League Spotlight: iGoLogic

by Barry Or

I believe the creation of the USATT Team League infrastructure is a powerful step toward the goal of promoting table tennis. To fully achieve this, I believe that we must do something to help in the acceleration of this process. I personally started to recruit players to form teams to play in the USATT Team League. At the same time, I was looking for sponsors. I believe that having sponsorships will help promote the USATT Team League to the world.
I registered three teams and found a local high tech company called iGoLogic to sponsor two of them (note that I do not work for this company). iGoLogic promised that they would provide team uniforms and pay for our registration fees. In my discussions with iGoLogic I mentioned the need for balls, paddles, rubber, glue, towels, socks, shoes, drinking water, etc ( iGoLogic even created a website for the team (www.igologicteam.com) Thus, the iGoLogic Inspiration and Innovation teams were formed.

This season, after four ties, team iGoLogic Innovation— Barry Or (captain), Gary Fang, Michael Liu, Mark Johnson, Peter Tsang, Wen Huang and Winston Chen— found itself in the middle of the pack with just a 2-2 record after suffering two close 2:3 losses on the road. We would probably have to go undefeated in our final eight ties to have a chance of playing in the finals in Las Vegas.

We won our next six ties before a critical tie against the Indian Community Center team at our home venue. They had defeated us earlier in the season, but we both entered this tie with two losses. Certainly we had to win this tie to have any hope of continuing on to the finals in Las Vegas. And win it we did, just escaping with a 3:2 victory.

The last league match for iGoLogic Innovation was on the road against a quickly improving team from Palo Alto Table Tennis Club. The PATTC team representatives were USA Cadet Girls members Lily Zhang, Natalie Sun, and Brian Chen. But the iGoLogic Innovation representatives (Winston Chen, Mark Johnson, and Barry Or) closed the league season in style with a 5-0 victory.

To prepare for the USATT Team League finals in Las Vegas, the iGoLogic Innovation team is practicing every Tuesday night. One of the top rated Milpitas Sports Center players, Nelson Yu, has volunteered to coach the team. We appreciate this tremendous sacrifice and support from our MSC family.
The iGoLogic Innovation team reached a major milestone in winning the division title of our region. We are now focused on making the final step towards achieving our goal of winning the inaugural Under 1900 USATT Team League championship at the 2007 US Open.