(From Nov/Dec 1999 USA Table Tennis Magazine)

Here are a number of top USA junior programs that were featured in USA Table Tennis Magazine recently.

The junior scene in Atlanta, Georgia is looking stronger than ever with both clubs in town running organized junior training programs.

Ralph Presley, along with W.C. Cleveland, has organized the program at the Central Atlanta Table Tennis Club, which meets at Coan Park. In addition, Ralph also conducts an outreach program at the Ben Hill Recreational Center several days each week. These programs are producing a large crop of up-and-coming juniors.

National Coaches Richard McAfee and Mladen Lijev are coaching sixteen cadets and juniors twice a week at the Atlanta Table Tennis Association (Chastain Park). Team members are aged from 7 to 17 years old.

Other coaches have helped out from time to time, including George Cooper and CATTC's President Donn Olsen. Donn's student, Lee McCool, is quickly rising into the national ranks.

Top Atlanta Juniors include:

• T. J. Beebe 2393
• Lee McCool 2132
• John Mar 1883
• Alex Yadgarov 1883
• Philip Mar 1804
• Robert Anderson 1743
• David Perkel 1442

With this many juniors training, Atlanta will be bringing a large contingent to next year's Junior Olympics in Orlando, Florida. See yuh-all there!

The Augusta Table Tennis Club has been developing youth table tennis in Augusta since 1968 when Pete May began a youth training program at the local Boys' Club. The program has evolved over the years into the Augusta School League that operates October to February every year. Derek May took over as the Youth League Director last year with David Cole organizing the 1999-2000 competition year.

The emphasis of the league is to create an environment where juniors can enjoy the league for itself or provide motivation for players to seek further training. The Richmond County Recreation Department has set up a training program for juniors that are interested in enhancing their skills. The County provides facilities and has hired Xin Peng to coach twice a week.

Several juniors have improved to the point of playing in USATT sanctioned events. Michael Hadsell, Jr. (17) has traveled to most of the national tournaments over the last couple of years. Allison Cole (11) and James Cole (9) participated in the 1999 Junior Olympics. Several other junior players have been participating in the sanctioned Augusta Circuit tournaments.

Future plans include having age events in local sanctioned tournaments, organizing a special Junior Championships in February 2000, and forming junior teams to attend the U.S. Nationals in December and the Junior Olympics next August.

Here's a brief rundown of the many junior programs in this area.

Concord TTC
This club is actually located in Pleasant Hill. Coach is Bill Lui, USATT Developmental Coach of the Year in 1996. Junior training classes are on Mondays, Tuesdays and Sundays. Program has produced Freddie Gabriel, Piotr Zajac and Terrence Lee, and trained Michelle Do, Kyna Fong and Jackie Lee. Current promising 2nd generation juniors are 10-year-old Sergey Gutkin, 11-year-old Atha Fong, 11-year-old David On, and 11-year-old Trevor Runyan.

Palo Alto TTC
Located at the Cubberley Center, a large community center in Palo Alto. Head Coach is Dennis Davis. Associate coaches are Zhi-yong Wang and Valery Sakisov. Training classes Saturdays and Sundays. Has produced former top juniors such as Shashin Shodhan, Vineet Agarwal and Jimmy Guan. Current top junior is 16-year-old Michelle Do; some up-and-coming juniors are Vadim Sherman (14) and Auria Malek (13).

Sunset TTC
Club is located at Glen Park Rec Center in San Francisco. Produced former top junior Mark Liu and Jackie Lee (14). Training classes are on Saturdays and Sundays. Up-and-coming juniors include Mikhail "Misha" Kazantsev (12) and Wallace Liu (14).

Daly City TTC
Located at the Daly City War Memorial Rec Center. The club's coach, Richard Hernandez, coaches 13 junior players, whom he puts through both regular table practice and off-table practice, including weight training, jumping rope and shadow practicing.

San Jose TTC
Masaaki Tajima coaches juniors twice a week at this club.

In 1997, Keith Alban, our student for five years, was safely embarked on his training program in Sweden, joining former student Randy Cohen in full-time professional play and training in Sweden. The two-table club in the Laural Gardens Apartment Complex, where we had developed Keith, T.J. Beebe, Anthony Torino and a number of other national champions, had closed and we were using a physical fitness club for lessons. One student's father turned out to be the principal of the Chinese Cultural School in Coral Springs. He invited us to the school to see what could be done. Their program consisted of two old tables which they put up once a week, a handful of adults and a couple of juniors. Terese and I rolled up our sleeves, went to work, and a year and a half later are proud to report that we now have a constantly growing group of some 35 kids, ages 6 to 17. Our tournament playing team consists of 20, with the beginner and intermediate group numbering about 15. Along with their private lessons there are two elite team training sessions and two beginner sessions per week. This is all done on six Stiga tables and a seven-day-a-week training program.

Our summers consist of wall-to-wall training camps, and along with our senior citizens and parent's programs, we are in the process of starting our junior after-school program. We took six of our kids to the Junior Olympics in Cleveland, and the six won ten medals. All had been playing less than a year, and one 10-year-old girl, after playing only seven months, won silver in singles, doubles and teams. The interest and support of the Chinese Community has been incredible, and thanks to tremendous support from the principal, Mr. Sug Chan, our Chinese connection has been the happiest table tennis experience of our lives.

The South Bend junior program, started in 1992 by Brad Balmer, has averaged around 25 students per year. In 1994 the club hired Victor Tolkachev, originally from Latvia and trained in the Russian system. The juniors benefitted from his knowledge and tough approach. Victor stayed for three years and then returned to Latvia.

In 1996 I was hired and the program has successfully continued. We currently have 10 varsity, 4 junior varsity and 12-15 cadet members. Varsity is for players over 1200, J.V. for other rated juniors and the cadet group is for beginners. Our program is unique in that the club's main focus is on the junior players.

The facility that we play in is partially sponsored by the South Bend Parks and Recreation Department, has 12 tables, excellent lighting, and 8,000 square feet of space. NEWMAR Corp. is the main contributor to our program. NEWMAR Corp. manufactures mobile homes and last year sponsored the $10,000 St. Joseph Valley Open at Notre Dame.

Our junior playing schedule is: four days per week for varsity, three days per week for junior varsity, and two days per week for cadets.

Ratings and ages of our USATT juniors:

• Mark Hazinski 14 2199
• Randy Hewitt 18 2174
• Nate Troyer 17 2122
• Jared Lynch 15 1981
• Jordan Lynch 13 1914
• Joe Clemmons 14 1689
• Yukio Kamizuru 16 1644
• Andy Cochran 14 1513
• Gordon Cochran 11 1451
• Joe Cochran 10 1323
• Janelle Hazinski 12 560
• Katie Hazinski 9 227

The Maryland Junior Program dominated the Junior Olympics and Junior Nationals in the 1990s, winning more gold medals and total medals than any other state every year from 1992-1999. In all but one of these years they won more golds than all other states combined. They also have had the largest contingent of players every year since 1992, usually sending about 30 junior players - more than any other state every Junior Olympics this decade.

Coaches Cheng Yinghua and Jack Huang and I have been the main full-time coaches during this period (although I am no longer full-time), with a number of part-time coaches also helping out.

The program began at the Potomac Country Table Tennis Club (PCTTC) in the late 1980s. The club brought in Cheng and Jack as full-time coaches, and both began thriving coaching businesses. In 1991, Cheng and Jack and I opened the National Table Tennis Center, a full-time table tennis facility. It moved to its current location in Gaithersburg in 1997 (about eight miles from PCTTC), and became the Maryland Table Tennis Center (MDTTC), with seven co-owners.

Nearly 100 hours of coaching take place each week at the MDTTC and PCTTC. Well over half of this is junior training, with a huge influx of players in the 9-12 age group the past few years. Group junior training sessions are held three times a week at MDTTC, twice a week at PCTTC. Most advanced junior players attend about two group sessions per week, take one to two hours per week in private coaching, and attend one of the clubs for open play about one to two times per week. As of August, 1999, there were 73 juniors from Maryland who were USATT members (most from MDTTC/PCTTC), as well as a number from Virginia who also play or train at these clubs - too many to list here. (There were also many Maryland/Virginia juniors playing/training who were not - yet - among the 73 USATT members.)

I currently have thirty to forty children between the ages of six and sixteen training with me each week. Most come to the Saturday Clinics, some take private lessons, and others do both. My Saturday clinics are one and one-half hours long. I schedule the training classes on a four-week cycle.

I use ten tables on four racquetball courts. There are usually two to three coaches and a couple of practice partners. I use a newgy robot on one of the tables. During these sessions I move the kids around to different stations. You will find some playing matches or practicing drills and others will be with the coaches who will be correcting and refining their techniques. The coaches will teach the children the correct strokes and each child will take turns at the table while the coaches feed the balls and make suggestions. During the four-week session I will schedule organized competitions. I will match up the groups based on skill level, to make it more competitive.

There have been quite a few who have come out of these sessions and become competitive tournament players. My son and daughter both started this way. Adam (11) has just reached 2100, and my daughter, Judy (9), is 1100. They are both number one in their age groups, and they each won four gold medals at the Junior Olympics this past August. I am very proud of their accomplishments. There are others that have great potential and I am sure you will see and hear from them in the future.

Table tennis is a wonderful sport that people can play all their lives. Those that learn correct techniques and have sound basics can achieve higher levels of expertise and will have more enjoyment from the sport. It is very important to start the juniors with good basics because their potential is limitless. Clinics such as mine give children a chance to play with other children while learning these techniques.

Like most clubs in the U.S., the Portland Table Tennis Club consists mostly of balding middle-aged men. The junior program at the PTTC is in the development stage and is small in numbers, with about 8 to 10 regulars. Most young people have many different activities and sports to choose from, so we have found it difficult to market the sport of table tennis. Many of the juniors in the PTTC, like in many clubs in the U.S., are children of club members. Since table tennis players can produce a limited number of children we have found the need to recruit players from the schools.

We have performed many school exhibitions to promote our program, but they have yet to bring a single junior into our program. Last year we developed table tennis teams in nine High Schools in the local area, and the kids enjoyed the team matches we organized. However, it was very disappointing because very few of these teenagers took the sport seriously, and so they had little interest in coming to a structured practice session. Our strategy this year is to develop after school programs in four to five local elementary and three to four junior high schools. We have started our first after school program at Lot Whitcomb grade school and over 20 children are involved. The students meet twice a week for an hour and a half. Most of the children from Lot Whitcomb have never played table tennis, so it has been fun to watch their improvement. This week for the first time the children from Lot Whitcomb will join our junior sessions at the PTTC. From the excitement these kids are showing it looks like our strategy is working.

The PTTC junior training sessions are Wednesday and Friday nights. Fan Yi Yong leads the practices, assisted by his wife Wei Xiao and Tim Titrud. The juniors take turns with multiball training with Wei and Yong. The children work on drills, and teamwork is stressed. The more advanced kids are required to spend time helping the beginners.

Last year, the juniors took a trip to Houston to play and train with their juniors (see July/August issue, page 17). This was very successful, and we will be planning other trips this year in order to keep the kids' interest high.

In February of 1997, HTTC founded its junior program under the supervision of General Manager Roberto Byles and Head Coach Viktor Subonj. They have been working together for the last two years and the first results are starting to show. "We felt that something was missing in our club," Roberto said, remembering how everything started. "We thought if we start with the kids, the club will have long-term members."

After numerous exhibitions at schools and community centers, the first kids started to come in. "We started the program with twice a week sessions and extended it to three times per week. Our goal is to find sponsors for the program and extend sessions to every day," Viktor said. Both agreed that the most difficult thing is to keep the kids interested.

"Organizing various tournaments for their age groups is definitely a good motivator," Roberto said. Viktor added, "Our goal is creating an optimal training system that can compete with any other system in the world. That will be possible with the help of sponsors."

The group has 16 kids between the ages of 7 and 14, with most of them practicing regularly. Recently, some of the Houston juniors have produced excellent results. Howard Lamb (14) won the U1900 event and came in second in U2000 at the U.S. Open in Ft. Lauderdale. Until recently turning 14, he was ranked second nationally in Under 14 with a rating of 2127. 13-year-old Niv Regev's rating is 1634 after just one year of hard practice, while Timothy Wang (8) is ranked fourth nationally in the Under 10 category. Ori Melnik is ranked sixth in Under 10, and Kimberly Byles is awaiting her first rating. They are all strongly motivated to practice harder and improve their skills. Howard Lamb's goal is to become the best junior in the country in two years, while Timmy Wang wants to be the top-ranked Under 10 by next year. Roberto and Viktor both concluded that targeting kids from different ethnic communities, Chinese, Vietnamese, Jewish, Russian, etc., may be the key to making our junior program even more successful.