Stories From Behind the Building:
An Intricate View of the Portland Table Tennis Club

I was eight years old when I started going to the BINGO building. Well, not exactly to play BINGO, and not exactly at that very building, but just to the left of it; an unimpressive place to say the least, a place where, except for those who ever bothered to go and the BINGO players whose parking spots we sometimes stole, no one would know or care about those walls or what went on within them. And it’s probably a shame for them because what was contained inside, the entity that this structure housed, was – still is – amazing. I’ve tried to explain it before, what it is and what it means to me, but each time I start on one aspect, my recollections instinctively lead me to tell about another. This is because each detail of this place, of these people; each story, is a gateway to more.
Physically, the squat building’s interior was just as aesthetically pleasing as the outside, which means little, but that I remember it so vividly may say something. Green ping-pong tables, of course, followed by colors that would make an expressionist painter proud. Cement floors painted a dull red. Black netted material that draped down across the horizontal half of the club for what other use than to make ball fetching easier. Light blue benches. Bright pink padding around the columns that held the old building up. A steel desk in the corner of the club that kept the logbook of the Portland Table Tennis Club members and fees. One old vending machine that dispersed soda and another one covered in a fake wood finish, maybe the classiest looking thing our club had.

The story behind the soda machine – Junk Rubber:
The junk food was dutifully manned by Sam Ignazitto. Sam is an important figure to the club; not only did he refill the Coca-Colas for years without fail and ran the Tuesday night league, but he also doubles as a left-handed trickster, anti-spin rubber on the backhand. Thus high caloric snacks were not the only types of junk that Sam dealt our club’s members. He is a classic junk rubber player, and the Portland Table Tennis Club had quite a few of these in its prime. There is Phil Goldsmith, with a way to hold the racket that I’m not even sure how to describe except to say it is a Seemiller-grip turned out of the ordinary, and Bill Mason, classic long-pips on the backhand coupled with a mean forehand smash. And our choppers: Mark Kobernick, the epitome of friendly who appropriately ran the Saturday open plays; Bob Ho, editor of a one-page PTTC newsletter before e-mail became popular; and Jim Scott, tournament director of Portland’s annual four-star Pacific Rim Open tournament. Some still play and others do not, but all of them have served on the club’s Board of Directors at one point or another, and most for many years.

The story behind the story behind the soda machine – the Club Elections:
I knew that the American President was George Bush and later Bill Clinton, but my first real knowledge, real appreciation of a democratic election was in the yearly Portland Table Tennis Club elections. Because I was a rightful member who paid dues as any, I received a ballot and was granted the right to vote. At nine years old, I did and when the tallied results came out, I knew that my vote meant something.

These men voluntarily ran the club because they played and wanted others to as well, and they played because they loved to. As the club’s signature junk rubber masters, their ratings would remain stagnant for much of the year as they competed within Portland territory, jockeying with one another for those prized points; but come Nationals when a core group of them flew to Vegas in December, it wasn’t unusual to find that many of their victims believed that they were severely underrated, never having seen the likes of an anti-rubber chicken wing stroke from Sam as he covered his forehand with his backhand, or Jim’s sheer determination to return every ball. In fact, Jim often claims that he lost, what was it, ten, twenty pounds, in the span of one Nationals tournament.
The impact on me that these men had went beyond the fact that they ran the club. Because there was never a permanent coach in Portland aside from Fan Yiyong’s stint prior to moving to Seattle, Sam, Bill, Jim and others were my junk rubber coaches. Mark, Peter Wong, and my father (the latter two are both pen-hold attackers but chop on the reverse backhand with long-pips) were my chopping coaches. No one ever explained to me what junk rubber was or what to do with it, but I learned soon enough through the countless games I played against them.

The story behind the story behind the soda machine – Practice, PTTC Style:
I don’t think I had ever done a drill until I went to a USATT camp as a junior team member, and didn’t know how real training should be conducted until I trained abroad. As a result, my footwork still suffers, as do some of my strokes. But I could play games because that is what we do in Portland. Approach the table, forehands, backhands – you get three minutes tops – hide the ball and get rolling. Play how you want to and aim to win.

My so-called coaches along with the most regular club members competed in the Tuesday and Thursday night leagues. Each league ran for ten weeks and the format kept players coming. All players started on a “table,” with each table standing for a group of five to six players. The top two finishers from each table moved up to a higher table (higher group) the next week, and the bottom two would move down. It was serious enough competition that players who knew they would have to miss a league night would designate their own “subs” to take their spot in hopes that they would not get demoted the following week.
My sister Emily and I started on the bottom table, table six. We played regularly with Fumi Onchi, the only female member on the club’s Board, and Verne Berrett, a lobber older than my grandfather who taught me to play table tennis for no other reason than because it’s enjoyable. My father who mostly played on table two and sometimes one, would drive us out to Portland twice a week for the leagues and Emily and I always had bragging rights at school, able to say that we stayed out past ten on a weeknight playing ping pong. Soon, us two girls moved our way up, past table four and Bruce Bayley, the club’s all-time handyman and helper who still keeps me updated on all things PTTC when I’m not there. I typically hovered around a table for four to six months before moving up more permanently to the next. By the time I was eleven, I was rated around 2000 and played on table one consistently. But more importantly, my march to the first table allowed me to get to know most of the club’s players, many of who became some of my closest friends.

The story behind the story behind the soda machine – William “Bill” Mason:
Bill Mason was a true man; a man that deserves more than a paragraph, which is why I keep him in my thoughts all the time, often causing me to pause for long moments to reminisce. He was a gritty player. The long pips on his backhand never left him, although he liked to toil with different rubbers and blades, and would tell me about each new piece of equipment he would try out. Players like Bill grind their teeth before serving, crouch down low in ready position at the age of sixty, even lower past sixty-five. And personalities like Bill talk to ten-year olds like an equal, take table tennis advice from a twelve-year old, and offer to teach the newly turned sixteen-year old how to drive in his brand new VW Jetta. Is there really a player or a personality like Bill’s? I’ve never met another. This story behind the story is the one about Bill and me, and every PTTC member has his or her own.

Before my table 1 debut, the junk rubber masters and other tireless volunteers who worked for the sake of Portland table tennis (Tim Titrud, Jack Svela, and Henry Dollinger to name a few) informed the membership that we would be moving to a different facility in Milwaukee. They enlisted volunteers to help clear out what had just been a pharmacy and transform it into a table tennis club. The end result, a permanent ten-table club, was not only beautiful but it was also special. Those words may be too simple to describe the new home of the PTTC, but they are what I think of for a club that was no more and no less than that. The blue benches came in a U-Haul, as did the black netted material. The red cement floors of old were replaced with square tiles, the kind one would see in any chain-owned pharmacy, easy to wax down and surprisingly good for table tennis. Tim and others contributed significantly to remodeling the place, and the transition was easy when the club’s member base continued to show up in Milwaukee. I loved it there, playing against Portland’s own Vietnamese table tennis clan, a family of five Le brothers, each with a different style. Peter Wong was always making me laugh with the jokes he would crack in the middle of a serious match right before a low/no-toss serve. Jerome Adancourt and Mark Liu helped bring my level up with their knowledge of the game and clean strokes.
Once I got strong enough to compete with one of the state’s best, Ron Carver, the two of us, along with my sister Emily would meet up on Saturday open plays. Back when it was still appropriate to group table tennis and the number 21 together, Ron and I would often play up to twelve straight games before calling it quits; it took up the whole afternoon and evening so that his weekly drive from Astoria, a beach town in Oregon located a couple hours outside of Portland, was worth it. Ron could always outlast me. He was dedication to the max and showed me the meaning of sportsmanship.

The story behind the story behind the soda machine – The Trophy
While my name may get more recognition now than those of the best players from Oregon in the past (with the notable exception of PTTC member Judy Bochenski Hoarfrost, whose significance in the sport and in our nation’s modern history as a Ping Pong Diplomacy delegate will never fade), it only takes a quick look at the massive trophy that gets passed down each year to the Oregon State Champion to realize that I have some time to go before I can truly write my name among the state’s legends. My single State Championship title pales in comparison to the eight or so that Ron Carver has won. I cannot think, off the top of my head, how far back the names on the trophy go, but its history is long and rich enough that I would give up any other trophy before I would let go of this one. But first I’ll have to try and win it back.

If I were to take these latest subjects: Oregon table tennis legends, dedication, the Portland Table Tennis Club; and play the word association game, I would think of one name first and that is Jim Scott. The man is the driving force around all things PTTC related even during the times when he’s not involved. He gave my mother her first table tennis lesson at a community college gymnasium, then years later I received my own introduction to the sport from him. I remember Jim, the club’s longtime President, telling me to “slap the ball” on the forehand by using a floppy wrist, but then watching him keep his steady. Some of his coaching must have worked though because I like to think that my game turned out to be okay.
Of the many club aspects Jim oversees, the Pacific Rim Open is his darling, known nationally for offering the best women’s prize money around. Jim runs the four-star tournament by hand, and by this, I mean that there is never a machine in sight. Every draw is written up with a pencil, every copy of the draw to be posted on the walls is written again. This allows Jim to squeeze in any last minute walk-in entries or swap the brackets of practice partners. It can be chaos, but things are done right. I don’t question this because with Jim, things are always done right.

The story behind the story behind the soda machine – The Big Whack:
Jim Scott takes great pride in running the Pac Rim Open but the Big Whack tournament, a K-12 Portland-wide competition, is likely his true gem. The tournaments work hand-in-hand because the new tables that the club secures each year for the Pacific Rim Open through a generous sponsorship by Escalade Sports eventually make its way to dozens of Oregon public schools. In return for the free tables, schools commit to forming teams of students to compete in a district league and to participate in the Big Whack tournament in May. I would estimate that the Portland Table Tennis Club has put around a hundred tables into Oregon schools now, and introduced the sport to thousands of kids.

This November, the Pacific Rim Open will be held at the Tualatin Hills Athletic Center, an amateur athlete’s paradise. Tualatin Hills Park and Recreation District was named Sports Illustrated magazine’s “Sportstown” for the state of Oregon, and it is home to dozens of athletic facilities and park around the Portland-metro area. The indoor Athletic Center rivals any in the country, and on the surrounding grounds, one will find an indoor Olympic-sized swimming pool, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, perfectly trimmed and maintained soccer fields, baseball diamonds, a nature trail, even a skate park. And the Athletic Center, six basketball courts wide, has also been home to the Portland Table Tennis Club for the last several years.
I loved our permanent locations more because it was our own, but when the landlord to the pharmacy-turned-club wanted to put up a new shopping center, the club was hard pressed to find another place that fit our rent budget. As much credit as I give my father for all he has done for the Portland Table Tennis Club, it was actually my Mom who first entertained the idea of renting space at Tualatin Hills and called them on the club’s behalf. Months later, the PTTC moved.

The story behind the story behind the soda machine – The New Website
I’m away from home now ten months out of twelve for college, but when I come back for breaks I still drop by the Portland Table Tennis Club to catch a game with Roger Castle and Tai Nguyen, a player with one of the nicest all-around games you can find in the Pacific Northwest, and to visit with Bruce and others. But the club and its members are changing. We meet to play in a glamorous gymnasium, but have to set up and take down the tables. The Le brothers have retired from play and started families, and faces I’ve never seen have taken their place. Jim Scott is on leave as President, replaced this year by Roger. Tai’s son, Thomas, has grown up to become close friends with my two younger sisters, Sita and Lydia. And now of all things, we are getting a digital upgrade – a new website at portlandtabletennis.com – courtesy of the Club’s latest star addition and quick contributor, Sean O’Neill. Change is inevitable and can be a pity, but in the end, I guess not all change is bad.
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These are just the stories behind the soda machine; the tales that are hidden behind the steel desk in the corner of the club might take a book. But it is the essence of the complete story that I’ve always wanted to tell, as a way to say thanks to all past and present members of the Portland Table Tennis Club, along with those who have visited our club over the years. You are the ones who have truly helped define my table tennis experience, an experience that has had a profound impact on my life. Beyond any match I have ever won, it is you who I remember best.