By Andy Kanengiser

NCTTA Media Chairman

 

Broadway shows, the Museum of Natural History, Yankees baseball games, opera and much more makes New York City a must-see cultural oasis for visitors around the globe.

 

With a Spin club just minutes away in the heart of NYC, and a nice Nison practice facility nearby in Brooklyn, the Big Apple remains a pretty easy sell to recruit outstanding table tennis players to college campuses.

 

Just ask Baruch College table tennis standout Sean Reddy, a resident of Elmhurst, New York. The 21-year-old grew up in the Borough of Queens and digs all the attractions in the City that Never Sleeps.

 

By attending a school like 18,000-student Baruch College or eyeing the view from a tall skyscraper, "you can see everything New York City has to offer,'' Reddy said.

 

The easy sales pitch to attract talented table tennis players to Baruch College is one of the reasons the Bearcats are making their first appearance at the NCTTA national championships. The games in Round Rock, Texas March 25-27 drew over 250 outstanding college players from across the USA and Canada.

 

Packing their paddles, the New Yorkers arrived in the Lone Star State as the No. 2 ranked coed team in the nation.

 

Part of the City University of New York, Baruch College is among a number of excellent schools in the area. New York University and the Ivy League's Columbia University are two other strong NYC teams making noise at the tournament near Austin.

 

In its first season, Baruch isn't expected to bring home the championship trophy. But that's okay. The seven-member team fared very well in year one. Students at the school at Lexington at 24th Street have much to be proud of.

 

"We will be back next year,'' Reddy said over breakfast Saturday morning with teammates at the Holiday Inn. "We had a team that was not expecting anything. We had luck.''

 

On Friday, the Baruch men's doubles team advanced before running into a brick wall: falling to a talented Mississippi College duo.

 

Before taking the three-minute walk to the Round Rock Sports Center for Day Two of the championships, Reddy and his crew touched on some of their favorite things to do in the Empire State. Well, outside table tennis.

 

For Sean, going to see the New York Yankees play at Yankee Stadium rises to No. 1. It's been that way for generations of fans of the superstars in Pinstripes, from Babe Ruth to Mickey Mantle to Derek Jeter. The World Trade Center, Chinatown, Little Italy, Rockefeller Center, Jimmy Kimmel hosting the "Tonight Show'' on NBC, the Statue of Liberty, and the list of favorite things in NYC goes on.

 

Baruch College also offers an excellent education to students. Named for financier Bernard Baruch, the school spotlights its Zicklin School of Business and the Weissmann School of Arts & Science, to name a few programs. Baruch is one of ten senior colleges in the CUNY system.

 

When he's slamming table tennis balls at tournaments or practices, Sean regularly hits the books. The Baruch junior is a philosophy and political science major making plans for law school.

 

Baruch, Columbia, NYU, Hofstra, and other schools in the region, all the way to Harvard & MIT in the Boston area, offer a first-rate education. And that combines with a terrific experience for table tennis players.

 

"Everybody in the Northeast is pretty good,'' Sean Reddy says. "They're all solid.''

 

Baruch teammates Arvis Chen, Can Wang, Mishel Levinski and Sammy Zheng agree. Then the five New Yorkers rushed off Saturday morning to play more table tennis.

 

The 2016 TMS College Table Tennis Championships is hosted by the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and the Round Rock CVB and is one of the premier table tennis tournaments in North America featuring 6 events: Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Men’s/Coed Teams, Women’s Teams.  The event is sponsored by TMS International, Gerflor, Double Fish, and Joola.

Players and spectators alike will enjoy a jam-packed weekend of table tennis at the TMS College Table Tennis Championships. The event starts Friday March 25th and continues through Sunday March 27^th at the Round Rock Sports Center

About NCTTA

The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) is a non-profit organization established exclusively for promoting the sport of table tennis at the college level. As the national governing body for college table tennis in the United States and Canada, NCTTA organizes intercollegiate competition throughout North America. www.nctta.org

About USA Table Tennis

Headquartered in Colorado Springs, USATT is the national organizing body for table tennis in the United States, serving 9,000+ members and nearly 300 clubs. USATT sanctions 200+ events a year including the US Open and US Nationals. USATT is affiliated with the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), as well as the United States Olympic Committee (USOC). www.usatt.org