Story by Chris Brooklier
Multimedia by Alissa Barry & Alicia Greenwell

As I walked up through campus on a cold Thursday night, the campus looked barren and completely empty. I didn’t think there was one person on campus, bringing to mind the lines in A Night Before Christmas: “not a creature was stirring not even a mouse.” However, as soon as I entered Gerlinger, I could hear the squeaking of sneakers and pitter patter of ping-pong balls.
Eight courts fill 220 Gerlinger on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights from 7 to 10 p.m. During that time the room fills with a dizzy amount of hands and paddles moving at the same time. After a little bit of observing, I found table tennis is more complicated than when playing recreationally. There are techniques and ways to think about things that need to be taught such as hand placement, ways to obtain spin, and angles of your body. Low-top tennis shoes and short shorts are the requisite gear because of the great need for flexibility and ease of movement. The most important skill of a table tennis player, however, is hand-eye coordination because if you can keep track of the ball, you’ll be able to hit it.
Although there are only four women on the team, the woman’s team has made it to nationals two years in a row. Last year at nationals, there were twenty teams and the UO finished thirteenth despite only having three women present. This is important because all three members had to stay in the competition and not be eliminated. If one of the three girls had been beaten, the team would have been disqualified for lack of players.
“[Nationals] was an amazing experience because we played against the best table tennis players,” says team member Jane Lukinova. “We also had fun with the team in a different part of the country.”
The table tennis’ coach is Lee Werthamer, who has been playing table tennis since childhood and just began his twenty-first year as a coach. He teaches two table tennis classes, and sees a wide variety of students who enroll.
“I’ve got players from the football and baseball teams, because table tennis increases your hand eye coordination so much,” Werthamer says. There are tryouts for the team in the fall, and many men don’t make it because there are only fourteen spots. There are members of the team that are also in the class, but being in the class doesn’t guarantee you a spot.
The sport attracts a wide range of people, many of whom join not just to compete but also to socialize.
“It’s great to just get away from all your problems for a couple hours and do something relaxing,” says Lukinova, who has been on the team for three years. “You can just hit away all your stress.”
On Saturday, February 19, the table tennis team will travel up to Portland for the collegiate tournament, which is a regional qualifier for nationals. Werthamer hopes the woman’s team can “qualify as a team for nationals, because it’s coming up soon.”