Club of the Month - July

New Mexico Table Tennis Club

New club chooses pay-to-play, Debuts competitive format, Celebrates 34th anniversary

By Tom Wintrich

The New Mexico Table Tennis Club may be less than six months old but the spirit of the club goes back 34 years, ever since Dennis and Liz Gresham gathered informally with several others to play in the basement of one of the medical buildings at the University of New Mexico in 1969. In 1970, a young man named Vic Smith joined the mix and not very long after that, the one-table club had grown to eight and the basement had given way to a huge gym on Kirtland Air Force base on the south edge of Albuquerque.

Vic Smith became the president of this cooperative effort called the Albuquerque Table Tennis Club around 1973, and held office for the next 28 years. He was the master of procurement, including that gym on the air force base. Ever the gentleman, Vic, or most often, "Smitty," lead with soft-spoken diplomacy and a natural charm that helped convince people they should donate goods or services to his club. For years on tournament days, he would show up with donuts, coffee and juices as a gesture of hospitality to the participants. Club member Karen Hambleton increased the largesse of this courtesy, adding a lunch spread and a larger assortment of snacks in the late 90’s. Just last March, 2003, the new New Mexico club once again provided complimentary snacks and drinks to the participants in its first sanctioned tournament and once again, Vic Smith contributed to the tradition he had started years ago.

Smith was also the past president of his Toastmaster’s club, as well as his beloved Buffalo Soldier’s organization and he has organized the Senior Olympics for table tennis for some 15 years. Smith’s natural friendliness and sincere demeanor has won people over continually for decades and the players who formed the heart of the Albuquerque Table Tennis Club and who now comprise the New Mexico Table Tennis Club are grateful to have had his leadership and friendship for so many years.

It’s not like he’s gone; Smitty agreed with his friends when the decision was made to switch from a free venue supplied by the Albuquerque Parks and Recreation department to a pay-to-play venue located in the city’s nicest health club. Sound crazy to give up a free gym for one that costs $62 a month for each player? Not really – not when you get a private gym with wood floors and adjoining storage room three times a week plus a couple of swimming pools, two hot tubs and enough machines and free weights to challenge every muscle in your body. Besides, locating table tennis clubs within private health clubs may be the future of table tennis in the U.S. as the partnership between health club and table tennis club is near perfect. The health club provides superb playing conditions and a host of health-related amenities while the table tennis club provides income and programming opportunities for the health club.

Dennis and Liz Gresham, along with daughter Toni, agreed and were quick to support the formation of the NMTTC within the health club. Aside from being the first family of table tennis in New Mexico, the Greshams, as noted, have been present from the very beginning with Toni virtually growing up amidst bouncing balls. No other members in the last 34 years have come close to attending as many club nights as Dennis and Liz. They stand alone in that regard and represent the literal foundation of the club. In addition, Dennis functioned as treasurer for many of those 34 years while Liz directed many of the tournaments. Toni went on to participate in USATT’s first resident training program in Colorado Springs in the late 80s, breaking the 2000 level under the guidance of coaches Henan Li Ai and Ai Liguo.

Through thick and thin, Dennis and Liz Gresham have been there for table tennis in New Mexico, even when life dealt some tough cards for Dennis to play. Right-handed Dennis used to have one of the most wicked sidespin backhand loops in the country. He would swing his racket back to the right side of his right hip, backhand side facing out, racket head pointed down, and draw it forward quickly in front of his body in a sweeping arc from right to left, contacting the outside of the ball. This sweeping swing and follow-through would often produce pure sidespin shots that tortured his opponents. Most of the time he generated a combination of topspin and sidespin that was no easier to deal with. I had the pleasure of watching this shot land successfully again and again in a doubles match we won together over Ray Guillen and Tony Koyama somewhere back in the late 70s or early 80s. He had a more conventional loop off the forehand and a potent forehand kill, plus a few other strokes and tricks necessary to maintain a 1900 level game.

No more. Dennis Gresham had to give up the right arm to win his match against a rare form of cancer called malignant fibris histiocytoma, which attacks the sheaths of the nerves. Radiation therapy and two surgeries didn’t stop it and while there was no guarantee that amputation would, he was pretty much guaranteed the cancer would ultimately spread to his chest if the arm remained attached. Eliminating the pathway for the cancer to spread offered the best strategy to defeat his toughest opponent. He succeeded and is back playing the game as a lefty, showing up every night without fail and taking care of the club’s finances as treasurer. I have never heard him utter a single complaint about his fate.

I joined the New Mexico crew in 1975 and over the years made a few contributions of my own to this cooperative club, which most recently let me introduce a new competitive format for our first tournament as the New Mexico Table Tennis Club. I call the format Progressive Single Elimination, the ITTF calls it Progressive Knockout, but by either name it’s a single elimination event in which no one is eliminated, yet it truly cannot be called a round robin, although like a round robin, you are guaranteed a certain number of matches. Essentially, the winners and losers are funneled into progressively smaller single elimination brackets within the overall draw. The benefits are:

1. No one is eliminated from the draw.

2. Every time you play you have an opportunity to improve your position in the draw.

3. Each succeeding round naturally produces more significant matches for all players.

4. Everyone plays a semifinal and final match.

5. Everyone finishes in a specific place in the draw.

6. The format is easy to time schedule.

7. Conflicts need never occur.

The format was so well received by the participants in our Albuquerque Rating Championships last March that the NMTTC will use it again in August in the running of a two-man team event. You can see an example of the basic progressive knockout draw on page 12 of the 1997 ITTF Handbook for Tournament Referees or you can visit the USATT web site’s Tournament Director’s page to see the more colorful progressive single elimination draw.

The New Mexico Table Tennis Club is the end result of a close-knit group of table tennis friends who have well represented themselves, the game and the association for over three decades. On behalf of the members listed below, I say happy 34th anniversary to this six-month old club founded by Don Geeze, Dennis Gresham, Liz Gresham, Toni Gresham, Gary Gurtiza, Dan Hambleton, Karen Hambleton, Ken Lewis, Vic Smith, Marv Sommers and myself.