Executive Director's Report

May/June 2004
By Teodor "Doru" Gheorghe

I would like to start my report by announcing that the U.S. Open/ITTF Pro Tour will be held in Chicago, at Navy Pier, June 30-July 4.  The official hotel is the Marriott Hotel. Information is available at the 2004 U.S. Open home page, linked to www.usatt.org.

Because there have been various rumors regarding the U.S. Open, let me clarify some issues:

• USATT is the organizer of the U.S. Open/ITTF Pro Tour, and is entirely responsibility for running these events.

• Killerspin is the Title Sponsor, and will be in charge of sponsorship management and TV Production of the U.S. Open/ITTF Pro Tour.  It also has the exclusive right to distribute event-related media it has produced for domestic USA broadcast and sales.

• North American Table Tennis (NATT) was hired by USATT to help with registration, scheduling and public relations to increase the number of entrants, draws and all logistics related to the U.S. Open.

• Butterfly is the table sponsor, Nittaku the ball sponsor, and Table Tennis Pioneers/Stiga/Escalade the clothing sponsor of the U.S. National Teams.

I would like to encourage everyone to participate in this tournament and enter before the deadline.  Because it is an ITTF Pro Tour event, we will not allow any entries after the deadline. 

I would like to thank all of you who contributed to the Floor Mat fundraising program, and I hope more of you will make donations in the future in order to improve our playing conditions at the 2004 Nationals.  As of this writing, $4925 has been raised. Each dollar you donate will make a difference.

From February 14-22, 2004, our junior boys’ and girls’ teams participated in an ITTF training camp in Koping, Sweden and in the Swedish Junior Open, in Orebro. There are more tournaments scheduled for this year for our National Junior and Cadet teams.

USATT is in the process of hiring a Technical/High Performance Director who will be in charge of coaching development, working with National team coaches, and other assigned tasks.

Administrative Coordinator Chris McCartney left USATT on March 8 to move to New York State and join her family.  USATT would like to thank her for the great job she did and wish her all the best.  I would like to welcome aboard Joyce Grooms as our new Administrative Coordinator.

New Committee Chairs were appointed and approved by the board: Morris Jackson chairs the Training Center Committee, and Ross Brown the Nomination and Election Committee.  Members of these and other committees will be in place soon.  All these committees will help USATT in implementing the USATT Developmental Strategic Plan. 

The USATT Online Forum is up and running, and I invite you to support it by visiting it often and participating in table tennis discussions.  If you have any questions related to USATT business, please feel free to ask on the forum (linked to www.usatt.org), or as always you may email me at ed@usatt.org.