Snow and ice storms in the Northeast forced a few entrants to
cancel, but the Hardbat Classic Table Tennis Tournament in Cary, NC
March 18 still had twenty some entrants. Tim Boggan is writing a
comprehensive story about it which will probably be published in a
future issue of USA Table Tennis. I was playing in the tournament,
so only have comprehensive information about my matches. The classic
format has everyone playing almost continuously, and you are never
eliminated even if you lose all your matches...which I hope no one
did. I recall the four top finishers in the A group: Eric Owens, Loc
Gno, Ray Mack and Dimitri Moundous.
I lost two matches in the preliminary round robin group, so
went into the C group where I won 6 matches and went home a happy
winner. But perhaps the happiest competitor was Romeo Gonzales, a
young Navy man stationed at Great Lakes Naval Base in Illinois. He
was unrated, playing in his first tournament. I asked him where he
played before, and he said, "I haven't played much. I just saw some
guys playing table tennis on TV, and it looked like fun, so thought I
would try it." As we warmed up I thought maybe he had played tennis,
because he had long smooth tennis like strokes. But he said his only
sport was basetball. "Well, if you can dribble the ball over the
net, that's a good shot in table tennis," I told him, and during the
match I hit a few of those to demonstrate. Romeo played very steady
and his forehand drives were hitting harder as our match progressed.
He went home with a 4th place trophy in the C group. I advised him
to look on the table tennis website and see if there is a club near
his base where he could play. He will be there for another year and
then is scheduled to go to Iraq. Not many young players are
interested in hardbat these days, but Romeo said, "How can anyone NOT
like hardbat? It's so much fun."

Dean Norman