest of the team can only practice and look for a way to beat Johnson until it’s time for Seattle.
“I don’t think I’m that good,” Johnson said. “At least when I’m at home, I’m not that good.”
So much for table tennis being an American garage sport.
Jon Roetman is a freelance writer
for the Emerald.