Feature: Turning the table

Joseph Boo

When God revealed his calling to 47-year-old Attila Malek, he did

it with pingpong balls. Not the kind that determines the weekly Lotto

numbers, but the ones used in the competitive sport of table tennis.

“I considered joining the ministry,” Malek said, “but God said ‘no, I

have different plans for you.’ ”

Instead of the ministry, Malek, a former U.S. table tennis champion

and current resident of Costa Mesa, founded the Power Pong Professional

Table Tennis Center. It is the only training center in Southern

California devoted to advanced table tennis.

Malek’s vision portrays table tennis as the next up-and-coming sport

in America. He feels his calling is to help kids through table tennis,

and Malek does it through a program that offers training and college

scholarships to anyone trying to reach the world-class level.

For his services, Malek was recognized with a rare opportunity. He was

selected by USA Table Tennis, along with eight players and the two

national coaches, to go to China for the 30th anniversary of the Ping

Pong Diplomacy. Malek will be the team’s third coach.

In 1971, China invited the U.S. national table tennis team for

friendlies in Beijing. That team was the first Americans to visit China

since the Communist revolution in 1949. The event helped spark a

restoration of diplomatic relations, however unsteady, between the two

nations.

There are no diplomatic duties for Malek and the rest of the Americans

except some public relations. While Malek opposes China’s human rights

record, he intends to keep his focus on pingpong and not on politics.

“They first called me and I was very excited,” he said. “Nobody ever

told me I was up for this and I never applied for anything. I think the

other coaches recognized that I worked hard in table tennis and to

develop my junior program.”

To focus on teaching table tennis, Malek curtailed his playing career.

He puts in countless hours in training 26 youngsters at Power Pong. One

of them, Danny Tran, is the 15-and-under U.S. Open champion. Three of his

pupils, Arthur Ascuncion, Michael Amren and Peter Randall, won the

California State Junior Championships in their respective age groups.

Malek teaches at Calvary Chapel High in Santa Ana and he helped

popularize pingpong at that school. He now finds himself as a teacher of

pingpong and an “Acts and Actions” religion class.

“We have seven or eight tables set up in the gym at lunchtime and it’s

full of kids playing table tennis,” he said.

In the U.S., table tennis isn’t taken that serious outside of

basements and dormitories. But in Europe and Asia, several nations have

training programs that groom promising youth.

Malek is a product of Hungary’s table tennis program. He started

playing when he was 14, which is a late start compared to the others who

start when they’re 7- and 8-years old. Hungary also had one of the top

table tennis programs at the time and it won a world championship while

Malek was on the team.

He came to America in 1978 when his wife wanted to join her father in

Chicago. By the next year, Malek was the U.S. national champion. In 1980,

he won the U.S. Open title and then dropped out of the sport.

He moved to Orange County in 1988 after an eight-year stay in Las

Vegas where table tennis took a back seat, and Malek, the sport and kids

became an entity.

“I’ve never had a problem getting kids interested,” Malek said. “I

tell a kid that if they can return a serve off me, they get a dollar. Or

if they win five points off me in a game to 11 points, they get $5. Once

I get kids started, they want to keep playing.”

From those simple goals, Malek helps kids discover if they can be a

world-class table tennis player. With USA Table Tennis unable to fund a

junior national program, organizations like Malek’s Power Pong is the

only way for Americans to get the proper training.

“There are a lot of things happening right now,” he said. “Sometimes,

I get overwhelmed from everything happening at once. But there are so

many things happening for the sport of table tennis. All the kids like

playing, and more kids are getting into it. I think it’ll be the next big

sport in America, like soccer. And it will start from right here, in

Orange County.”

Not everybody makes it to the international level, but Malek still

helps a youngster find college scholarships if he or she puts in the hard

work to attain one.

“We’re a nonprofit organization that provides training and financial

assistants or kids willing to work hard,” he said.

Malek’s love of kids is obvious in his family life. After two of

Malek’s sons grew up, he and his wife, Sylvia, adopted a 2 1/2-year-old

son, and they are in the process of adopting a daughter. The Maleks also

have a 9-year-old daughter, their youngest biological child.

With Malek working with kids and table tennis, it’s a perfect

combination.

Sort of like seven straight service aces.