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Eric Owens
By Tim Boggan Kenny Owens, with a very successful neuromuscular therapy practice in Houston TX, had, as one interviewer put it, “the financial resources to provide the right coaching, the right equipment, and the right opportunities” to help his son Eric involve himself in sports and excel in table tennis. Kenny “taught his son to…
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Sheila O’Dougherty
Induction Speech – 2014 – Courtesy of Sean O’Neill Tonight we get to welcome a very special athlete and contributor into the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame – Sheila O’Dougherty. Let me start off on the playing side of the ledger. Sheila was: That would be a stellar career for any US player, but…
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Sebastian DeFrancesco
Sebastian’s Table Tennis Achievements
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Ken Brooks
Ken Brooks – Introduction SpeechCourtesy of Jennifer Johnson First, I would like to say congratulations to all the inductees in the various categories. You are all awesome and amazing. However, I am here this evening to induct my dear friend, Mr. Kenneth (Ken) Brooks, paralympic athlete into the United States Table Tennis Hall of Fame.…
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Ashu Jain
“Athletes Making a Difference.” Courtesy of Sean O’Neill Our next inductee charted his own course as a player, Junior Team Member, Junior Olympic Gold Medalist, Collegiate Champ, World Team Member, USOC AAC Rep & Anti-Doping Committee Chair, USATT Board Member, ITTF’s Athlete Commission and a person that truly made a difference both on and off…
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Heja Lee
After almost 10 years of serious play–during which she represented South Korea in the Asian Championships–He-ja Lee came to the U.S. as the wife of 6-time U.S. Champion Dal-Joon Lee. In those days, like her arch-rival, Insook Na Bhushan, He-ja was based in Columbus, Ohio, where of course she practiced with D-J, while Insook practiced…
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Tahl Leibovitz
Tahl Leibovitz told an interviewer that he’d started going to New York City’s South Queens Boys Club when he was 14-15 years old. They had two tables there, and everyone was playing with sandpaper or wood rackets. Tahl liked the sound of the ball and the long rallies. Mostly he liked that there was some…
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Mitchell Seidenfeld
Marcy Monasterial, who with one arm had been a member of the able-bodied 1957 U.S. Team to the Stockholm World’s, points to the 1990 World Championship Games for the Disabled to introduce Minneapolis’s 26-year-old Mitch Seidenfeld to us. Who, we want to know, IS this dwarf, er “little person”? Unseeded in Men’s Class 8, he…
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Jimmy Butler
Before he was 11…13…15…17 and out of the Junior’s, Jimmy Butler had won a remarkable 24 U.S. Open and Closed Championships. Already he stood tall in the History of U.S. Table Tennis, and, as was apparent to everyone, his stature in our Sport could only continue to grow and grow and grow. From the beginning,…
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Jasna Rather
Jasna Rather (nee Fazlic, formerly Lupulesku) was born Dec. 20, 1970 in Foca, a town in Bosnia not far from the Montenegro border. Following in the footsteps of her uncle and older sister, always an important influence in her life, she began playing table tennis at age 8, maybe got a Christmas present of a…
US Table Tennis Hall of Fame
Recognizing athletes and contributors in the sport of Table Tennis in the United States