Table tennis alive and well at Tufts

It is not ping-pong. Ping-pong is a casual and intramural game. The Tufts Table Tennis Club plays exactly that - table tennis. The TTTC competes in the New England Division of the National College Table Tennis Association. The other members of the league include Boston University, Harvard, Northeastern, UMass-Boston, Amherst, Dartmouth, Brown, MIT and Wesleyan. The club began several years ago, but it quickly dissolved before being rescued by senior Mike Sparandara, then a freshman. Now the president of the club, Sparandara successfully petitioned for the group to be recognized as a club sport at Tufts, which makes it eligible for funding and a coach. "We're by far the cheapest club sport. Our budget is around $200," Sparandara said. "All we really needed were new tables, and we got some new ones. Now we're saving pennies." The TTTC may seem minute compared to other club sports on campus, which are allocated tens of thousands of dollars, but interest in the club has grown over the past few years. The club now boasts a sizeable, if slightly skewed, roster. "We're a lot bigger on paper," Sparandara said. "We have close to a hundred people on the list, but only 15 to 20 people show up regularly, and of that subset, ten compete." The club has also hired a coach, Ethan Danahy, a forth year PhD candidate at Tufts in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. Danahy graduated from Tufts in 2000 and competed in table tennis events in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. He also participated in international competition in Australia in 2002. Danahy has worked to create a competitive but relaxed environment for the players. "I would say that the team is currently in a transition phase," Danahy said. "We have been gaining new members and [are] still working through the expected adjustment to a new coach, both from the perspective of the players as well as myself." Lately the team has seen its numbers drastically reduced due to the midterms and other academic commitments of its members, but Sparandara is hopeful of a resurgence of the club in the spring. "The attendance is now between five and eight people," Sparandara said. "But we'll start a new campaign after spring break to let people relax. After spring break is the seventh school-wide [table tennis] tournament, which [attracts] 50 to 80 participants and is usually pretty popular." The squad competes in six tournaments per year, three in the fall and three in the spring, and the team with the best cumulative record is chosen for Nationals. A shorthanded Tufts team consisting of only juniors Matt Dallas and Scott Sporn, along with sophomore Rob Gallagher, competed in the first match of the spring season on Saturday, Feb. 25. Tufts lost to Northeastern by default, and also competed against Harvard and BU, but failed to win a match. Dallas, a member of the team since his freshman year, commended Sparandara for the work he has done to raise awareness of the club on the Tufts campus. "I came in thinking I was really great, but came to see people a lot better than me," Dallas said. "The club has more interest and skill because of Mike's organization. Any interest [in the club] is due to Mike's really hard work." Although the team may be small, it is optimistic about the season. Harvard remains the perennial favorite for Nationals, and although Tufts stands at 5-8 and has struggled against larger teams such as Harvard, the Jumbos are competitive within the league. They currently stand at fifth. "From a competitive standpoint, Brown is our arch-nemesis," Sparandara said. "In both size and skill level they are a worthy adversary. Harvard has a very international team, so they've got the advantage. We fare much better against the smaller schools, like Northeastern and Wesleyan." Although last weekend's meet was uneventful, the club has a positive outlook for the remainder of this season and the future of the club. "Every year, we have made progress and [become] more competitive, but we have a long way to go," Dallas said. "A lot of [progress] is from the interest we can generate around campus, and we're still looking for that one player to make the difference." The TTTC meets Monday and Wednesday nights at 8:30 in Cousens Gymnasium. All tournaments are held at Harvard. The club has two remaining meets this season, which have yet to be scheduled.