We are very excited to announce some important changes in the NCTTA league structure that are coming next season (2011-2012).

College table tennis has been growing quite rapidly throughout the US and Canada. Which means more players, more member schools, and more NCTTA divisions. All good things. But the current rate of growth has also created some challenges within our current league structure, in terms of keeping divisions to a manageable size, keeping travel distances reasonable for teams, and making sure every team has a fair shot at qualifying to the national championships.

In the fall of 2010, NCTTA formed a Redevelopment Task Force to devise some steps that NCTTA could take to better accommodate this growth. We advertised participation in this task force to all of NCTTA and we were able to get input from athletes, coaches and division directors. The task force came up with a clear direction forward and several recommendations which were reviewed and adopted by the NCTTA Board of Directors.

What does this all mean? Well, the biggest change to expect in the 2011-2012 season is the introduction of Regional Competition. So instead of division winners qualifying directly to the national championships, starting next season the league will work like this:

Division Competition => Regional Competition => National Competition

Each region will consist of several divisions. We anticipate having between 5-7 regions starting in the 2011-2012 season with 3-4 divisions assigned to each region.

One of the primary goals of this new structure is to keep more college table tennis players involved in competition by offering more local opportunities in which to compete. With this new structure you can expect several benefits in the coming season and beyond:

• Slightly smaller division sizes with less travel for teams
• Increase in the number of participating colleges due to improved convenience of competitions
• More opportunities for 2nd or 3rd place teams in a division to advance out of their division
  (facing one dominating division opponent doesn’t end a team’s season)
• More opportunities for strong teams to face strong competition before the national level
• A fairer path for teams to qualify for the Championships which better accommodates differences in division strength

We’re very excited about this new direction for NCTTA and hopefully you are as well. Many thanks to the Redevelopment Task Force for the significant time they devoted to this effort.

In the months ahead we’ll have more details about these new developments and what they’ll mean for your team. So keep reading NCTTA website and the NCTTA newsletter. Soon, we’ll also be setting up a forum to allow for questions and discussion regarding this new league structure. So, stay tuned!