1 thought on “Table Tennis Tales and Techniques”

1. Dear Staff,

   Larry [Hodges] is a real creep. He should not be in charge of anything.
   –Sol Schiff

   Mr. Schiff is in his late ’80s, early 90s. A really sweet man. I interviewed him around 2005 at a US Open. There was a crowd of people around him and there was Mr. Schiff, saying to me, voice like a groan, “Ed, Ed, I want to talk with you.

   Coach Larry, when he was the chief editor of USA TABLE TENNIS, put the past Hardbat-era champions on the back burner. I don’t have time to go into it now, but Mr. Marty Reisman, late 60s, beat him in the US Open Hardbat Finals around 1998 and Coach Larry didn’t have the backbone or the sense to put Mr. Reisman’s photo on the cover of our magazine.

   I’m a Hardbat and Liha trailblazer. I’ve questioned the status quo and have made many friends.

   I haven’t read your book, but looks a tad commercial.

   If the movie was about the real Coach Larry, the man behind the curtain, the dirty, two -faced lying flat-sponge
   manufactures operative posing as a journalist and couch–it would be a blockbuster, bigger than _ERAN BROKOVITCH…I’ve got the shrill characters.

   The modern game is a total sham with its excessive speed and spin. There is no chance for a rally. No contrast of the hard and the soft you have with Liha, Sandpaper.

   There is no doubt that The Game is broken, thanks to the Coach Larrys. No elections. You have a small group of people telling us what to do. And Mr. Mensa, Coach Larry, is a major player on the perception management team. He’s everywhere: the Control desks of our National tournaments, attends most of the USATT Coaches Coaching Clinics, on the USA TABLE TENNIS MAGAZINE’S advisory board.

   I’m so happy for Coach Larry. He has been my good friend ever since I backed out of my first clinic with him at his Maryland club, 1996. He’s fascinating, different. Thanks to Coach Larry, I was able to taste the bitter swill of confusion and hate…He made me a man. I could go on….

   I have to get ready to play now. It’d really be sweet if you could put me in touch with the director.

   Yours in Liha,

   Ed Ball
   The Best Liha Instructor in Santa Monica

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