When was the last time you held a ping pong paddle? Probably last weekend at your favorite basement. The handle was probably beer-soaked, if there was a handle at all. In any event, it seems certain that it looked nothing like those that the eleven members of the Dartmouth Table Tennis team use in their practices or competitions.
Yes, we have a ping-pong team and it's a darn good one.
The team is run through the Dartmouth Table Tennis Club. The club was founded by Robert Lendvai '99 in his freshman fall two years ago, but he has since turned over the program to new president and team captain Jason Deeken '00.
Meanwhile, Lendvai moved on to become the president of the league in which Dartmouth competes -- the League of Northeastern Intercollegiate Table Tennis, or the L.N.I.T.T. There are eight schools in the league's Southern Division and seven in the Northern, of which Dartmouth is one. The other schools in the division are Boston University, M.I.T., Harvard, Babson, Wellesley and Bowdoin.
The league is a co-ed one yet Dartmouth remains the only other team besides Wellesley to have any females on their squad. Fang Liu, a graduate student, is the Big Green's lone female.
The Big Green defeated Wellesley and Bowdoin earlier this year, but lost in a 3-2 heartbreaker to Babson.
The format of play in the league is four singles matches. Should each team win two matches, then the teams select a doubles team to play the deciding match. Dartmouth's current record is 2-1 but the worst is yet to come.
"Four teams from each division make the divisional playoffs but we have yet to play the three toughest teams, including M.I.T. which is undefeated," he said.
"We are a relatively new team, but I think we are on the rise," Deeken said, "We are extraordinarily young and could be very good in a couple of years."
History professor Doug Haynes serves as the team's advisor/coach. Perhaps advisor is too weak a word, according to Deeken, because of Haynes's ability.
"He's a player. He can beat anybody on the team on a good day. Personally, he holds me to about five (points)," he said.
The team has also recently acquired a different kind of coach, a robot which feeds table tennis balls the same way that a ball machine in tennis would.
The team looks primed and focused on the future as their youth could lead them to a league title.
As for the other kind of pong, Deeken stated that he doubts many members of the team play.
"Personally, I never have...I don't think the way you play the two games use the same stroke ... I am sure I will try it sooner or later," he said.
Now all he has to do is get a table.
