 "Photo: Jordan Smothermon/The Daily Texan")
Most people have played ping pong at some point in their lives for fun. Many don’t see it is anything more than recreation.
Yet some people view ping pong as a sport that requires the same amount of training and physical fitness as any other sport.
“In order to really get good, you need to get to a level where it is not ping pong anymore,” said Parham Daghighi, the vice president of the Table Tennis Club. “It becomes a sport just like any other sport. Physical fitness is a major factor.”
The Table Tennis Club, a relatively new club on campus, offers students interested in taking their game to the next level the opportunity to do so.
“I found out there was no table tennis club when I got here as a freshman, so I decided to start it,” said Logan Hairgrove, the club’s founder. “To recruit people, I used a Facebook group called ‘UT Ping Pong Lovers.’ Then we became an official Rec Sports club in Spring of 2008.”
Hairgrove has enjoyed the fact that the club has grown and become a place for people to get together and play table tennis on a regular basis.
“Getting people together to play the sport I love is the most rewarding part for me,” he said. “I’m one of the reasons these guys are competing and having fun.”
Two weeks ago, the club sent four of its top players to nationals in Rochester, Minn. The team finished 11th out of 24 competitors.
“It was great to be able to compete with other schools at the collegiate level,” said Huanyuan Chen, a finance junior. “We got the chance to play Princeton, which finished second last year, in our first match. We played really well against them.”
Competing for the first time at nationals, the Table Tennis Club had to fund many of its own travel expenses.
Regardless, the four players who attended the tournament all came away with a great experience.
“We plan on training more seriously to be more competitive next year,” Chen said. “It was a really good experience. We made some friends from the other schools.”
The club welcomes members at all skill levels and has tables for rallying, games and drills. Players can come for fun or to train seriously.
“We have a handful of players that were trained when they were younger who are always offering training tips to the other players,” Daghighi said.
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