Tina Chen joined her school’s table tennis team at age 6. She didn’t pick up a ball until the next year, and it wasn’t until their fourth year together that Chen and her teammates were allowed to enter a competition.
More than 1,000 days of practice before a team plays its first match may seem excessive to an American audience, but in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, it was just a necessary step on the path to excellence.
After rising to the top of her sport, Chen turned away from possible fame and fortune to make education her first priority. Now in Eugene, Chen is spreading her passion for table tennis, much to the delight of her new teammates.
Chen’s career began with an exam. Only after performing well on a physical aptitude test was she invited to join the elementary school team. The next three years were spent on fundamentals, as the coaching staff prepared the young players for the rigors involved in Taiwanese table tennis by holding two practice sessions each day after an academic study period in the morning.
“When I started it was maybe a little boring, but I learned something new every day,” Chen said.
The intense practice schedule paid off for Chen, because in her first tournament, a regional competition in southern Taiwan, she took second in the singles division.
“I was surprised and shocked,” she said. “The culture has very high expectations on you.”
The pressure on Chen became even more intense when she joined a table tennis team made up of the best players in the area and under the direction of a well-known and influential coach. Chen’s continued success came to a head at age 14, when she secured her first sponsorship deal from a local bank. She received the equivalent of $1,000 per month plus performance incentives in addition to whatever prize money she earned from tournaments.
Chen’s coach used her influence to get her prodigy a spot on the Taiwanese national team, also at the tender age of 14. Unfortunately, as soon as she reached the upper echelon of her sport, Chen was exposed to the seedy goings on happening behind the scenes of Asian table tennis.
In exchange for her continued favor, Chen said her coach demanded cash payments. This form of graft was also necessary to make contacts with important figures in the table tennis world. Chen’s life was further complicated by the need to train overseas to improve her skills and the jealousy she inspired in her teammates, an envy that even touched her best friend.
“When I was younger, I thought I was going to turn pro,” Chen said. “But it wasn’t just playing anymore.”
Through all of this turbulence Chen saved some of her focus for her studies, thanks in part to her parents. Two weeks before a particularly important midterm exam, Chen’s parents made a deal with her coach to allow for a period of uninterrupted study before the exam. Chen was assured by one of her teammates that she would remind the coach of this arrangement during her absence. Upon her return, however, the coach had no memory of the agreement and launched into an abusive tirade. For Chen, this was the final straw. She quit the team, walked out the door and never returned.
Chen stayed away from table tennis for six months, but infected by the desire to play again, she founded a team at her junior college (similar to an American high school) and began building the program from the ground up.
In just a few short years, the team had reached its goal of earning a berth in the national quarterfinals. After that success, Chen handed the leadership of the team to a chosen deputy.
“I taught her everything I know, and now she’s in the national quarterfinals,” Chen said.
Because of an interest in journalism, Chen enrolled at the University and soon became a member of the Oregon table tennis club. At the Pacific Rim Open in November 2004, she blitzed through the opening rounds before encountering three U.S. Olympians. Last March, Chen led the Oregon women to a state title over Oregon State, and she remains the highest rated player on the squad.
“We’re going to rely on her to beat everybody,” teammate Sean Layton said. “We would gain just from playing against her in practice. The fact that she’s teaching and telling us what to do helps our players.”
Helping her teammates improve revived Chen’s enthusiasm for table tennis. She has also benefitted from an atmosphere totally different from what she experienced at the beginning of her journey.
Oregon coach Lee Werthamer endured some of the same trials as his star player during his own table tennis career. As a member of the junior U.S. national team, he was part of a squad that toured China in the early 1970s. The level of talent, intensity and focus of the Chinese players floored him. Werthamer was so discouraged at the gulf of ability between the Chinese team and himself that he walked away from the sport for 22 years.
“It’s a business over there,” Werthamer said.
Fortunately for herself and her team, Chen resisted the cutthroat culture of her youth and regained a positive outlook on the game of table tennis. Although Chen is an all-around player, Werthamer cites her ability to identify her opponent’s weaknesses as a key to her success.
“She’s the best player we’ve ever had here,” Werthamer said. “A lot
of people that good are just prima donnas, but for Tina, now it’s a recreational release.”
For Chen, table tennis is no longer associated with stress and high expectations. Now in her second year with the club, she has taken her coach’s philosophy that table tennis is “fun, not work” to heart. When asked whether she is once again enjoying her sport, Chen’s head bobs up and down in an emphatic yes.
“Before my first tournament here, my coach told me ‘Just have fun, win or lose,’” Chen said. “I’d never heard anything like that before.”