Get heart rate up with ping-pong

Qui and Kanengiser

Table tennis players truly span the globe — from the American South to the south China seas.

Ping-pong paddles, hollow white balls and wicked spins will be on the world stage soon. The game steps up in visibility when China hosts the 2008 Olympics in early August. Millions will be watching. Hopefully NBC won't air all the games at 3 a.m. when most folks in Central Mississippi are asleep.

There is a good case to be made to NBC, ESPN and football-driven newspaper sports editors to pay more attention to a growing ping-pong fan base in the United States and other parts of the planet. Abroad, there are thousands of ping-pong players in countries like China, Sweden, Nepal, England, Nigeria, Canada, Pakistan and India.

Here's my pitch: table tennis has been an Olympic sport since 1988, and boasts a history of world competition dating back to the 1920s. There are table tennis clubs all over the United States, including here in Mississippi. It's a great form of exercise and a test of coordination and stamina. It's a serious sport played in countless family basements, from New
Jersey to California.

Still, in the eyes of some, ping-pong is the Rodney Dangerfield of sports. And like the comedian's popular one-liner, the game "don't get no respect.''

For me and thousands of other avid players who love the game, ping-pong is a sport that's much more than a fun game between friends.

Sure, slamming a small white or yellow ball with a thick rubber paddle isn't as big as Southeastern Conference football or a trip to the NBA Finals, but we have our share of dedicated fans.

My game dates back to my childhood and a patient teacher at home. It's in my genes. My dad, the late Irving Kanengiser, was a star table tennis and basketball player during his high school and college days in the 1930s and early 1940s. He played the sport with passion as a high school student in Newark, New Jersey and later as a student at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania and the University of Missouri. Dad graduated from Ole Mizzou in 1940 and within a couple of years signed up for World War II Army duty, but never lost interest in the game.

Injuries cut short my dad's basketball playing days at Bucknell, now a power in the Patriot League. But Irv K kept on top of his ping-pong game as a student at Missouri. Dad and his brother, Marvin, often sparred in ping-pong matches on the Columbia, Mo. campus where he graduated in 1940 with a journalism degree.

Ping-pong tournaments in the basement of our house in West Orange, N.J. with my brothers, Bill and Marty and my sister Francey (we even named our paddles) led me to sign up for real tournaments from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, from Florida to Georgia to Mississippi. Driving through a tornado in a car packed with FSU students to reach a tournament at the University of Florida was one of my unforgettable moments. Somehow we made it alive to the event in Gator Country!

Building my game around a disciplined Army-like defense led me to win championships like the one at Florida State University as a graduate student in 1975. Fast-forward to 2008 when I won a gold medal in the Mississippi Senior
Olympics for my age group (now 57) and took home a first place trophy in the B Division in the Pensacola Summer Open in June. The win was sweeter because that's where my dad, Mr. K., was stationed after completing 30 combat missions with the Army Air Corps during the war in Europe.

While most folks run or walk the indoor track at the Baptist Healthplex at MC in Clinton, lift weights or enjoy a game of hoops, I'm methodically honing my table tennis skills against students, truck drivers, professors, and other ping-pong believers.

MC Team Captain Huan "Ken'' Qiu consistently beats me with his fierce attack game and variety of incredible spins. I rarely defeat this 25-year-old native of China, but never give up! Ken, president of the MC International Association, returned to Clinton with a second-place trophy in his tougher division in Pensacola a few weeks ago. Qui captains an MC squad (all players from China) that is ranked 14th best among colleges and universities in the nation — ahead of such schools as Stanford, Iowa State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Columbia, James Madison and others. MC plans to host a major four-state collegiate tournament this fall.

There are more players out there around the USA than meets the eye. Reports show there are 7,578 active members of the USA Table Tennis Association. It is the governing board for the sport in the U.S. In the region, Mississippi lists 19 members. Across the border, there are 85 members in Tennessee, 74 in Alabama, 67 in Arkansas, and 35 in Louisiana. Florida is the USTTA leader in the South with 459 players with 393 signed up in Texas.

Qiu, whose father is a professor at a university in China and retired table tennis coach, is on fire about his favorite sport. Despite $4 per gallon gas prices, he travels to cities like Atlanta, Chicago and New York to play the best. A trip to a tourney in Decatur, Ala. in August may be his next stop. "It's good exercise for me. It combines speed and power,'' says the MC graduate student pursuing an MBA with an accounting concentration. "You need to run and practice your eye movement.''

Our circle of top-notch ping-pong players in the Jackson area ranges from MC to Jackson State University to the University of Mississippi Medical Center. It's a sport that people can play well into their eighties. In my case, it's a
challenging sport that's been popular and respected in my family for generations.

For more information go to Web sites at the United States Table Tennis Association (USTTA) or the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA). MC's table tennis sponsor can be reached at kanengis@mc.edu or (601) 925-7760.