Imagine for a moment, It is 5:30 p.m. on a Wednesday on the second floor of the Center Building and you are working on schoolwork and studying. It’s starting to get a little difficult and you’re getting a little tired from working all day and you want to find a place to stop but can’t so you continue.
However, suddenly you begin to hear this strange sound, ping, ping, ping. Confused, you investigate and peek out from the library to discover a ping pong table set up in the middle of the Center Building and welcoming individuals inviting you to open play! Originally you weren’t here for ping-pong club but your here now!
Many have discovered Lane Community Colleges Ping-Pong club this way late in the afternoon with many more each day wanting to come back again.
The table tennis club at Lane Community College has been operating for a little over a decade led by Alberto Redondo, a professor of the music program at Lane and part time table tennis pro!
Redondo’s table tennis adventure began at a young age where he would play against friends and family at a recreational level. However things got serious when he moved to Eugene and discovered UO’s table tennis club and quickly learned that he may have been the best between his friends and family but he still had a lot to learn. He wasn’t discouraged however, Redondo was determined to get better and through the help of some of the best players over at UO he trained to be the best he could be.
Redondo was hooked and realized the world of table tennis was a whole lot bigger than he thought, as he played through intense tournaments in his time. He realized later down the road as he started to work with LCC that the campus could use a similar club and from there the club was born.
The club has recently reformed and like many other clubs had low turnout rates due to the pandemic. Redondo comments on the matter, “Students on campus meet weekly and after a few years you have new students on campus and it’s kind of a tricky thing! It’s a big task for everyone to get going.” The pandemic has been difficult with many clubs and organizations with most of them just now reorganizing.
Fresh out of the pandemic Redondo hopes to revitalize the club and when asked about its future plans he stated, “The hope this term is to get enough interested players so we can get a team for next winter. Depending on the turnout this term we can set up a tournament to determine who the team would be. Our top four players will become a team.” The club hopes to get back into tournaments as it’s been doing pre-covid playing in the NCTTA (National Collegiate Table Tennis Association) where LCC faces off against other campuses such as; University of Oregon, Washington University, Portland State University, Skyline College and on occasions the British Columbia College. “We’ve played some incredible competitions with Washington and UO has a fantastic team. We have good relationships with the University of Oregon and they invite us there to practice. The ping-pong community is a small community so it’s important to support each other. We invite each other to events and it’s a great way for students to meet who would not have met otherwise from other colleges in a sport they like.”
The club can give opportunities to travel to other universities and colleges representing LCC in the world of table tennis. The club as of now is focused on finding enough interested players for next term so they can set up a tournament to find the best four players to forge a team. Overall the club provides a fun escape for students and an opportunity to play against other students across the northwest and is a great workout for the mind and body.
“What inspired me? I was always passionate about it and I got reinspired at the UO. I learned the benefits that it’s good for cognizant development: you get all that different sensory information with the ball spinning.”
