New Ping Pong club attracts students
“Life is like ping pong,” said Ping Pong Club founder and president Everest Yan. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but in the end, it’s about how hard you tried.”
This ambition has driven Yan, along with co-founders Michael Cao and Tony Qin, to form the Ping Pong Club.
The new club is devoted to “establishing a friendly community and promoting the development of ping pong skills”, according to Yan.
“People have put a lot of effort into building [the Ping Pong Club]”, said Yan.
In order to form the new club, the founders had to find a faculty member to be their sponsor, who they found in spanish teacher Juan-Pedro Reyna.
“The officials came to me, and I thought it would be good to support them in something that will keep them busy,” said Reyna.
They then had to get approval from the administrators, and set up club rules, according to Yan.
They also had to gather support for their club in the form of a petition.
“Originally, the gym teachers were opposed to the idea of us using their [ping pong] tables,” said Yan. “We wanted to show that this was a very positive movement, so we got people to sign [the petition.”
They needed to show the gym teachers that they were responsible enough to use the tables, according to Yan.
“We haven’t had a full meeting yet, with all the members,” said Reyna. “We just met with everyone who was interested to elect the officials.”
Reyna required that the officials have at least a 3.5 GPA.
“I wanted to be sure that the club was going to be run by people with a high standard of responsibility,” said Reyna.
The newly formed club did prove to be quite popular, attracting more than 80 members, according to Reyna.
“I joined because i thought it would be fun to try something different,” said junior member Rachael Seals.
Managing so many people is a current problem with the club, according to Qin.
“It’s a lot of people, and one of the questions is how we are going to manage them,” said Reyna.
However, the size also makes the club better, according to Yan.
“There’s a lot of different people, so it’s very diverse,” said Yan.
Because of the large size, the club had to break into separate groups to practice, according to Reyna.
“The best idea we had was to separate into groups of around 20, and do that by acquaintances,” said Reyna.
These groups will be led by the officers, and will also play against each other, according to Cao.
“The chance to play with other people and to hone your skills [is the best part],” said Cao.
Though Reyna does want to continue with the club and eventually make it a “sport club”, he will stop sponsoring the club if the students do not properly take care of school materials, according to Reyna.
“Right now, I envision the club being a social club,” said Reyna. “If it's possible, it would be a good idea to make it a sport.”
Even though the club is quite full, it is still currently accepting members.
However, they will eventually have to restrict membership, according to Reyna.
“Next year, we will have a limit on the members, if we continue with this project,” said Reyna.
Anyone who wants to join should talk to the officers or Reyna, according to Yan.
“It’s open for everyone, and everyone is welcome.” said Yan.
