Although Ping Pong is not an official sport at Wesleyan, it is taken very seriously by a handful of the leading members of Wesleyan’s Ping Pong Club. This year, the Ping Pong Club Chair Kwei Cheng Chang ’05 and captain Chun Chan’04 went with two other involved players to compete in the National College Table Tennis Association’s (NCTTA) New England regional tournament at Harvard.
Through a series of rounds, the Wesleyan foursome, Chang ’05, Chan ’04, Takanori Nagatomo ’04 and Ying Xiong ’04, won the regional championship and now will enter the National NCTTA tournament held at Stamford, CA on April 9.
“We’re very excited about going to the national tournament,” Chan said. “But we don’t know what to expect because we don’t have any experience on the national level.”
The Wesleyan Ping Pong Club is funded by the WSA as a club in much the same way as other University Ping Pong or Table Tennis organizations, like those at Harvard, MIT and Tufts. Because no training is provided by University staff, the student level of play is based largely on skills students learned before entering college.
Xiong, for example, had very intense training in Ping Pong in her childhood when she attended a special school in southwestern China that focused on developing table tennis skills.
“I stopped playing [ping pong] for some years but then when I got to Wesleyan in my sophomore year I discovered the Ping Pong Club and I’ve picked it up again,” Xiong said.
“I started playing [ping pong] when I was eight years old on two tables outside on a playground,” Chan said. “I didn’t join a school team until I was in eighth grade and then I played on a regular basis.”
Last year, Xiong entered the national NCTTA tournament as a singles player, and came in fourth; she came in first place nationally playing doubles when she was paired with a girl who represented the U.S in the Olympics for Table Tennis.
“Ping Pong is really like tennis, just on a smaller scale,” Chang said. “And spin is very, very important.”
Chang said that the Ping Pong table, like its predecessor, the tennis court, comes from England.
“People used to play socially using a table. It could be indoors or outdoors and it’s cheap to play,” she said.
The Wesleyan Ping Pong Club was founded in 1999 by a Korean student, and it seems that since its formation, the principal characteristics of the club have been inclusion and the celebration of the game. The mission statement of the group, according to Chang, is: “To provide playing time and space for interested students and to promote the game.”
Yet there is also a core group of members of the club who like to play for fun at a very high level.
“It’s difficult to find a balance as a club because we want to have fun but be competitive at the same time,” Chang said. “We don’t expect everyone to take it seriously, but we want to teach people who are interested and willing.”
The Wesleyan Ping Pong Club is funding its trip to California with its annual stipend from the WSA and with additional money from the SBC. The group would like to thank President Bennet for his help in securing the funds for the trip.
The club meets on Thursdays from 8 to 10 p.m. and on Sundays from 2 to 5 p.m. in the downstairs multi-purpose room at the Freeman Athletic Center. The Sunday meetings, which are more informal, draw 10 to 15 students regularly; all community members, however, are welcome to attend both the Thursday and Sunday meetings.