They Love Old Game With New Spin

When Stanley Kahan first picked up a pingpong paddle, it was made of hardwood and sandpaper.

That was nearly 50 years ago and a lot has changed since then.

For one thing, a good paddle is now made of sponge rubber and carbon alloy. For another, they’ll laugh you out of the arena in any other country if you call it pingpong. Internationally, the game is called table tennis.

Except in the United States, apparently. The game’s lack of attention here has been perplexing, according to organizers of the Seventh Annual Meiklejohn National Seniors Table Tennis Tournament, which is Friday through Sunday at Leisure World.

“It’s an under-promoted sport, but a great sport,” tournament organizer Carol Cartwright said. “It’s not pingpong. It is a game of incredible skill.”

Kahan, a professor of stage and theater at Long Beach State, is one of about 200 competitors who will play for a share of the $11,000 purse during the three-day event.

Highlights include the senior elites division at 1:30 p.m. Friday and the over-40 singles competition at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

Some of the top senior players in the world are expected to compete, including top-seeded Tong Sheng Huang of Maryland; former Ukraine champion and second-seeded Bella Livshits, now living in Los Angeles; 1979 U.S. Open champion Attila Malek of Costa Mesa, and George Braithwaite, a member of the U.S. delegation that visited China in 1971.

To qualify as a senior player, a competitor must be at least 40.

Kahan, 65, took up the sport in the 1940s for recreation while attending City College of New York. He and other players competed in an old loft in midtown Manhattan.

“We designed a rating system so you would have a chance to play against some of the very strongest players,” he said.

Kahan finished college at the University of Wisconsin, where he competed and won several college tournaments. But he dropped table tennis in the 1950s when he came to Long Beach.

“Something very different happened in 1950 or 1951,” he said. “They began to introduce the sponge rubber paddle and that gave you all kinds of strange and crazy spin on the ball. People who grew up with wood paddles had tremendous difficulty adjusting to the new game because of all that spin those paddles gave you.”

Kahan started playing again a couple of years ago when he moved to Leisure World.

“It’s a small game where a very limited number of spectators can get close to it, unlike tennis,” he said. “Tennis has a much bigger court which permits more viewing. Table tennis doesn’t make good television viewing.”

Cartwright said she thought table tennis buffs had it made when the sport was popularized in 1994 in the movie “Forrest Gump.” But they failed to capitalize and now they’re right back where they started.

But the 400-member strong Laguna Hills Table Tennis Club at Leisure World keeps rolling along.

“It’s a great sport to watch,” Cartwright said. “The ball comes so fast, you don’t have time to decide what to do.”

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Table Tennis in Laguna Hills

Here’s a look at the seventh annual Meiklejohn National Seniors Table Tennis Tournament.

* Where: Leisure World, Laguna Hills (Clubhouse 5, enter gate 9)

* When: Friday-Sunday

* Time: 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily

* Cost: Admission is free

* Prizes: $11,000 divided among winners in three divisions

* Information: (714) 855-0198