Table Tennis Club Instills Confidence, Teaches Leadership
Stephanie Cannon '06 May 23, 2013 3:32 PM
Hung-Ming Chou ’09 started playing table tennis when he was a 10-year-old elementary student in Taiwan. With a mom and dad who lived the adage “the family who plays together stays together,” table tennis has been part of his life from almost the beginning.
The game reminded him that he belonged, that he was valued and that his brain mattered—not to mention build in him a serious talent.
Today, as president of Texas A&M’s Table Tennis Club, those are still the parts of the game that Chou enjoys the most, and when he and his fellow teammates travel for various tournaments for the chance to compete at the National Collegiate Table Tennis event, it will be due in part to donors to The Association of Former Students.
As an international student who came to Texas A&M for his master’s degree (he’s currently working on his Ph.D.), Chou joined the organization to make friends and to advance the game he loved.
He would watch players pick up a paddle for a casual game on the Student Rec Center’s table, and it was clear: there weren’t a whole lot of people at Texas A&M who play table tennis well. The game is difficult and takes a surprising amount of strategy and precision, he said. You’ve got to hit the ball consistently, and players have to zip back and forth to beat the ball.
Training makes all the difference, he said, which is why he made one of the club’s goals to teach potential players how to swing their paddle like a competitor.
The organization has grown in him a bent for leadership that he didn’t know existed. When he came to Texas A&M, he said he wanted to learn more than engineering. He wanted to embody the core values of Texas A&M because he knew it would make him a more complete employee and live a more complete life.
He’s learned much from the game that pings and pongs and players who zip and whiz. He’s learned that it’s good to be a Texas Aggie.
The game reminded him that he belonged, that he was valued and that his brain mattered—not to mention build in him a serious talent.
Today, as president of Texas A&M’s Table Tennis Club, those are still the parts of the game that Chou enjoys the most, and when he and his fellow teammates travel for various tournaments for the chance to compete at the National Collegiate Table Tennis event, it will be due in part to donors to The Association of Former Students.
As an international student who came to Texas A&M for his master’s degree (he’s currently working on his Ph.D.), Chou joined the organization to make friends and to advance the game he loved.
He would watch players pick up a paddle for a casual game on the Student Rec Center’s table, and it was clear: there weren’t a whole lot of people at Texas A&M who play table tennis well. The game is difficult and takes a surprising amount of strategy and precision, he said. You’ve got to hit the ball consistently, and players have to zip back and forth to beat the ball.
Training makes all the difference, he said, which is why he made one of the club’s goals to teach potential players how to swing their paddle like a competitor.
The organization has grown in him a bent for leadership that he didn’t know existed. When he came to Texas A&M, he said he wanted to learn more than engineering. He wanted to embody the core values of Texas A&M because he knew it would make him a more complete employee and live a more complete life.
He’s learned much from the game that pings and pongs and players who zip and whiz. He’s learned that it’s good to be a Texas Aggie.
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