2024 Hall of Fame Induction Speech

October 10, 2024 at Houston International TTA

By Larry Hodges

Many years ago, Dennis Taylor joined my Intermediate Training group sessions in Maryland. We worked on his forehand, his backhand, his footwork, his serve and receive, everything, and his rating went over 1600. And he could really rip the ball from both wings! He hit backhands at about 200 mph. I gave him many magic words of wisdom and he was well on his way to being the best table tennis player in the history of the world.

But I failed him. Sure, he was the 1979 North Texas Class A Champion, and I’d like to take credit for that, but that was before he joined my classes. Nope, I utterly failed him.

Now, at that time Dennis was a music teacher. You should hear him on the trumpet! Once, while we listened to some complicated piece of music on some road trip, he was able to identify each of the instruments played and describe their usage. We later argued at length over whether the bagpipes and banjo are serious musical instruments – I’ll let you guess who took which side.

But then Dennis went to law school, and they did not fail him. What followed were decades of brilliant work as General Counsel for the Office of the Tenant Advocate in Washington DC. Oh, and as General Counsel for USA Table Tennis for nearly two decades. But let me back up a little.

Dennis started playing sometime in the late 1970s. His first big tournament was the 1978 US Open. I’ve known Dennis for decades, but my first really clear memory of him was as my assistant director at the 1998 Eastern Open. The tournament had 411 entries, I believe still the record for entries in a regular 4-star tournament. The players came fast and furious, and we didn’t have enough tables. Things began to fall behind, and the tournament was about to fall apart like a ping-pong ball facing a Dennis Taylor backhand kill. But that’s when Superman showed up. Or should I say Andre the Giant? Dennis stepped up and really took charge, calling matches rapid-fire on the loudspeaker like an auctioneer. Soon things were caught up. He kept it up all tournament, and the tournament finally ended, to my great relief. But it was at that tournament that I realized we needed to put Dennis to work on more table tennis issues. Sorry, Dennis!

Soon after, USATT discovered him, and that’s when Dennis really took off. Over the next two decades, he served as:

• USATT’s pro bono general counsel for much of two decades, for nine different CEOs and executive directors, and four different USATT presidents and board chairs. As USATT’s lawyer, he advised the board on the bylaws, gave legal advice, and litigated dozens of cases, inevitably winning over and over. He achieved a USATT lawyer rating of 2800.
• He was elected to the USATT Board of Directors for three years. Dennis, we offer our condolences.
• He was USATT Secretary for ten years, doing the minutes for over 100 board meetings. Have you ever seen what that entails? It’s like doing handstands on molten lava in a hurricane while eleven people yell in your ear. This alone should have made him a Hall of Famer, for both table tennis and masochism.
• He chaired a number of committees and task forces, even the USATT High Performance Committee, and was a member or advisor to about a dozen other committees. He was even on the USATT Editorial Board for many years. When I did a profile in USATT Magazine of the South Park Table Tennis Club in Pittsburgh, he led the charge to keep me from decorating the story with apparently offensive characters from the South Park cartoon. It’s a funny story for some other time. But when he wasn’t protecting the membership from Cartman, he made suggestions and found typos and other corrections in each issue before it went to press, which was really helpful.

Of course, all good things come to an end. Some leaders want honest counsel to better direct their decisions. Others want to hear what they want to hear. And that was why Dennis’s time as USATT’s general counsel came to an end. For now.

One thing about Dennis is he’s too modest to spend much time in self-promotion. You rarely see him in pictures at table tennis events. In fact, when I searched for photos of him in table tennis activities, there were almost none. Even Dennis didn’t have any. Just recently another Hall of Famer, Mal Anderson, found a few photos of Dennis, which you may see shortly. But after painstaking searches, I was only able to find three photos of Dennis, and all are of historical interest.

The first photo is of Dennis presenting an official welcome letter to Liu Guoliang, President of the Chinese Table Tennis Association, long-time coach of the Chinese National Team, and many-time World and Olympic Champion. I don’t think Liu could block Dennis’s backhand kill. Seriously, have you seen that thing? Whap!

The second photo, which I think I took, was taken at the Potomac Table Tennis Club, circa 1990s. Dennis is in the middle. I have no idea who is on the right. What makes this photo somewhat interesting, and maybe of historic interest – besides Hall of Famer Dennis being in it – is the one who just coincidentally happens to be standing on the left, in the red shirt. Some of you may have heard of him – that’s the very rarely photographed Srinivas Janardhanan, better known as the infamous Sjan, who many of you may know from his online activities. I won’t go into that here.

The third photo, which I took, is from a USATT board meeting in the early 2000’s. You may recognize a few of these people. Many are famous. Seven are Hall of Famers.

[Point out the seven Hall of Famers – Tawny Banh, Todd Sweeris, Bob Fox, Jimmy McClure, Tim Boggan, Doru Gheorge, and Dennis Taylor, plus myself taking the picture (see my nametag) – along with the various board members and staff.]

And so, while I utterly failed Dennis as his coach – though his backhand kill, which occasionally hits, makes Jimmy Butler’s look like a snail out for a stroll – Dennis did not fail us with his many, many years of service. And that is why today we are inducting my good friend Dennis Taylor, someone we all look up to, into the US Table Tennis Hall of Fame. We might even teach him the secret handshake. Dennis, the floor is yours!