NCTTA is looking for the best of the best in everything, including its commentators. Last year the organization held its first search for commentators and it worked out well.

Joe Wells, Veteran commentator at the NCTTA Champs, says “We got a lot of interest and were able to invite a number of people to our championships that became key parts to the event’s success.” This contest is a chance to attend the NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships as a Commentator for the live stream! (one must be able to work all days)

NCTTA has used in the past, Han Xiao (former UMD player and USATT board member), Joe Wells (Vice President of NCTTA), and Adam Bobrow (Current ITTF Commentator), but the Championship committee wants the NCTTA membership and alumni and fans to have a chance at being a part of our event.

Winner or winners have a shot to come out to the 2017 NCTTA Championships in Eau Claire, Wisconsin

Read all about it here: http://nctta.org/doc/2017-NCTTA-Commentator-Challenge-Rules-and-Regulations.pdf

Pictured here are last year’s winners.

Interested in playing in NCTTA and not yet a member of NCTTA get going here:
All of these links are found here

NCTTA Singles is gearing up and it is another way to make it into the post season, sign up below!

NCTTA Spring/Winter 2017 tournament schedule: http://nctta.org/schedule
NCTTA Online Registration link (for schools not yet registered in NCTTA): http://www.danserver.com/nctta/MemberApp.asp
NCTTA Online Registration for Division Singles: http://www.nctta.org/singles/
NCTTA Spring 2017 Eligibility form (for all schools): http://nctta.org/doc/Spring%202017%20ELIGIBILITY.pdf
NCTTA Rules and Regulations are here

Get registered today!

Double Fish Balls

Looking to make a bulk purchase order for some balls? Why not get some Double Fish 3* balls! Double Fish is offering NCTTA school members a discounted price of $92 ($102 for Canadians due to shipping charges) for 102 balls. These premium 3* poly balls will be identical to the ones used in our NCTTA 2016-17 season, get a head start with some multi-ball training today!  To order, please click here.

USATT Membership Discounts For NCTTA Graduates

NCTTA has recently teamed with USA Table Tennis to create a special opportunity where recent NCTTA grads can take advantage of a 1-year USATT membership for 40 percent off of the regular price. Yes, you read that right 40% off. USATT membership is the best way to stay involved with table tennis after graduation. So take advantage of this great deal! Read all about it at: nctta.org/alumni. NCTTA takes care of its alumni hoping that they then will return the favor to their collegiate clubs by donating their time or money or both to keep programs and teams alive.

Check out a new promotion with USA Table Tennis where NCTTA clubs and players can get discounts! http://www.teamusa.org/usa-table-tennis/clubs/colleges

• USATT player membership for 25 dollars for NCTTA players
• USATT club membership for 25 dollars for NCTTA member schools

By Andy Kanengiser
NCTTA Media Chairman

More than 250 of the best collegiate table tennis players in North America will return to Eau Claire, Wisconsin for the 2017 national championships.

In early June, leaders of the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association selected Eau Claire to host the three-day tournament. The site will again be the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire.

Eau Claire competed for the bid against a proposal offered to bring the games to Biloxi, Mississippi along the Gulf Coast.

“We were happy with the way that Eau Claire leaders embraced us at the 2015 TMS College Table Tennis Championships,’’ NCTTA President Willy Leparulo. “We look forward to being back in Wisconsin in the Spring of 2017.’’

Located about 90 minutes from Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Wisconsin university partnered with the Wisconsin-Eau Claire table tennis club to help bring volunteers to the event, Leparulo noted. “Volunteers are critical to our success at regional and national tournaments each year. We will look to the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire team and neighboring schools like University of Minnesota for such help."

Ben Morgan, sports sales manager for Visit Eau Claire, is delighted to see his hometown selected. The decision brings another major sporting event to the northern Wisconsin city, and with it comes a nice economic boost, he noted. The table tennis tournament, Morgan said, pumps in an estimated $80,000 in visitor spending.

“We had great feedback from several local businesses and hotels during the 2015 championships, and we expect the same – if not more – positive feedback in 2017,’’ Morgan added.

The event organizers in Wisconsin tracked over 300 hotel rooms used by participants at the games in April 2015. That includes college table tennis players, coaches, fans, family members, and scores of volunteers. “This is a great boost for the hotels during the non-peak season,’’ Morgan said.

Visit Eau Claire officials worked well once again with the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire to craft an outstanding proposal to submit to the NCTTA, Morgan noted.

The NCTTA’s biggest tournament of the year has moved around the country in recent years. The 2016 national championships were held in Round Rock, Texas near Austin in late March. The 2014 championships landed in Monroeville, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. In 2013, the tournament was held in Rockford, Illinois. Plano, Texas hosted the games in April 2012.

The 2017 tournament in Wisconsin is expected to be in April. More details are expected to be announced on the NCTTA website (nctta.org) at a later date.

Photo credit: Nachuan(Sherry) Li; Washington University

Here are the results of the voting in this year's elections for Board of Directors positions:

• For Vice President, incumbent Joseph Wells was reelected
• For Treasurer, incumbent Randy Kendle was reelected
• The new Athlete Representative is Tae Kim, who received votes from more member schools than opposing candidate Ying Wang

They will each serve a 2-year term, starting July 1. Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all who voted!

*Superlatives--best of the best*

Every year after the Championships NCTTA celebrates "the best of the best" of the year. NCTTA will award with the assistance of JOOLA, we will have $50.00 E awards given to winning Athletes of the year and $200.00 E awards given to winning school teams.

All awards will be one time use and exclude tables.

We want your input to nominate someone or some team as the best of the best.

TO NOMINATE SOMEONE  email your nomination and WHY to info@nctta.org by April 15th

Or

Post on Twitter to @collegett #bestofbest your nomination and WHY by April 15th

PLEASE FWD THIS INFO as anyone can nominate someone!

Last year's winners were:

• 2015 Male Athlete of the Year: Feng Zhe (Texas Wesleyan)
• 2015 Female Athlete of the Year: Lily Zhang (UC Berkeley)
• 2015 Rookie of the Year: Tong Zhang (Mississippi College)
• 2015 Coach of the Year: Sam Howes (University of Western Ontario)
• 2015 Rookie Team: McGill University
• 2015 Most Improved Team: UCLA
• 2015 Division Director of the Year: John Drsek (Ohio Division)
• 2015 Regional Director of the Year: Jay Lu (Northeast)

*Rookie Teams are school teams that have never participated in the NCTTA Championships (Subject to NCTTA Historical records)

*Rookie of the year are players new to College Table Tennis (they can be any year Fresh/soph/junior/senior/graduate student) also subject to NCTTA Historical records

*Division and Regional Directors must be current to 2015-16 Competition Year

Pictured above: Texas Wesleyan Women's team

By Andy Kanengiser

NCTTA Media Chairman

Texas Wesleyan University table tennis players expressed their joy by tossing Coach Jasna Rather into the air after winning the 2016 coed team championship.

Rather landed safely with a big smile on her face at the Round Rock Sports Center on March 27.  The coach received a nice lift minutes that Sunday evening after her TWU teams practically made it a clean sweep. The Rams paddled their way to capture four of the six titles at the TMS College Table Tennis National Championships in Round Rock.

Facing rival Mississippi College for the fifth year in a row, Texas Wesleyan’s mighty players refused to repeat what happened a year ago. At the 2015 championships, MC shocked the table tennis world by edging Texas Wesleyan after the formidable Fort Worth squad won 11 consecutive coed team titles.

TWU’s narrow loss in April 2015 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin seemed to put Rather and her talented team on a 24/7 mission to regain the coed team title. And they did it in dramatic fashion as fans cheered loudly in the Lone Star State.

At the championship games in late March near Austin, the TWU Rams defeated newcomer Ohlone College of California and Toronto before squaring off against the Mississippi College Choctaws. Consisting of four superb players from China, the Mississippi College team knocked off California and the University of Texas to reach the finals in the Sports Capital of Texas.

Accolades keep pouring in from fans who watched the action in Round Rock or others seeing the Olympic sport via the NCTTA’s live streaming cameras.

NCTTA President Willy Leparulo led the salute to the new 2016 champs.

 “Texas Wesleyan stormed back to the top of college table tennis,’’ Leparulo said. “I predicted last year after Mississippi College won the team competition that it would awake a sleeping giant (Texas Wesleyan.’’

And when all was said and done, Texas Wesleyan flexed its muscles with its contingent of stars. The TWU Rams are the United Nations of table tennis with players coming from China, Germany, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, the Ukraine and elsewhere.

But it didn’t come easy. “Mississippi College was still very much in the mix’’ Leparulo said. What was shaping up to look like an MC victory went a different way in a hurry.

 “It just goes to show you how sports are,’’ says Leparulo, who coaches the Florida State University table tennis team. “Texas Wesleyan was within moments of a losing affair, but turned it around. Anyone watching could feel the tension. It was a magical ending.’’

Led by Coach & Captain Cheng Li, the MC Choctaws grabbed a 2-1 lead in the finals, it didn’t last long. TWU’s Zhe Feng defeated MC’s Qing Wei Sun to force the finals to go to doubles. Coach Rather decided to put the paddles in the hands of Zhe Feng, a former Chinese National Team member, and Jishan Liang, her top-rated singles player. The dynamic TWU duo proved too much for MC’s Cheng Li and doubles partner Tong Zhang. The Rams won three straight game, much to the delight of their fan base, and the Texas Wesleyan celebration erupted.

The four triumphs in Round Rock chalked up by TWU with its coed team, women’s team, men’s doubles and women’s doubles adds to their remarkable achievements dating back to 2003. The TWU Rams have won 12 coed team titles, 10 men’s singles titles (the last by Zhe Feng in 2015), 7 women’s singles titles (the last by Sara Hazinski in 2011), 9 men’s doubles titles, 8 women’s doubles titles and 8 mixed doubles titles.

The only titles escaping TWU in 2016 were: the women’s singles title by Ting Wang of Ohlone College and the men’s singles title going to Mississippi College’s Yi Chi Zhang.

Rather poured on the praise for her squad. The group includes one of her stars, Emil Santos of the Dominican Republic, who completed his collegiate playing career over the weekend. Santos, she said, served TWU as an effective team leader. Santos, she said, ranks with some of the finest collegiate players she’s coached at Texas Wesleyan.

Others coming home with No. 1 awards: the TWU men’s doubles team of Bruno Ventura Dos Anjos of Brazil and Shuai Wang of China, and the women’s doubles team of Anastasia Rybka of the Ukraine and Edina Haracic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Texas Wesleyan’s aces led a powerful lineup of six schools from the Lone Star State. The others were: Texas A&M, the University of Texas, North Texas, Texas Tech, and UT-Dallas.

By Andy Kanengiser

By Andy Kanengiser

NCTTA Media Chairman

Six years ago, Northwestern University table tennis players battled with the school's ballroom dancing club to squeeze in enough time to practice on campus.

The fights for practice time at the student center at the Big Ten school in Evanston, Illinois are now over.

Led by Coach Ned Leuchtner, the Northwestern table tennis thrived during the 2015-16 season. The squad advanced to the NCTTA's Big Dance, the 2016 national  championships in Round Rock, Texas. The three-day tournament ended Sunday.

As Leuchtner watched awesome women's doubles teams from Texas Wesleyan and Wisconsin scrap for points, he was pretty well pleased with the performance of his talented bunch.

The Northwestern team is sparked by freshman David Lee, an 18-year-old industrial engineering major from Saint Paul, Minnesota. He arrived at the Lone Star State tournament with a rating of 2275 and saw an uptick in his game over the weekend.

Competition for Northwestern was pretty tough at times. There were Northwestern team losses to No. 11 McMaster University of Canada and No. 12 UCLA.  "But we satisfied with how we did during these tight matches,'' Leuchtner said Sunday at the Round Rock Sports Center.

Before all was said and done, Northwestern knocked off Western University of Canada. That was an unexpected triumph. Their determination and success over the weekend gave the Northwestern team something to build on for next season. "Our four guys will all be back next season,'' the coach noted.

Making its debut in the nationals, Northwestern's coed team finished 23rd.There are actually 15 members on the team that wears purple uniforms. The student-athletes competed for four slots on the squad making the journey to Texas.

Rounding out Northwestern's team: Shengzhi Luan, 25, a civil engineering graduate student from Harbin, China, Dash Neimark, 25, a graduate student from Ormond, Florida, and Edward Lin, a sophomore from Beijing, China. Luan advanced his game as a teen in high school leagues in China.

Northwestern's excellent academic reputation helps recruit players. So does the team's Facebook site, and the university's plugged in network of alums and students.

Serving as Northwestern's coach the past six seasons is something that Leuchtner does because he loves the Olympic sport and helping students succeed in life. The coach knows how to win. He was the table tennis champ at Indiana University in 1984. Outside the table tennis world, Leuchtner supervises the construction of historic properties. That includes the restoration of a Mobil gas station dating back to 1920.

Other college table tennis teams fared well on their first trip to the national championships. That included the North Texas State Mean Green. The school from Denton, Texas was delighted to report its coed team finished in 13th place. UNT ended up in the top eight in doubles. One of its singles players landed in the top 32.

North Texas State Coach Daniel Rutenberg believes his young team will be even better next year. His squad includes two 16-year-old players, Bryan Wu, and Chris Tian, both of Plano. Tsz Lun "Alan'' Chu is the oldest player, a 28-year-old graduate student from Hong Kong. Freshmen Brandon Chow, 17, and Jack Zhang, 18, both of Plano, round out the Mean Green Machine. The 16-year-olds are talented teens with paddles in hand. Bryan's rating is 2250 and Chris ranks at 1800.

In the real world, Rutenberg works as a marketing man. He's doing a terrific job marketing UNT table tennis in the Dallas area and beyond. As the three-day event in Round Rock was winding down, he called it a pretty good tournament for his team. With their games enhanced here, a stronger North Texas bunch seeks to return to the NCTTA's 2017 national championships.

The 2016 TMS College Table Tennis Championships is hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB and is one of the premier table tennis tournaments in North America featuring 6 events: Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams.  The event is sponsored by TMS International, Gerflor, Double Fish, and Joola.

Players and spectators alike will enjoy a jam-packed weekend of table tennis at the TMS College Table Tennis Championships. The event starts Friday March 25th and continues through Sunday March 27^th at the Round Rock Sports Center

About NCTTA

The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively for promoting the sport of table tennis at the college level. As the national governing body for college table tennis in the United States and Canada, NCTTA organizes intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

About USA Table Tennis

Headquartered in Colorado Springs, USATT is the national organizing body for table tennis in the United States, serving 9,000+ members and nearly 300 clubs. USATT sanctions 200+ events a year including the US Open and US Nationals. USATT is affiliated with the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), as well as the United States Olympic Committee (USOC). www.usatt.org