USATT Lifetime Member Jim Mossberg Establishes First Table Tennis Scholarship at Virginia Tech
by Barbara Wei
Elizabeth and Jim Mossberg with Virginia Tech President Tim Sands at the grand opening of the War Memorial Hall in Blacksburg, VA. Sept. 2024.
Jim Mossberg started playing table tennis in the 1960s with his father and brother in New Jersey where he grew up. By the time he attended Virginia Tech in the fall of 1969, the casual table tennis game with his family had blossomed into a college interest. He spent his weekdays studying electrical engineering, and his weekends at the student union playing table tennis in a dedicated room with 6 tables. It was free to play and the room became a second home for Jim. Jim honed his table tennis skills in this room, advancing from only using hardbat to inverted sponge rubber, eventually becoming the #2 or #3 player at the university.
He made an incredible impact on the Virginia Tech table tennis community during his time there. He established the Virginia Tech table tennis club during his junior year and as a graduate student got the club recognized as an official club sport with university funding. Jim dedicated his weekends to table tennis, and soon ran 15 tournaments a year for the students. During his 6 short years at Virginia Tech, he established himself as a devoted fan of table tennis, which continued throughout his life.
Upon graduation in 1975, Jim moved to Maryland and pursued a career in electrical engineering as a federal employee. He married Elizabeth, a mathematician, and settled down into a life of work, gardening, travel and, of course, a lot of table tennis. Jim became a lifetime member of USATT in 1975 and played in his first sanctioned tournament that same year. As the president of the DC Metro table tennis club with 30 members, he ran one USATT tournament a year from 1977 – 1980 with the help of 15 club volunteers. Each tournament had about 150 players. He wrote a software program that made and printed the draw sheets, seeding and separating players from the same club. In 1990 he helped run the control desk at the World Veterans Championship in Baltimore. As the volunteer treasurer of the Baltimore club, he has supported the growth of grass roots table tennis for decades. Jim gained a peak rating of 2011 at age of 60 and retired from competition in 2023 after playing in the nationwide teams tournament for 25 straight years.
Yet he wasn’t done cementing his legacy in table tennis. In 2021, Jim began the process of giving back to the table tennis community at Virginia Tech, where the joy of table tennis began for him.
“I want people to do what I was able to do there. I had a lot of fun playing table tennis.” – Jim Mossberg
Over the next 4 years, Jim and Elizabeth established the “James E. ’73 and Elizabeth Mossberg Table Tennis Zone” at Virginia Tech. This dedicated table tennis space contains 14 tables across two rooms, tournament compatible LED lighting and beautiful wood floors. The table tennis zone is free for all students – making table tennis accessible and available to the entire university community. This dedicated table tennis space is the only one available in a university across the United States.
In September 2024, Jim and Elizabeth launched the Mossberg Table Tennis Scholarship, which awards two USATT members applying to Virginia Tech each a $30,000 scholarship to be put towards their studies. Awardees are chosen primarily based on their USATT rating. Minimum requirements for awardees include being a USATT member, pursuing a STEM degree at Virginia Tech and maintaining a minimum 3.0 GPA. More information about the scholarship can be found here.
“I want to encourage people, like 2200+ level players, to come to Virginia Tech. By seeing the better players play, others [in the Virginia Tech community] will try table tennis. Table Tennis isn’t a sport for just a few years. It’s a sport for life.” – Jim Mossberg
Jim Mossberg serves as a shining example of how table tennis can become a lifetime joy. He found his spark for the sport in the small table tennis space at the Virginia Tech student center more than 50 years ago and has remained a stalwart champion of the sport since then. His legacy, the table tennis zone and the scholarship, at Virginia Tech will inspire a new generation of table tennis players to contribute to the sport throughout their lives, just as Jim has.