By: Erica Tran
NCTTA Media Committee

We have players and schools from all over the United States uniting in Round Rock, Texas for a weekend of competition, camaraderie, and fun. However, it is only expected that Texas has the most number of teams (4 Coed, 4 Women) at the event. Closely following is California, with 5 Coed teams and 2 Women teams.

Similar to years past, Texas Wesleyan poses as one of the top seeds for both Coed and Women events. From sunny California, UC Berkeley is up there for both coed and women events, but University of Southern California (USC) holds the highest seed (5th) out of the California schools for the Coed teams event.

So, be on the lookout for some elite college table tennis from the host state of Texas and the ponging powerhouse of California!

Pictured here is the University of Southern California

About 2022 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships

The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, Double Fish and Joola.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 8th on champs.nctta.org

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 elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

By Michael Reff
NCTTA Media Committee

As much as we would all love to play college table tennis for an infinite amount of time, there is a limit to the eligibility. Four years is the length to pack in the paddling fun to represent your school at NCTTA tourneys.

Due to the pandemic and postponing the champs for the past two years, many players have already graduated and are out in the world pursuing their careers. However, there are currently a few players who have reached the end of their eligibility but have qualified for the champs each year they’ve participated in the NCTTA.

One such player is Michael Song of NYU. He says that “this is my 4th year qualifying!” This will be his third Nationals due to the cancellations of the previous two years. He was part of the 2018 NYU Coed team that shocked perennial champs Texas Wesleyan to clinch the title the last time that Round Rock hosted the event.

According to Song,

“NCTTA has been the biggest highlight of my college Career. The opportunity to compete amongst the best college athletes in a sport I love will be something I remember for the rest of my life. I'm so glad to have qualified for my last NCTTA Collegiate Nationals, and I cannot wait to represent my school one last time!"

Full of loudnproud fashion we cannot wait to see what Song and his teammates have in store for the champs this year!

Another player reaching the end of eligibility but qualifying for all champs each year of her NCTTA tenure is Maria Castillo. Her story is quite intriguing, because she has qualified for the champs by representing three different schools: Lindenwood, UW Madison, and currently MIT. A solid player who has been on the highlight reel with some killer lobs, she is also excited to be representing her third and final school in the champs:

“It’s been awesome qualifying to Nationals in both Women’s Singles and Women’s or Co-Ed Teams during my four years of NCTTA. Practices with the teams always give me a sense of familiarity that makes me feel at home, plus it is a great distraction from the craziness school can sometimes be. Nationals are intense but fun, and I’m excited to be representing MIT this year!”

Surely, Castillo’s final year will be another exciting one, this time for her newest school.

Kudos to Song and Castillo for making the cut to get to the champs during all their years of eligibility! We hope they will come back to volunteer for NCTTA after participating in the Nationals that has inspired so many memorable moments for them.

Pictured here is Michael Song. (Photo Credit to Nancy Zhou)

About 2022 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships

The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, Double Fish and Joola.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 8th on champs.nctta.org

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 elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

By Willy Leparulo; guest writer
NCTTA Media Committee

No, it’s not the boy band but the college table tennis teams! Carnegie Mellon and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte are the NCTTA’s “new kids on the block” for the 2022 Championships.

Both are coming to the NCTTA Championships for the first time in their programs’ history. Both schools worked hard and now will enjoy the fruits of their labor.
Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, PA was founded in 2015 by Jiaxuan Li and the team ultimately debuted in NCTTA in the 2019-2020 season, says Logan Herman, one of the club’s officers. The club is small but that allows for them to all wear different hats to make the team function better from general administration to fundraising and more.

Their biggest support comes from outside of school table tennis clubs like South Park and Pittsburgh Oakland. Herman says, “These clubs provide us with better places to play along with a variety of non-CMU opponents for our players to gain experience against.”
We asked him about his predictions for Nationals and Herman admitted that they may be outside of the group of “traditional” contenders but don’t count them out; they plan to do “some damage”. Heads up to the traditional NCTTA participants, CMU is in the house!

Another new school joining the Championship fun is the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. UNCC has been a club since one of NCTTA’s own, Marketing/Video guru, Andy Nguyen was in college 2013 ish. We chatted with UNCC’s Club President Hunter Hawkins, who has been playing since his freshman year and is in his last semester of college. Hawkins states, “We will outperform our seeding, as our players tend to play to their opponents’ level and get beter [sic] the more pressure is on them.” These new kids on the block aren’t going to be shy and this is what our sport is all about!

UNC Charlotte already displaced Duke University in the Carolina division as the champs and finished in the Top 3 in Regionals. This could be the making of a veritable underdog story!
Check out Carnegie Mellon and UNC Charlotte at the NCTTA Championships in Round Rock April 8-10th!

Pictured here is UNC Charlotte.

About 2022 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships

The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, Double Fish and Joola.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 8th on champs.nctta.org

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 elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

By Michael Reff
NCTTA Media Committee

The battle for glory and the top rank in college table tennis is going to transpire in nearly two weeks. Players from all over the USA and Canada are getting ready to paddle it out amidst stiff competition. For the most part, many student athletes are representing their school either in teams, singles, or a combination of the two, however, there are a small contingent of players that are the sole representatives of their teams and will have to travel alone, relying on their own drive to propel them forward through the rounds of play.

These “Lone Rangers” are passionate about displaying their schools’ colors but recognize they will have to make up for the lack of physical team cheering by being extra ferocious when fighting for each point.

One such player is University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) student Deven De Leon. De Leon even got the verbal stamp of approval by NCTTA president Willy Leparulo for being “the most passionate player” at his South Regionals competition.

De Leon remarks on being the sole qualifier on behalf of UTSA for Nationals,

“I’d have to say it feels a bit bitter sweet, on one hand it’s pretty cinematic and cool to come in a underdog on his own who made some upsets at regionals and almost made a major upset against a 2200 losing 14-12 in the fifth. And knowing I canmake [sic] it out of groups. On the other hand there’s the feeling like I’m not getting to play as much as I can, and the regret of not being good enough as a coach or player to take my team here with me.”

According to De Leon, he is a true team player and so he feels down about not being able to root for his team at the Nationals, but it gives him motivation to “do my best.”

Another Lone Ranger is University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill student Elvin Liu. He is extremely satisfied with qualifying for the single’s competition on behalf of his school. A noteworthy fact is that Liu was a late bloomer to table tennis and only began his ponging journey when he “came to college 3 years ago.”

He confesses that he “had no forehand at that time” and “was just looking for a ping pong club to hit with.” He says he’s still in awe at the great improvements he’s made since joining the team and is grateful and “excited to meet and play with all the good players representing their respective colleges...” at Round Rock come April.

Congratulations to these solo warriors, imbuing their teams’ spirit through individual glory!

Photo of UTSA player Deven De Leon (Photo Credit: Bruce Eichman)

About 2022 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, Double Fish and Joola.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 8th on champs.nctta.org

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 elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

By: Erica Tran
NCTTA Media Committee

Table tennis has always been a largely male-dominant sport. Not only are there many more male players, but the fan base is also very skewed in the gender department. However, NCTTA is lucky to have a number of strong female athletes. Most seasoned is Angela Guan from UC Berkeley, the top seed for Women’s Singles, and a familiar face to many. She is a chopper and has been in the international, national, and college table tennis scene for years.

Closely behind Angela are Zhen Deng and Jiaqi Lin from Texas Wesleyan University, two very strong players who will give Angela a run for the title. There are also many former youths who have competed avidly before college, including Tia Hsieh from Yale, Kelly Zhao from UT Austin, and Lavanya Maruthapandian from UC Berkeley. Beyond these players, there are dozens more strong female athletes to showcase girl power at the championships! 16 teams will compete for the Women’s Teams title, with the top 4 seeds being Texas Wesleyan, UC Berkeley, MIT, and Columbia.

Photo credit to Shashank Shastry

About 2022 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, Double Fish and Joola.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 8th on champs.nctta.org

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 elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

By Willy Leparulo; guest writer
NCTTA Media Committee

They always ask us “How do you do it?” The real answer is: not without volunteers.

NCTTA is a national organization unlike any other, with no paid staff run by a volunteer board of directors and a volunteer staff. NCTTA manages a 5 star event all with the power of people!

Volunteers from across the continent (USA and Canada) are the heart and soul of one of the best events in North America!

NCTTA competitions happen all over North America led by volunteers, and these same people (mostly Alumni) come together once a year at the NCTTA Championships to work 12 hour days to make the event better than they had it when they were in school. Truly #payingITforward in every aspect.

Volunteers operate the live stream, umpire important matches, manage registration and practice areas. Willy Leparulo, Volunteer Director of the champs among other things says, “We arrive early and stay late. Where else can you ask people to work from sun up to sun down with no pay and still have a smile on their faces at the end of the day?”

NCTTA is thankful to have friends in Texas like Vlad Farcas who runs the San Antonio Table Tennis Club, https://satabletennis.org/ Marguerite Cheung of Austin Table Tennis Club https://www.austintabletennis.net/ and Scott Ryan of the Dallas/Ft Worth area. Without these movers and shakers of the Texas table tennis world, we wouldn’t be able to put on this great event.

Photo credit to Grant Bergmann

About 2022 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, Double Fish and Joola.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 8th on champs.nctta.org

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 elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

By Willy Leparulo; guest writer
NCTTA Media Committee

Every year that the College Table Tennis Championships are held, there are one or two schools that come to the forefront of the competition as the most passionate, the most proud, and the most hashtag #LoudNProud.

NCTTA has a reputation within the sport of table tennis for increasing the decibel level at any tournament venue they go! Enter University of Massachusetts Amherst, where passion and cheering take on a new meaning.

UMass Amherst will be attending the NCTTA Championships for the 1st time in the program’s history. They qualified in 2020 but the Championships were canceled due to COVID. Let’s take a look at their journey through the eyes of their top player and current coach, John McDermott.

UMass plays in the Northeast Region, which is one of the toughest regions in the country, and, as McDermott says, “It is a dogfight”. Other more established schools have decade-long foundations to lean on. McDermott, after losing a number of top players pre covid, was forced to “Build from within,” and build they did with an armada of passionate, hard training college table tennis players cheering at every point like it was their last.

McDermott also coaches the team and stated, “Effort is my greatest priority, if you put the time in, you will play.” They are a strong community and as McDermott says, “all of the heart and noise is homegrown and developed in uptown Amherst.” Click here to see more what we mean about their passion: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CSMs0U3ArxX/?hl=en

The UMass number one makes one last request, “Put us on center court at nationals, so your live stream can see what we mean.”

The request is noted and forwarded.

Photo credit to Dennis Yanga

About 2022 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships
The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, Double Fish and Joola.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 8th on champs.nctta.org

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 elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

By Willy Leparulo; guest writer
NCTTA Media Committee

Numbers, numbers, numbers, they are everywhere. I am not just talking about the fact that NCTTA uses an odd scoring team system: 4 singles and 1 doubles tiebreaker. No other table tennis competition uses our system!

I want to take a journey through the numerical nuances that exist and live in our current edition of the NCTTA Championships here in 2022:

52 Colleges and Universities

79 Men’s Singles

39 Women’s Singles

24 Men’s/Coed Teams

16 Women’s Teams

32 Men’s Doubles

14 Women’s Doubles

261 Student Athletes and Coaches

101 Volunteers

21 Countries

The NCTTA is a veritable mini United Nations just within this Championship event. We have male and female athletes from all over the globe. From China to Bulgaria, Brazil to Dubai and, of course, the USA is well represented!

NCTTA, a National Organization in USA Table Tennis for the past 14 years, is also the governing body of College Table Tennis, and is excited to bring to Round Rock the plethora of international and domestic young collegiate stars on April 8-10th.

About 2022 NCTTA College Table Tennis Championships

The championships are hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB. Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams. The event is sponsored by Double Happiness, Double Fish and Joola.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 8th on champs.nctta.org

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 elite intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

NCTTA is looking for coaches for the US Team Delegation for the World University Games in Chengdu, China. Coaches must be certified through USATT, ITTF or NCTTA. To apply, please email games@nctta.org with your resume and experience.

The World University Games will take place June 25- July 7, and further travel information will be forthcoming.

NCTTA College Table Tennis Championship are COMING SOON.

Here is the NCTTA Championship website: http://www.nctta.org/champs/2022/index.html
(Registration links are NOT updated yet as of this message)
Those invited will get emails from NCTTA.app!

Here are also some IMPORTANT rules on COVID that NCTTA will be using: http://nctta.org/doc/covid/Important%20NCTTA%20Championship%20COVID%20Re...

The old adage "better safe than sorry" is what we are adapting.

School teams and Singles players will get invitations via the NCTTA.app in the March 8th week!