Youth of the Month:

"Carbo Cool" McCool

By Tom Wintrich

Lee McCool photo copyright 2000 by John Oros.

Lee McCool has an equipment sponsor. Better yet, the blade Lee McCool plays with bears his own name – the Carbo Cool, which, you have to admit despite the obviousness, is a pretty cool name. McCool also has a 2300-plus rating which made him eligible to compete in the recently concluded team trials in San Diego. Additionally, McCool logged two separate wins in Under 2500 singles in last season’s North American Tour competition and made an impressive showing in men’s singles at the Nationals in December, losing to the third seed, Khoa Nguyen, in four games in the eighths. None of this might seem extraordinary for a veteran player of the game, even for one who is 19 years old, as is McCool, since it’s not unusual for a teenager to have logged ten years in the sport. McCool, however, has only been playing four years. That’s certainly not a lot of time to go from clueless basement player to team trials participant.

Playing ping-pong at a friend’s house before discovering club play, in this instance, the Atlanta Table Tennis Club. Sound familiar? Of course, it’s the universal path to USATT competition, except McCool also had the good fortune of discovering Donn Olsen at the Atlanta club. Olsen immediately took the 15-year-old under his wing and began directing his development. In return, McCool gave Olsen three hours a day, six days a week for the first year. One of the interesting restrictions coach Olsen placed on his student was not allowing him to loop in that first year. Hit-only was the mantra and while that particular coaching strategy easily warrants a separate discussion, we just have space here for the obvious: Lee McCool can hit and loop, giving him two offensive weapons, and Lee McCool has only been looping for three years.

McCool continued to give more time to practice and by his senior year in high school (last year) was actually allowed to leave school at 1:15 in the afternoon so he could get in six hours a day of practice, usually broken up into two three-hour sessions. It had not been unusual for him to practice that long on weekends before his senior year, but now he was logging the serious time on weekdays as well. In addition, Olsen was taking McCool all around the country, competing in as many tournaments as possible. Practice. practice, practice plus ongoing tournament play, all under the guidance of a dedicated coach, has created a remarkable young player in a very short time. McCool is quick to credit his improvement to Olsen. And for those of you wondering why you might want to become a USATT certified coach as Dan Seemiller asks elsewhere in this issue, you have to consider the challenge of fostering great play in another person as Olsen has done.

Lee McCool wants to compete at the international level. In pursuit of his international ambitions, McCool is quick to overlook his current rating and his immediate achievements as relatively unimportant markers. He’s already logged experience on the ITTF pro tour, having joined that amazing collection of pro players that competed in the U.S. Open in Florida last summer, and on their next stop in Rio de Janiero, where he competed in the qualifying rounds of that summer’s Brazilian Open. He did not advance to the single elimination round but that was no great disappointment given the strength of that draw. Nevertheless, he hung out with the big boys and while he certainly was impressed with their play, especially Werner Schlager, he wasn’t intimidated into thinking he couldn’t someday play the game at their level. Going for the top rung on the ladder is an ambitious goal indeed, but given McCool’s proven work ethic (practice animal some say) and his lack of fear of the opposition as he says, it’s going to be an interesting climb for the rest of us to observe. We will have that opportunity at least through the 2001 U.S. Open, after which McCool hopes to go to Europe for fall league play.

What does Lee McCool like most about playing the game? "The excitement that comes from playing in the flow." And what does he mean by the "flow"? Essentially putting the whole playing package together in the heat of battle: footwork, strokes, composure, strategy and aggression. It’s a dance really, he agrees, the instantaneous choreography of competition, and it’s made all the more exciting when you’re fighting an opponent who is in the flow with you.

Michael Lalvani, owner of Spintech, witnessed enough exciting play of McCool’s that he decided to become his equipment sponsor. He took his commitment a step further by producing a signature blade for the young star who more than anyone else can now state matter-of-factly how cool it is to have his own carbon blade.

It’s going to take a lot more than coolness for Lee to fulfill his dream of being a serious international player, but if he can continue to use his work ethic to build upon the knowledge and skills he has acquired so quickly in his first four years, he’s got a legitimate shot at experiencing the excitement that comes from playing in the world-class flow. That would be cool.