The members of the Boston University Table Tennis club team are as assorted as a box of chocolates, and they’re as good as the fictional character who uttered a similar statement.
After only a semester of sweeping intramural competitors, the table tennis club team has advanced to the “NCAA of table tennis,” as team member Benny Chun Yu called the 2004 Stiga/Table Tennis Pioneers National Collegiate Table Tennis Association Championship. Before getting into the tournament, the team placed second in the Northeastern Division of the NCTTA.
The team will attend the Fremont, Calif. Tournament on April 10. In the annual NCTTA Championship, 16 teams of the only 80 teams nationwide compete in a two-day tournament for the national title, Yu said.
For BU’s first invitation to the national championship, all five members of the BUTTST will be flying to California with high expectations for success, School of Management junior and team-captain Karim Lakhani said.
“We hope to place in the top three,” he said.
Only several months ago, dreams of national competition were far from the minds of the five table-tennis enthusiasts in the club. In 2003, CAS junior Robin Kao founded the club, which has grown to 25 students who play twice a week in Sargent Gymnasium.
“The [five-member] team was formed because there was an intramural competition,” Graduate School of Arts and Science student Pradipta Seal said.
Seal and Lakhani gathered three of the most “awesome” players from the club – Yu, SMG sophomore Halong Ma and Goldman School of Dental Medicine student Edward Tai. Seal said the five table tennis champs joined other intramural competitions and started winning.
“Most of us have played a handful of semi-professional table tennis tournaments in different countries, including the U.S., Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore,” Yu said.
Seal said he has been a table tennis player since age 10, while Ma said he was captain of his team in the U.S. Army and two nationally-ranked teams in Singapore.
“People think it’s a party game,” said Yu, who has been playing since fifth grade. “But there’s more strategy involved – you have to play in a really smart way.”
Lakhani, who won the national competition in India independently and led his school’s team to second place in the Indian nationals, said the club was very passive until they started joining competitions.
“Last semester, we thought we didn’t have a chance at nationals because [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] and Harvard [University] were very strong,” Ma said. “But when we beat them, we knew we had an excellent chance.”
This season, they not only defeated MIT’s team – the sixth ranking team in the United States – but they replaced Harvard, who won second place in last year’s NCTTA championship, in the top-10 nationally ranked teams.
MIT and Harvard’s teams, like “each and every team competing in the Northeastern division,” are financially supported by their schools, according to Seal.
“BU is the poorest team,” Yu said. “We have nothing compared to their funding and facilities.”
Yu explained that other schools have two teams of six players each, while BU has only one team of five players. BU also does not have a coach, unlike most other schools, and the team must share tables and a schedule with its fellow table tennis club members, Seal explained.
“But we still beat Harvard’s A-team, 4 to 0, at their own school,” Yu said, grinning.
While the lack of funding has not hurt the team’s strength yet, “the inadequacy of funds might sabotage our dream and render our [championship] trip hopeless,” the team wrote in a letter to BU sent last Thursday.
The team needs about $3,000 to cover the trip’s expenses. Although the BU Table Tennis Club has donated all of the club’s funding, totaling $1,300, and BU has donated $500, the team is still lacking the necessary money.
“Other club sports prepare for competitions all year through fundraising and membership dues,” Assistant Coordinator of Intramural and Club Sports Tracey Dultz said. “This was last-minute and invitation-only.”
The club has contacted the Student Union and the Department of Physical Education and Recreation for fundraising help.
“We’ve been fighting and begging for funding and uniforms,” Seal said.
If the sport got more recognition on campus, it would be easier to raise funds, Yu said.
But while table tennis may not get much attention at BU, the NCTTA is helping the sport grow in popularity among collegiate sports enthusiasts nationwide, according to the USA Table Tennis Association’s web page.
“Our goal is to promote serious amateur sport competition among collegiate table tennis athletes and allow new members to develop table tennis into a lifetime sport and hobby,” the NCTTA website states.
The website added that table tennis is a nationally recognized sport in other countries.
“I never thought I would have a chance to play table tennis in America because it’s not a popular sport here,” Tai said.
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