With this issue of the magazine, we are launching an "association primer" series that will provide you with a behind-the-scenes look at how and why leaders of USATT make decisions that affect the future of our association. We expect that these decisions will move our sport forward to greater heights, respectability and appeal, eventually culminating in the goal of producing Olympic and World Championship medalists.

Strategic planning is critical to our association’s success, which is one reason that the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) mandates each national governing body (NGB) under its umbrella to periodically review and revise its sport’s High Performance Plan (Plan). This article will give you a glimpse into the creation of our updated Plan and show how the Plan impacts the future of USA Table Tennis.

Kelly Skinner, our sport’s USOC liaison, and I discussed the Plan logistics during a one-hour phone conversation on August 10th, the day after I arrived home from the World Championships. On the next day we, along with his colleague Rebecca Crawford, spoke again for an hour.

The first draft of our updated Plan was due on 9/15. To accommodate this timeline, a designated group would meet the last weekend in August to put together the Plan. The Board would then meet two weeks later to review and revise the Plan in time to meet the deadline.

Obviously, this was not an ideal situation from a time-efficiency and deliberation-oriented viewpoint. It was caused by a mutual USOC/USATT decision made earlier in 1999 to postpone the originally scheduled spring-time meeting until we had held our elections and hired our new executive director.

Although the USOC was willing to grant us an extension on the 9/15 due date of the draft, I wanted to move forward so that we could meet other established deadlines. Specifically, our markers, the five criteria that tie in to some of our USOC funding, were due on 11/1 and the Board must approve our 2000 budget before 12/1. Since the budget flows from the markers and the markers flow from the Plan, seeking an extension would cause additional untenable delays.

Kelly and Rebecca also informed me of the USOC’s new approach to developing the Plan. In the past, when the USOC initiated this planning tool about five years ago, the Plan covered a broad array of issues. From now on, they said, the strategy to improve the Athlete Development Pipeline (Pipeline) will be the heart of the Plan. The essence of the Pipeline is to simultaneously widen the base of developing players at the foundation of a triangle-shaped pyramid while generating and supporting elite athletes as they progress to the apex of the triangle.

The USOC’s new approach put the emphasis on setting priorities, focusing more of our resources on those priorities, and making a commitment to following our Plan. As much as every association would like to be "all things to all people," for most associations, financial constraints and other realities make it impossible and unwise to have an all-encompassing, open-ended Plan.

Approximately 25% of our present operational budget comes from the USOC in the form of centralized funding. All spending of that funding must be related to our Plan’s identified Pipeline-related priorities. In fact, each year we must provide the USOC with an annual report documenting our compliance with the parameters set for the spending of centralized funding.

An additional sum of money from our joint marketing agreement with the USOC, now known as OPUS (Olympic Properties of the United States) brings up our overall USOC-related revenues to roughly 40% of our total current budget. We are not bound by any restrictions as to how we spend the cash from OPUS.

In order to understand the role of the Plan in USATT’s overall strategic planning, however, it is essential to know that "reserved for elite development expenditures" is essentially already stamped on 25% of our incoming revenue.

USATT receives 80% of our total USOC centralized funding allocation automatically. We receive the final 20% balance if we meet four out of five of our markers. If we accomplish all five markers, we receive 100% of our centralized funding allocation, plus some bonus money. A future report in this series will focus extensively on USATT’s budget.

The USOC strongly recommended that the Plan workgroup be limited to eight participants to ensure that we stay unified in our focus. To streamline the decision-making process as to who those participants should be, Kelly and Rebecca suggested as the attendees: the two national coaches, two athlete representatives, the executive director, the president, the treasurer and the youth committee chair (since the coaching committee chair was vacant). Accordingly, the invitees and drafters of the Plan were:

• Dan Seemiller, Men’s National Coach

• Doru Gheorghe, Women’s National Coach

• Jim Butler, National Athlete Rep.

• Tawny Banh, Athlete, Women’s Team Member

• Ben Nisbet, USATT Executive Director

• Sheri Pittman, USATT President

• Tong Lee, USATT Treasurer

• Barney Reed, Sr., Youth Committee Chair

Over the course of one weekend, the group drafted new mission, vision, and values statements; current and ideal Pipeline scenarios; a SWOT (strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats) analysis; and goals. The blend of association roles, personalities and objectives on the part of each participant meshed well. Discussions often sparked spirited debate. We all thought that Kelly did an excellent job of facilitating. He challenged us, not criticized us; then he guided us, not directed us; then he offered his on-going support to us, not abandoned us. This approach — combined with a fresh input of energy from the Board, new committee chairs, and a new Executive Director – promises to usher in a new era of invigoration for our association.

Two weeks later, Rebecca attended the Board meeting and gave an overview of the USOC’s expectations regarding the Plan. Echoing a statement Kelly made several times during the drafting weekend, she said that the Plan shouldn’t just exist as a binder on a bookshelf, but should serve as our association’s guiding document. The Board spent several hours reviewing the new Plan, revised some of the wording, then adopted it in principle.

The six key goals of the Plan mirror the critical success factors that we believe we must attain to improve our Pipeline. Although the goals are enumerated, at no time did we prioritize among the priorities, so the numbering of the goals is not significant. The wording of the goals may change slightly before the Plan is officially submitted for final approval in January. It is also possible that the plan may undergo some revisions at the Board’s November 12-14 meeting. These are the goals as this magazine goes to press:

1. Develop Olympic and World Championship medalists;

2. Increase funding sources;

3. Create a professional structure for domestically-held events;

4. Implement a nationals schools program;

5. Establish a high level of involvement and visibility within the international community;

6. Foster an environment in which USATT-affiliated clubs grow and prosper.

After the Board approved the Plan, Ben Nisbet and I worked together and sought input from other Board members, committee chairs and headquarters staff to develop USATT’s markers for 2000. During the time period I was preparing this report, the Board approved our markers. They are still subject to USOC review and ratification. I’ve condensed what we are submitting to the USOC by omitting the proposed documentation for each marker and re-worded some portions of the markers to conform to language I have used throughout this report.

As I wrote earlier, the markers are supposed to flow from the Plan. The markers should be challenging. At least two of the markers must relate to performance.

Since the USOC prohibits NGB’s from proposing marketing concepts and actual tournament staging as markers, there are no markers that directly flow from Goals 2 and 3. Instead, we are internally working on both goals. As the executive director, Ben Nisbet is the primary person responsible for increasing new funding sources, both through sponsorships and increased revenues. Margaret Smith is assuming responsibility for overseeing the creation of a binder that covers all aspects of USATT’s two major events (the Open and the Nationals).

USA Table Tennis will undertake four initiatives to identify, expand and support youth development programs at its affiliated clubs. Our existing club network is the best available domestic resource for junior development programs.

Strategies:

* USA Table Tennis will institute and maintain an annual club survey which locates and identifies existing junior development programs and junior recruitment efforts.

* USA Table Tennis will develop an on-line database of certified coaches offering youth development coaching.

* USA Table Tennis will develop a network of volunteer coordinators on a nationwide basis to assist affiliated clubs with the institution of youth development programs.

* USA Table Tennis will hold seminars for club representatives at each of the National events, including a seminar at the US Open, July 5th through July 9th in Fort Lauderdale with US Men’s Team Coach Danny Seemiller addressing topics relevant to instituting, expanding and marketing club-based youth coaching.

USA Table Tennis will undertake three initiatives to enhance youth development.

Strategies:

* USATT, in conjunction with an industry sponsor, will designate two regional areas to participate in a pilot program instructing teachers on how to teach table tennis to elementary school children.

* USATT will assess reasons for the downward trend in the participation level at the Junior Olympics and will adopt a 5-part plan to increase participation.

* USATT will dedicate a special youth activities oriented 2-page spread (with no more than a half-page ad) to youth activities in each issue of our national magazine and will create a youth activities link on our website.

USA Table Tennis will co-develop, with China, a trip for elite youth athletes and youth coaches that will focus on improving the youth athletes’ skills, exposing the youth coaches to the Chinese coaching techniques, and providing the players and coaches with a goodwill competition finale.

Strategy: USATT will send the elite youth players and youth coaches on the trip in the summer of 2000. (USATT reserves the right to designate an alternative country should an unforeseeable political or military action make travel to China inadvisable or impossible.)

Two of USATT’s elite youth athletes will achieve world rankings in 2000.

Explanation: The youth athletes will have to defeat at least two world-ranked players in order to become world-ranked themselves.

Either the Men’s or Women’s Team will improve their finish in the 2000 World Team Championships over their 1997 results.

Explanation: In 1997, USATT’s teams finished 25th (Men) and 31st (Women).

Next on the agenda is the approval of the budget for 2000. The Board will devote a considerable amount of time to setting next year’s budget during our mid-November Board meeting. Upcoming reports will provide additional information and details about the Plan, the markers, USATT’s budget and other association issues.

The next election for at-large or regional Board members is scheduled in 2001. The Board is aware of our duty to re-examine the current by-laws and standing rules pertaining to election issues. I am committed to keeping the membership informed of developments so that the membership has a chance to give input before the Board takes action on any proposed changes to the by-laws or standing rules.

As always, we welcome input from the membership, especially when the input helps our association to achieve its goals. Please contact us to discuss ways that you can help contribute to the success of our association’s future.

At the Nationals, there will be an open informational board meeting with the new ratings proposal the major topic. See your player’s packet at the Nationals for more information.