Photo Credit to George Thomas

By Willy Leparulo; guest writer
NCTTA Media Committee

NCTTA has made Round Rock, the Sports Capital of the world, a mainstay. The 2023 NCTTA Championships sponsored by DHS, PongSpace and Major League Table Tennis are in Round Rock, Texas for a record 4th time! There is no denying the love NCTTA has for the City of Round Rock and specifically for Nancy Yawn and the Round Rock CVB. NCTTA Vice President, Joseph Wells states, “We have been incredibly fortunate to be able to work with Nancy and her staff year after year.”

NCTTA was in Round Rock in 2016, 2018 and slated for 2020 and 2021, both canceled by COVID, but then sprung back in 2022 and again for 2023!

Round Rock Sports Center is truly a gem of a venue with spacious courts and located within walking distance of so many different areas of enjoyment. Restaurants and hotels are all just a stroll away, a great setup for any event owner!

Round Rock is the place to be in 2023 for NCTTA and College Table Tennis!

About 2023 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, PongSpace, Major League Table Tennis.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 14th 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

I want to take a journey through the numerical nuances that exist and live in our current edition of the NCTTA Championships here in 2023:

52 Colleges and Universities

81 Men’s Singles

40 Women’s Singles

24 Men’s/Coed Teams

16 Women’s Teams

32 Men’s Doubles

16 Women’s Doubles

261 Student Athletes and Coaches

103 Volunteers

23 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 Canada, Brazil to Thailand, and of course, the USA is also 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 14-16th.

About 2023 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, PongSpace, Major League Table Tennis.
Watch the event on live stream starting Friday April 14th 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

Picture this: by day an academic advisor at his alma mater of FSU; by night, embracing his true alter ego as the man with the plan, the webinar wizard who is formidably organized, brutally honest, and a multiple hat wearer: Willy Leparulo, the NCTTA President.

President Leparulo has been doing the night owl NCTTA grind for way too long, but through his sheer passion and vision, he has managed to sustain and visibly raise this humble organization of college table tennis in the USA and Canada to new heights.

And finally, due to his recent nomination for the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame, he will get much deserved plaudits amongst other amazing USA table tennis HOF nominees.

Those that will be inducted alongside him during this summer are Coach Richard McAfee (Coach McAfee will be receiving the Mark Matthews Lifetime Achievement Award and he also helped NCTTA create the Coaches’ Certification program), Ashu Jain (A high level player who used to compete for University of Michigan during the ACUI tourney days), Dennis Davis (assisted NCTTA in earlier times with their relentless goal of achieving NCAA status one day) and Ken Brooks.

A worthy honor for the hardest working college table tennis president on the planet!

And so, in his native Italian I wish him “Auguri!”
https://ustthof.projecttabletennis.com/

Looking for a resume booster? Look no further!

NCTTA Tech Team is looking for help from talented and driven software developers to join our dynamic Tech committee at NCTTA.

Do you have a passion for coding and a knack for problem-solving? Are you a table tennis fan and enjoy working on innovative projects and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible? If so, we want to hear from you!

We’re looking for someone who:
-Has experience in software development and programming languages such as C# and .NET (or .NET Core)
-Has a strong understanding of software design patterns, algorithms, and data structures
-Is capable of working with MySQL and database design
-Is comfortable working in an agile environment
-Has excellent communication and collaboration skills
-Bonus if you know JavaScript, CSS or React

In return, we offer:
-An opportunity to work on the NCTTA app project and make a real impact for future NCTTA players
-Opportunities for personal growth and learning about our internal and external applications
#resumebuilders

So, what are you waiting for? If you’re ready to take on the challenge, we’d love to talk with you. Reach out and let’s build something great together at NCTTA! info@nctta.org

From January 2023 Newsletter--

By Erica Tran
NCTTA Media Committee

For the 2023 NCTTA National Championships this spring, there will be a new format for the Coed and Women’s Teams events. In short, the team competitions will be progressive knockouts, replacing the previous system where we had a round robin stage followed by a single elimination stage.

Check out diagrams of the format here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WsJNQmJkAGTdjQzeSuU1GkA4W5SyEvJj...

Within that file, the tabs “2022 WT” and “2022 CT” illustrate the format we used at last year’s championships, and “2023 WT” and “2023 CT” show the new format we will use this year.

In the old format, teams played in round robin groups of four teams. The top two finishers from each group advanced to the championship elimination bracket, and the remaining teams would move to a second or third bracket where they would compete for a lower level of placement.

The new format does not have a preliminary stage; all teams start directly in the knockout bracket. This format is called a progressive knockout. It is similar to a single elimination, except when a team loses, they are not eliminated – they instead move to another section of the bracket where they continue to play for a lower position. After each match, both the winner and the loser continue to play until the end of the tournament. Every team plays for a final position; not only will there be a match to determine who places 1st or 2nd, but also matches to see who will place 3rd or 4th, 5th or 6th, etc.

One clear advantage of this format is that it’s easy to follow, for both competitors and spectators. When live streaming our championships on YouTube, it was difficult to show round robin group matches because we don’t necessarily know what the importance of the match is – the winner might advance to the championship bracket, or they might not. The match might not matter at all.

In the progressive knockout format, every match is consequential. The winner of every match will advance further in the tournament, with no ambiguity. There will be no meaningless matches played at this tournament.

In this new format, teams will need to make some adjustments. Because every match is consequential, teams need to be ready to go from the start. There are no warmup matches – hopefully everyone had enough warmup in their divisional and regional events. This will be the first time we’re using this format. After the tournament we will review the results and consider what further adjustments should be made.

This format change will only apply to teams. We expect the singles and doubles event formats will be similar to last year.

PongSpace and NCTTA have been working together unofficially since last summer, but today both organizations announce their official relationship to the world! PongSpace and NCTTA's missions and goals align perfectly with the sport of table tennis. Both organizations are excited to combine resources to reach those goals.

PongSpace’s primary goal is to inform fellow "pongers" of resources, be it clubs, leagues, events and competitions. NCTTA is a national organization and governing body for college table tennis in North America with goals to promote college table tennis through their league system, coaching education and tournaments.

PongSpace is currently sponsoring AYTTO, a partner of NCTTA's, and thus the next logical conclusion was the PongSpace and NCTTA relationship. Last summer, PongSpace helped NCTTA by providing access to its registration software for the SPIN NCTTA Alumni events held all over the country. These Alumni events will continue this summer as well as other shared events. In addition, NCTTA member schools will be able to utilize the PongSpace server for more promotion and publicity of their respective clubs.

About PongSpace:
Pongspace is a for profit organization connecting table tennis enthusiasts and table tennis resources together. The company strives to promote the sport by incubating new entrants to the sport while assisting existing entities to increase activities and revenue. Pongspace is the “glue” connecting all spaces of the sport. Whether you are a table tennis toddler or retired senior, there is always a space for you at Pongspace. Pongspace.com

About NCTTA:
NCTTA is a National Organization and non for profit 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, NCTTA organizes elite intercollegiate competitions throughout North America. www.nctta.org

College Football does a weekly Top 25 ranking and so do other major Collegiate sports. We here at NCTTA decided to take a stab at it as well. These team ratings are based on your rosters that you submitted and using our NCTTA Team Ratings equations.

Note these Top 25 rankings have no bearing on any post season invitations, they are purely informational. Schools feel free to use this for your respective University Recreation and Sport Councils to try and leverage more funding, more space, more everything!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11sN3FulvC1KTCvWS03yRgk1y4xXW6q1A...

Enjoy!

Ever wondered how to get involved in NCTTA? or How all of these events work?

Well, wonder no more: we are looking for

-an NCTTA Alum,
-a Coach, OR
-even a player looking to get more involved in a grassroots organization like NCTTA.

Minnesota Division Director is available now and is in charge of a division that covers Minnesota, Iowa and Idaho.
Pacific Northwest Division Director is available now and is in charge of a division that covers Washington State, Oregon and Vancouver.
Socal West Division Director is also available as well, covering parts of Southern California and Arizona.

Great Lakes Regional Director is available now and is in charge of a region that covers Upstate NY, Ohio schools near Akron and Canadian schools in Ontario and Quebec. This director is also a non-voting member of the NCTTA Board of Directors!

Directors have some perks, getting to come to the NCTTA Championships free, please reach out to hr@nctta.org to get on board with NCTTA in these positions!

Two years ago Wednesday (October 26, 2020), a beloved legend in the US table tennis passed away. In honor of his immense contribution to the table tennis community and world peace, NCTTA and AYTTO teamed together to honor him with the Annual George Braithwaite Community Service Award for those high school seniors demonstrating a consistent and positive contribution to the AYTTO community.

It is now time to submit your nomination for the candidates. Please email your nomination to president@nctta.org, or admin@aytto.org. The selection committee will announce two winners this year on April 15, 2023, the birthday of the legend who many people know as “The Chief”.

They came, they saw, and they partied in honor of NCTTA and in honor of College Table Tennis past, present and future!

NCTTA held its last ALUMNI Pong Party of the season at SPIN NYC. Almost 100 people came to hang out, eat, and reminisce about their NCTTA glory days. Combine that with current players from the Northeast and you have one hell of a pong party!

NCTTA has been reaching out to Alumni since the pandemic to get people playing again. Although it may not be the same passion and intensity of College Table Tennis past, it is the same community, the same camaraderie present.

NCTTA has one more month left in our National Fundraiser 1 to 1 match. At the SPIN NYC gathering, 1000 dollars was raised!
https://www.gofundme.com/f/NCTTA200K

Thank you to everyone that contributed to the success including SPIN NYC, PongSpace, and NCTTA staff and as well as you the Alumni and current players.

If you liked these SPIN PONG Parties, we are looking for an ALUMNI Director, please email info@nctta.org for more info! More to come in the future!