Remember the name Greg Mascialino. This 16-year-old Virginia high school junior combines a passion for music with a love of table tennis. And he's smart, too. College recruiters who want to see Greg in uniform and slamming table tennis on their campus better pay attention and take good notes.

This fall, Greg began his junior year at McLean High School in Fairfax County, Va., just a short drive from Washington, D.C. While he's too young to get elected to the U.S. House or Senate, Greg's shown that he's got talent in the classroom. And when you toss in his role as concertmaster with the American Youth Symphonic Orchestra, Mascialino's got the right stuff to go to one of America's prestigious colleges.
 
Mascialino says he is considering such in-state schools as Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia. He's also looking at out-of-state schools such as Maryland, New York University and the University of North Carolina. The 16-year-old is also looking as far away as California. "I have family out there and love the Southern California area.''
 
Players and coaches – from Virginia Tech to UCLA – may want take notice of this kid. Course unlike Division I college football prospects, table tennis players don’t see many mentions on ESPN or sports radio shows. But in the table tennis world, people rate Greg highly.
 
Greg used to play baseball, but discovered the game of table tennis at a small community center near his Northern Virginia hometown. "I casually dropped by to play for fun, and was pretty much instantly hooked,'' he says. That’s where the teenage violinist met Abrahm Behnam, a seasoned NCTTA player who's currently the Virginia Division Director. The two are table tennis sparring partners.
 
Greg's grades are good - around a 3.59 GPA on a 4.0 scale. And he's working to improve his table tennis skills, too. He's attended two NCTTA tournaments - one at UVA, the other at James Madison University and hopes to be at more this fall.
 
Sure, there are scores of other top table tennis prospects at the high school level out there - from around the U.S. to Canada to China. But here's one prediction - this kid will be playing college table tennis in future years. Behnam for one has seen him play up-close. Behnam believes Greg is going places, whether it's the music world, table tennis or both.


Know of other talented high school table tennis players pondering college choices? We would love to tell their stories, too.
Email Andy Kanengiser, at publicrelations@nctta.org