Sportsmanship Rises Again!

By Bill McLaughlin - Cub Reporter, Table Tennis Dayton

I'm a self-effacing sort of guy, and don't generally "toot my own horn", but I must relay an anecdote of mine while at the recent Buckeye Open. As the titles suggests, it concerns the subject of sportsmanship - a somewhat forgotten philosophical component of competition.

First, just what is "sportsmanship"? No, it's not sea-faring race. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Ed. defines the word as the following:

sports·man·ship (spôrtsmn-shp, sprts-) n.

• The fact or practice of participating in sports or a sport.
• Conduct and attitude considered as befitting participants in sports, especially fair play, courtesy, striving spirit, and grace in losing.

Sportsmanship, seemingly long buried, rises once more.

It is the second component of the definition that is the most problematic for hot-headed, heat-of-the-moment "warriors", regardless of the sport or activity and the portion of the definition that is the subject of this article.

In our "win at all costs" society - where an extolled Hall of Fame Pro Football coach, Vince Lombardi, once opined, "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" - sportsmanship is often one of the first casualties in the march to victory. The recent steroid scandals in baseball and other sports attest to that as well though performance enhancing drugs in sport is certainly nothing new.

For the upcoming 48th World Table Tennis Championships, the Chinese Table Tennis coach Cai Zhenhua stated, "The priority is to retake the men's single crown at any cost." During the 1995 World Championships in Tianjin, China, amidst allegations of cutting electrical power during Swedish team practice, and 3am phone calls disturbing their rivals sleep, it seems the Chinese are not exempt from examples of dubious sportsmanship in order to "win at any cost".

So just what is the example of sportsmanship I mentioned?

I had entered two events at the Buckeye Open: Open Hardbat Singles and U1900 Hardbat. I was looking forward more to the first event as I was eager to play (and get wiped out) by local table tennis and hardbat guru John Tannehill. I had hopes for playing Dan Seemiller, a second-place finisher in Open Hardbat at the Buckeye in 2004, but he told me at the Arnold Killerspin Tournament that he'd be in China with the U.S. team and miss this year's Buckeye. A bummer, but an unexpected bonus was seeing Eric Owens and Courtney Roberts in the event. I ended up indeed getting wiped out by John Tannehill, but played Courtney Roberts quite close, losing at 18 in both games. I missed out on being demolished by Eric Owens.

It was in the U1900 Hardbat event where I had my chance to succeed. The players were myself, Berndt Mann, Tournament Director Steve Slaback, and Corey Orescanin in one group, and Mark Shapiro, Newgy rep Roger Dickson, and Royce Wong in the second group.

After redeeming my loss to Berndt Mann at the October 9, 2004 Columbus tournament, I played the harried, hyper-busy Steve Slaback. Just getting him to the table was a chore in and of itself due to his manic and multiple duties running the tournament, and having finally done so, it turned out that he'd neglected to pack his hardbat!

The cheap-o (2 for $8 at Walmart) Sportcraft paddles on the left, and the Stiga/Friendship 802 on the right.

Fortunately, I have a triple-pack of hardbats: my main paddle, a Stiga Master blade with Friendship 802 on both sides, and two "backup" Walmart purchased Sportcraft cheap-o hardbats. The 802 rubber has good grip and is quite capable of imparting some spin on the ball, but the Sportcraft rackets have no such capability and are as slick as a Wall Street lawyer. Corey Orescanin plays with the Sportcraft, apparently exclusively, but heaven help the inexperienced player who tries to "topspin" the ball with a Sportcraft. It just slips off the surface into the table if not the net.

To his dismay, this is what Steve found out after I gave him a Sportcraft and we rallied prior to our match. Clearly inexperienced with the Sportcraft, he was about to become easy meat on my meal-ticket for U1900 dominance. Predictably, the ball was slip sliding away off the racket

And it was then that I committed the greatest example of sportsmanship displayed in the history of Earth (I brag modestly): I swapped paddles, offering Steve my primary paddle, while I would wield "El Cheapo".

Steve serving with my favorite paddle, the Stiga/802. Fortunately the Sportscrap ... er, craft came through.

The chances of me winning sunk from a near sure thing of 90% to ... oh, maybe 55%. Sure enough, Steve found my bat much better suited to his "offensive" style of play, and he was able to spin and hit hard. Meanwhile, I had to satisfy myself with a push/chop game with an occasional pick hit off of backspin balls.

Now to be honest, and as a "safety net", I told Steve that if he were to win the first game, why I'd need to switch back our paddles. I may be the über-sportsman of the planet - certainly the arena, but I didn't want to completely tank away the match, and thus the event without a ... well, sporting chance.

Fortunately, the first game went my way, as I was able to play a relatively steady defensive game, while Steve wasn't entirely acclimated to the hardbat and made a few more unforced errors than I did. We switched sides but not paddles.

Though Steve was quickly becoming accustomed to the paddle, and was really starting to hit the ball well, I was still able to fend him off, and at the end, I won the match and eventually the event, as I beat Mark Shapiro in the U1900 Hardbat finals for the 1st place finish.

Is sportsmanship a dying philosophy? I'm happy to say that at least for this cub reporter, it is alive and well.

Now, if I had lost ...

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