Chen Xinhua & Sheri Pittman. Photo by John Oros Copyright 1999.

Happy New Year!

In the last issue of the magazine I outlined the goals of our new High Performance Plan (Plan) and our proposed markers for 2000. In this issue's "association primer," I will discuss our final markers for 2000, continued implementation of USATT's Plan, highlights of our budget for 2000 and some recent USATT news.

2000 Markers
The USOC approved the first four of our proposed markers, but rejected our fifth marker (the projected improvement in our teams' world rankings) as not challenging enough. Since we had the option to have only four markers, we decided not to negotiate an acceptable fifth marker. The four remaining markers for 2000, described in greater detail in the November-December magazine, are a club enhancement program, a youth enhancement program, a youth/coaches trip to China, and achievement of world rankings by two youth athletes.

Implementation of USATT's New Plan
Our approach in implementing USATT's new Plan will be both top-down and bottom-up. We will focus on incorporating the Plan's priorities into our business practices, Board and committee action, and our public relations activities. I will also attempt to resolve a number of governance irregularities that have become apparent over the past several months. I expect the Board to consider a number of proposed solutions during the Board's next meeting.

Approval of 2000 Budget
At the November Board meeting, the Board approved the budget for 2000. Three changes in USATT's bookkeeping functions within a four-month period, a new executive director, a new president, a new treasurer, a new Finance Committee, a newly-adopted Plan, and a new direction in our markers made for an overwhelming onslaught of too many changes at once. As a result, the process was very time consuming, but we all worked together to fashion a budget that reflects this administration's priorities.

Here are some of the highlights:

• For the first time, the Finance Committee will have a semi-annual meeting to reassess the mid-year status of the budget and to propose adjustments.
• The Youth Committee's budget increased by nearly 50%. We would have liked to increase it by even more, but because both the world championships and the Olympics will take place this year, we felt obliged to direct most of our centralized funding money to the National Team.
• Funding for the Club Development and Membership Services Committee increased significantly.
• We allocated some seed money to the League Committee to develop a regional league proposal.
• To compensate for the additional expenditures that caused a negative variance in the budget, we projected additional income from corporate sponsorships and other funding sources that we were confident Executive Director Ben Nisbet could secure during the year.
• The end result is a balanced budget of about $1.1 million.

Team USA Set to Wear Stiga
I am pleased to announce that USA Table Tennis has already entered into its first new sponsorship deal of 2000. The Table Tennis Pioneers, in partnership with Escalade Sports and Stiga, signed a 4-year clothing contract with USATT just as the magazine was going to press. The total value of the sponsorship - including apparel, cash payments, and joint marketing activities - is over $100,000. Thank you, Stiga! See page 44 for additional details.

Magazine Advertising Sets New Record
Editor Larry Hodges reported that this issue of the magazine set a new record for advertising revenues.

USATT Awarded USOC Contingency Grant
USA Table Tennis applied for and was granted partial funding for USATT's 2000 world championships expenses. Since the 1999 joint team/individual event in Belgrade was canceled, the ITTF re-scheduled the individual event in 1999 and the team event in 2000. Thanks, USOC, for helping us shoulder this unanticipated budget item.

January's Budgetary Impact
When added together, the cash payments from Stiga, the additional advertising money and the USOC grant, USATT - in January - is already roughly halfway toward meeting the extra revenues required to keep our budget balanced for the year!

Improvements Slated for Local and National Tournaments
At the recent North American Team Championships and the U.S. Nationals, I had the opportunity to chat with many members. I am pleased that participants expressed positive comments about both events.

Improvements are always welcome though. In our new Plan, we have committed our association to creating a more professional tournament structure. This year in lieu of allocating All-Star tournament funding, USATT decided to devote that money toward the creation of a comprehensive tournament production manual. We believe that the manual will ultimately benefit both the general membership and the elite players more than the All-Star tournament funding did.

USA Table Tennis intends to dramatically improve the staging of the U.S. Open and the U.S. Nationals. USATT will also take on a more prominent role in the national team event.

President's Choices for Awards
I would like to implement a three-category "President's Awards" in order to recognize our outstanding athletes and volunteers. Had I made these awards at the Nationals, I would have given them as follows:

• Michelle Do and Mark Hazinski for their U.S. Nationals performances, described in more detail in the tournament write-up. Also see pages 68-69 for a profile on each of them.
• Alan Williams for his outstanding volunteer contributions. Alan and his wife Erin suffered the loss of their daughters in a fire that destroyed their home in November. Yet they both helped run the North American Team Championships and the Nationals. Earlier in the fall Alan had created awe-inspiring club development and membership services materials. After the fire, he re-created the required membership documentation for our 1999 markers report.
• Aly Salam for excellence in tournament administration. Aly personally funded a meeting of key U.S. Nationals tournament coordinators over Labor Day weekend in order to implement scheduling improvements. This meeting resulted in a smoother-running tournament, tables operating at over 90% efficiency, and almost a 100% "on time" daily track record at the Nationals.

Superstars Put on Show at the Nationals
Last September Chen Xinhua, a former member of China's world champion team also known as "the chopper from England," called to offer me his support when he learned that I had become president. I asked him to perform an exhibition at our Nationals. As a favor to me, he said that he would and he also agreed to waive his usual show fee.

Cheng Yinghua accepted our invitation to be Chen Xinhua's exhibition partner - also at no cost to us. Cheng even allowed us to schedule the exhibition on his most grueling day of the tournament.

On behalf of USATT, I thank both Chen Xinhua and Cheng Yinghua. The 1999 Nationals videotape (see page 42) beautifully captured the entertaining combination of their world-class skills and humorous antics. (See page 51 for write-up and photos of the exhibition.)

I also want to thank both Escalade Sports/Stiga and Butterfly for their cooperation with USATT in planning the logistics of the exhibition. Our U.S. Nationals sponsor, Escalade Sports/Stiga, graciously granted their permission for the performance of the exhibition, which was financially supported by Butterfly and featured Butterfly-sponsored players.

Exhibitions Used to Attract Sponsors and Fund Elite Players
USATT's Executive Director Ben Nisbet has fashioned a new joint role for exhibitions. He is requesting potential sponsors to familiarize themselves with our sport and our association by hosting USATT-produced exhibitions. Generous stipends to the exhibition participants, underwritten by the potential sponsor, provide our elite players/top youth hopefuls with an innovative funding mechanism.

Bonus Paid to Pan Am Team Medalists
Last July our Pan Am team members - Dazid Zhuang, Eric Owens, Todd Sweeris, Gao Jun, Amy Feng, and Tawny Banh - swept both the men's and women's team gold medals. Additionally, David Zhuang won men's singles, Gao Jun won women's singles, and Amy Feng took the bronze in women's singles. Their accomplishments brought to the fore the fact that there was no USATT budgetary allocation for performance bonuses. Treasurer Tong Lee personally solicited donations for this cause.

USATT presented the bonus money to them at the Nationals. Pan Am team captain Todd Sweeris thanked the donors, Team Leader Bob Fox, and coaches Dan Seemiller and Doru Gheorghe for their support.

On behalf of the association, I extend my thanks to the following companies and members whose generous contributions enabled the athletes to receive monetary recognition for their wonderful achievement: Butterfly, Escalade Sports/Stiga, California Table Tennis Company, Table Tennis International, and Paddle Palace. Individual contributors were: Jerry Young, Dr. Jiing Wang, Ross Brown, Patrick Lee, Tong Lee, Alex Li, James Do, Khoa Nguyen, Ben Nisbet, Marius Wechsler, Sheri Pittman, Barney Reed and Dennis Taylor.

Spotlight on Our Junior Members of the National Team
The latest issue of Table Tennis Illustrated dubs Michelle Do and Keith Alban as "tomorrow's stars." Congratulations, Michelle and Keith. For USATT's renewed focus on youth players, turn to the new "Youth Pages" on pages 68-69.

Onward and Upward
Pivotal changes slated for - and already occurring - in 2000 mesh well with our association's journey from one century into the next. I am confident that as we adhere to our Plan by setting new and higher standards for USATT, we will bring increased recognition and visibility to the wonderful sport of table tennis.