By: OLIVIA WHITE
FEATURES EDITOR
Placed in a corner of Newell Field House, neatly spaced apart from one another to ensure an adequate amount of room per player on either side, sit two blue Ping Pong tables, the athletic facility’s latest addition. These tables will never be discreetly tucked in the innermost hallways of a suite and decorated with red Solo cups on a Saturday night. They are in pristine condition, unscathed by scratches of wayward paddles or careless college students, not yet subjected to the wear and tear of their long lost kin at home in the Student Center. Purchased with the money awarded by an Innovation Grant worth $2,500, they represent one of St. Lawrence University’s newest clubs- an expanding groups of students, faculty, coaches, and staff, who gather during lunch time to partake in what is arguably America’s most popular basement paddle sport, labeled by serious participants as “Table Tennis” but known more universally as Ping Pong.
M. Filippi, Secretary for the Modern Languages and Literature Department, who refers to herself more casually as Flip, is at the heart of the new club. Filippi explains that they applied for the Innovation Grant for regulation tables, paddles, and balls in the fall of 2014 and purchased these necessary Ping Pong accouterments in January. According to the trusty SLU website, Innovation Grants are offered to “encourage initiatives that will improve the quality of life at St. Lawrence through curricular, co-curricular, or campus life projects.” The spirit of the grant is one that aims to bring the SLU community together. Both Filippi and co-member Paul Haggett hope to enhance our spirited SLU community by bringing faculty, staff, students, and coaches together on opposite sides of a Ping Pong table.
Though they both Haggettt and Filippi chuckled when I asked if either had any professional background in playing Ping Pong (Haggett explained that he grew playing recreationally in his basement with a ceiling not much higher than his head), their enthusiasm for the new club is clear.
“A few years ago over the summer, some staff and faculty members, mostly library people, started playing during lunchtime,” explained Haggett.
“But,” added Filippi, “during the school year the table in the Student Center was always crowded,” making it difficult to establish more than an ad hoc group of Ping Pong enthusiasts.
In need of adequate space an equipment, Filippi, along with Bob Durocher and Mike Alzo, appled for a small Innovation Grant. Now, with two new tables and a hefty supply of both balls and paddles, all completely scuff-free, Filippi, Haggett, and other Ping Pong Club patrons hope to expand the group to help break in the new gear.
Filippi explained that the equipment is available to players every week day from 11 to 2 and notes that Ping Pong is an inherently inclusive pastime.
“Anyone can play. It’s co-ed and it’s a lifetime sport,” she says. And, as a side note, she added that one doesn’t even need a change of clothes, though Haggett, who had just finished playing a match and may or may not have broken a sweat, laughed and jokingly countered this assessment.
Her point is valid. One need not be a star athlete in his or her physical prime to wield a paddle. Adequate depth perception and a pinch of agility will do just fine.
In the community-building spirit of the grant, Flip and her fellow Ping Pong enthusiasts have organized an upcoming tournament. April 25th of this year will mark the First Annual Spring Pong Tournament (it seems there are no shortage of Ping Pong puns). She says she doesn’t quite know what to expect in terms of turn out, but anyone is welcome to sign up and registration is free. Thirty-two participants will volley vigorously for one of the top three spots, but everyone who participates is guaranteed three matches. In order to accommodate this number of players, SLU’s Ping Pong Club will be borrowing about a half dozen tables from the St. Lawrence Valley Table Tennis Club, an organization registered by USA Table Tennis, that meets Wednesday nights at Clarkson University and has been in existence for approximately twenty-five years.
SLU’s table tennis enthusiasts may never snag a spot in the World Ping Pong Championship (which exists, by the way), but they certainly understand the virtues of playing recreationally, which stem from its inclusivity. Both the club and the upcoming tournament are open to anyone interested, so if you’re a reigning basement champ back home, here’s your chance to shine. And if you’re just in it for the friendly competition, as Rachel Pineda ’18 is, that’s fine too.
I spoke to Pineda pre-match. “It’s a challenge,” she commented, paddle in hand, “some of the other people are really good. But someone’s always here to play.” It seems a community, small for now but hoping to expand, is already being established around the snazzy new tables, only in a much bigger basement.