The Michigan Table Tennis Club ended a successful season last spring, placing third in the region and seventh nationally. Despite these accolades, the team is not able to practice on campus or wear the University of Michigan’s logo on their jerseys after losing University recognition in 2017. Now, they are circulating a petition asking the University to guarantee funding and practice space on campus.
The team was sponsored by the University up until 2017, when a dispute between the University’s Department of Recreational Sports and the team over travel form deadlines culminated in the termination of funding. LSA senior Alex Cai, a co-president of the team, told The Michigan Daily in an interview about the events leading up to losing U-M funding.
“The general gist is that the team (in 2017) basically made it to Nationals, but the school denied their request to travel to compete,” Cai said. “And (the team) basically went without telling them and the school found out. … Everything else that happened after was a result of that.”
In an interview with The Daily, LSA senior Adham Musa, the team’s treasurer, said the current team is not affiliated with the incident in 2017, but still faces its repercussions.
“We want to emphasize that the 2017 incident was in regards to travel forms, it had nothing to do with us,” Musa said. “It was all previous players and most players that graduated that year. Over the other years, other board members tried to reach out to the (Board of Regents) with no clear response of how to proceed in terms of how to get university sponsorship.”
Since 2017, the team has been limited to practicing off-campus at local community centers, including the Jewish Community Center of Greater Ann Arbor and the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor. Relying mainly on these centers, as well as contributions from local businesses and community members, the team has been able to obtain practice space as well as equipment and funding to continue to operate and compete.
The team is currently collecting and finalizing signatures on their formal petition to the University in which they detail their immediate and long-term goals. With more than 100 signatures from U-M faculty, students and community members, the petition lays out the team’s three requests. First, the team is requesting a one-time grant for 12 new NCTTA-approved table tennis tables and nets. Second, the team requests a guaranteed practice time and space at the Hadley Family Recreation & Wellbeing Center, which is currently set to open in spring 2025. The team’s last request asks the Center for Campus Involvement to endorse the club, which would allow the use of the U-M logo on their jerseys.
Musa told The Daily he feels that on-campus practice spaces and University support could substantially benefit the team.
“There is definitely a question of how practical it is for the team to practice (at the community centers) because of space constraints,” Musa said. “It is without question that the spaces on campus, especially the new buildings they’re building, could provide us a much better place and could be much more convenient for the team to better prepare.”
LSA senior Nehemiah Yu, the team’s co-president, told The Daily the lack of practice space and adequate equipment has also been discouraging, especially as the team is made up of accomplished players.
“The quality of the practice and training is extremely important,” Yu said. “We’re hosting an international Olympian, and it doesn’t feel great to tell her that we’re not officially sponsored by the school.”
This year, the table tennis team welcomed 2024 Olympian Archana Kamath, who represented India on their women’s table tennis team. The team’s roster also includes Eliel Sosis, who was on the USA U19 Boy’s Junior National Team, and Yijia Gao, who competed in the 2022 College Table Tennis National Championships.
Cai also said it is difficult to not be able to officially be supported by the University, especially when competing with teams from other universities who are recognized by their institutions.
“It’s just not great to say that we’re not even officially sponsored by the school,” Cai said. “Especially when basically all the other big universities like UCLA, NYU, (UC) Berkeley … get sponsorship and money and they’re recognized as — at the very minimum — a club sport.”
Musa said the team’s ultimate goal in circulating the petition is to receive official recognition and assistance from the University to build stability and improve performance.
“Since we play in Michigan’s name, we should be more supported by the University,” Musa said. “Basically, we see that we’ve done very good without (the University’s) support, and we think we could do a lot better if we do get their support.”
Daily Staff Reporter Tenzin Menrinetsang can be reached at tenzinm@umich.edu.
The post UMich Table Tennis Club petitions for University support appeared first on The Michigan Daily.
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