Table Tennis, Anyone?

Tom Keyser - Times Union Staff Writer - October 18, 2005

Believe it or not, pingpong is being promoted as the new poker

You've played pingpong. Of course you have.

You've chased balls -- those darned elusive balls ... remember? -- around your neighbor's basement when you were in the sixth grade. You've played at church camp when -- you can admit it now -- you really wanted to be chasing girls. You've played on the rickety table at the recreational hall down the street, you know, the table with the ripped net.

And then, after playing pingpong, you forgot about it. Of course you did.

Now, JAG Entertainment, a public-relations firm in Los Angeles, is touting pingpong, or, table tennis, as JAG calls it, as "really hip" and "the new poker" and the perfect solution to the obesity epidemic in this country. A JAG publicist writes in an e-mail: "Everyone is playing this game."

It should be noted that JAG Entertainment works for Killerspin, a Chicago manufacturer of table-tennis equipment. Killerspin sponsors table-tennis tournaments on ESPN.

Killerspin also sponsors Barney Reed Jr., one of the country's top table-tennis players. Killerspin sent Reed to Albany recently to play and promote this sport as part of Ultimate College Weekend, a two-day promotion of activities and products for students at Pepsi Arena.

"Pingpong is popular enough," Reed said. "All it would take is prize money, and you'd see a huge surge of interest in pingpong. You see the kids in the hood picking up a basketball. Why? Because they can make $20 million."

Middle Ground

According to the National Sporting Goods Association, which conducts annual surveys of participation in sports and activities, table tennis ranks 32nd out of 65.

Larry Weindruch, spokesman for the Illinois-based group, said 7.7 million people in the United States 7 or older play table tennis more than once a year. That's the same number that played it five years ago, he said.

In the Capital Region, interest in table tennis has remained steady, said Doug Lee, director of the Clifton Park Table Tennis Club. He said he knows of only two other clubs in the area, one in Niskayuna, the other at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Lee said membership in his club varies from 12 to 16.

"I think it could be more popular," said Lee, who was born in China. "But the U.S. is driven by dollars, mainly. And we all know what the money sports are. Kids want to be Michael Jordan or Joe Montana."

The Bad Boy

Barney Reed Jr. has been a baaaaad boy.

If table tennis had more money behind it, then kids might want to be Reed. He is the self-described bad boy of table tennis. He was suspended from competition for two years after testing positive for steroids at the North American Championships in 2001.

A drug scandal in pingpong? This, of course, made Reed, 27, the best-known pingpong player in the country. He became the butt of a joke on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." He played table tennis with Adam Sandler and Conan O'Brien on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." Sports Illustrated dubbed him King Pong.

Unlike drug-abusing athletes in other sports, Reed was neither arrogant nor defiant. A trim 6-foot, 175 pounds, he talked openly about his ban by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which tests athletes in competitions leading to the Olympics. He even called it "something of a hidden blessing."

"Nobody knew who I was," said Reed, who lives in California. "I'd been the national doubles champion, the North American doubles champion, and four times I'd played in the world championships representing America. All those good things, and then one bad thing, and I'm famous."

Steroid Use

Fame came, he said, by walking into General Nutrition Center in 2001 and asking the clerk what he could take to retain weight. He'd been training extensively and getting skinny, and here he was, single and in his early 20s, wanting to look buff, he said.

The clerk recommended androstenedione. Reed took it. He said that he didn't know it was a steroid, that four years ago the bottle didn't display the warning it does today. Steroids aren't something table-tennis players want anyway, he said.

"You don't have to have bulk in table tennis," he said. "The bigger, bulkier you are, the slower you are. You've got to be like a cat quick."

Reed spent his two-year suspension, 2001-03, in Taiwan training with some of the best table-tennis players in the world. He said he's a better player now and hopes to compete in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Reed began playing pingpong when he was 2 -- his father hung a ball on a string from the ceiling for the boy to hit -- and competed in his first tournament when he was 8. He won the national championship for every age group from 10 to 22.

Table tennis, he said, is "the best-kept secret in America." It's fun, and it's good exercise, he said.

"The fountain of youth everybody's searching for is exercise," Reed said. "If you do it right, pingpong is one of the best exercises out there. Look at all the people in this country who are obese. Table tennis is a great way to get them off the couch."

Smack In The Middle

Table tennis ranks 32nd out of 65 in the latest survey of participation in sports and activities by the National Sporting Goods Association. Table tennis, with 7.7 million participants in the U.S., ranks just behind off-road biking (8 million) and just above canoeing (7.5 million). Most popular sports and activities in the U.S.:

1. Exercise walking 84.7 million
2. Camping 55.3 million
3. Swimming 53.4 million
4. Exercising with equipment 52.2 million
5. Bowling 43.8 million
6. Fishing 41.2 million
7. Bicycling 40.3 million
8. Billiards and pool 34.2 million
9. Working out at a club 31.8 million
10. Aerobic exercising 29.5 million

Other sports of note:

1. Basketball 27.8 million
2. Running and jogging 24.7 million
3. Golf 24.5 million
4. Hunting with firearms 17.7 million
5. Baseball 15.9 million
6. Soccer 13.3 million
7. Softball 12.5 million
8. Volleyball 10.8 million
9. Tennis 9.6 million