The Verdict: If You Build It, They Will Ping
Moving the tournament to a brand-new location in Beloit, Wisconsin, was a massive gamble. To put it in perspective, the 2024 Regional Championships in Ohio attracted a respectable 130 players, and we were genuinely terrified that forcing people to travel even further into Wisconsin would be a bridge too far for most. Plus, there was the minor detail that Wisconsin isn’t even technically in the USATT Midwest Region.
But as it turns out, the table tennis community possesses a beautiful level of competitive madness. Our accidental exile to Wisconsin actually worked like a charm, acting as a magnet for players further west in Minnesota and Missouri who finally had a tournament within striking distance. Not only did they respond, but they turned this event into an absolute blockbuster.
Of course, they didn’t just stumble upon Beloit by accident. They were driven there by my relentless, inescapable avalanche of marketing emails. I launched a psychological warfare campaign, flooding players’ inboxes once—sometimes twice—a week. It was so intense that AWS Simple Email Service actively denied my application because their AI based support system apparently sensed that I was a spam menace.
Fortunately for me I found a way to send them in batches of roughly 400 emails per day. But the real masterstroke came from Vlad Farcas. Vlad mobilized his own network, blasting his email list of junior players with a crucial reminder: this tournament was their absolute last chance to secure vital national ranking points before the US Nationals. Since these points can only be earned at one of the eight official Regional Championships, Vlad triggered a beautiful wave of pre-Nationals FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) among the juniors.
I firmly attribute our massive turnout to this combined tag-team marketing assault: we filled a staggering 92% of all available spots and reeled in a grand total of 219 players—completely shattering our Ohio numbers.
Naturally, the local strongholds showed up in droves: Illinois sent a small army of 108 players, and Wisconsin defended its home turf with a respectable crew of 30. But then things got weird. Word of the Beloit Ping-Pong Pilgrimage spread far and wide. We had players road-tripping and flying in from practically every corner of the map:
- The Westward Reinforcements: Minnesota (16) and Missouri (12).
- The “Did You Really Drive That Far?” Crew: Michigan (6), Ohio (5), Iowa (2), North Dakota (2), and Kansas (1).
- The Sun-Seekers Who Mistakenly Came North: California (15), Texas (6), North Carolina (3), Georgia (1), and Arkansas (1).
- The East Coast Elite: New Jersey (4), New York (2), and a lone ranger from Colorado (3).
- The Ultimate Frequent Flyer: Literally one player from France. I can only assume they mistook Beloit for Versailles, but we were thrilled to have them anyway.
Out of 219 registered competitors, we only had 7 “no-shows”—presumably people who looked at a map of Wisconsin and panicked. A few other brave souls battled so hard on Saturday that their bodies officially went on strike, forcing them to withdraw on Sunday. All in all, the turnout was legendary!
With New Venues Come New Terrors
Every tournament director knows the thrill of a new venue. It brings fresh energy, new possibilities, and a buffet of existential dread. Going into this, my mind was racing with questions:
- Will the equipment arrive before the tournament ends?
- Will I have to set up 24 table tennis tables entirely by myself?
- Will the venue’s Wi-Fi be fast enough to support modern smartphones, or will it reduce our players with older phones to tears?
- Will the weather cooperate or will be too hot to play?
- Will enough players sign up to cover the expenses?
Spoiler alert: We survived. But the journey involved battling corporate bureaucracy, defying the laws of physics, and dodging a localized apocalypse. Here is how it actually went down.
The Great Penske Paperwork Protocol
The tournament equipment lives with Ed Hogshead at a storage facility on the rural fringes of Rockford, Illinois—about 20 miles south of our venue in Beloit, Wisconsin. My logistical master plan was simple: rent a massive truck from Penske, play truck driver for a day, and make a few quick rounds.
However, Beloit Memorial High School lacks a loading dock or a hydraulic lift. Naturally, I requested a truck with a liftgate to save my spine from imminent destruction. Penske’s system promptly informed me that liftgates are strictly reserved for Real Businesses™.
Not to be deterred, I confidently filled out their commercial business application. Apparently, running a major regional table tennis tournament makes me a “small-time operation,” because my application was unceremoniously denied and my reservation deleted.
I didn’t even realize I had been ghosted until two weeks before the tournament when I called to adjust the dates. A lovely representative reinstated it, only for the Penske automated rejection overlords to cancel it again a few days later. This triggered a 30-minute therapy session with the Penske finance department where I literally recited my entire life history in the table tennis industry. The verdict? They finally agreed to rent me a truck, but absolutely no liftgate for you.
Ed Hogshead and the Physics-Defying Truck Bridge
I arrived at the storage facility just after 9:00 AM on a day that felt approximately as hot as the surface of the sun. Ed greeted me with the ultimate motivational speech: “This truck isn’t going to work. It doesn’t have a liftgate.”
Driven by sheer adrenaline and denial, I told Ed I’d do whatever it took, even if we had to drag everything up the steep ramp by hand. Ed was recently fresh off a hip replacement surgery, so he was playing the role of Lead Architect while his hired helper, Antonio—a man possessing roughly twice my physical strength—and I provided the muscle.
Our mission was to transfer four massive 4x4x3 ft gray containers packed with heavy steel barrier parts from Ed’s truck into my truck. They weighed roughly a metric ton each. Lifting them was out of the question.
Fortunately, Ed holds a CDL and possesses a legendary supply of “trucker tricks.”
- Trick #1: Use the liftgate on his truck to form a floating bridge between the two vehicles, allowing us to roll the containers across with a pallet jack.
- Trick #2: Use the liftgate geometry to stack the containers on top of each other, saving space and sparing me from making multiple trips.
The bridge concept was flawless, until reality reminded us that our truck beds were completely different heights. Time for Trick #3. Ed calmly backed his truck onto a couple of wooden pallets to raise its rear end.
As you can see in the first photo, we were still not level. That’s when I remembered my truck was “fancy.” It featured a dashboard button that electronically adjusted the rear suspension height. After a tedious 10-minute ballet of reversing and micro-adjustments—which I won’t bore you with, though I did learn some excellent hand-signal choreography from Ed—the bridge was perfectly level. We rolled the containers right in.
Next up: pushing 24 heavy tables up a steep ramp in ninety-degree heat. It took Antonio and me another grueling hour, fueled entirely by frequent water breaks and sheer willpower. I walked away with a fantastic, glowing sunburn. Antonio walked away incredibly angry about the delayed lunch schedule, and honestly, I couldn’t blame him.
Fast, Furious, and Fractured Weather
By 1:30 PM, I inhaled two sandwiches and took the wheel. Driving a 26-foot box truck through rural Illinois is a peaceful, albeit slow, experience. I cautiously pushed the beast all the way up to 50 mph. I can safely report that it does not possess the acceleration of my Tesla Model 3. In fact, the real-time fuel gauge indicated that during acceleration, it was chugging diesel at a terrifying rate of 4 miles per gallon.
I was exactly one mile from the venue when my phone blasted a Severe Weather Alert: Shelter in Place Immediately.
I furiously backed the truck up to the high school receiving door just as the sky turned a catastrophic shade of apocalyptic gray. We managed to throw a few tables inside before the heavens absolutely opened up. For the next hour, as the winds howled, I sat inside the school genuinely wondering if my rented Penske truck was still parked outside or if it had been airborne-delivered back to Rockford.
We maximized our storm shelter time by measuring and taping out the courts. Once the storm downgraded to a miserable, depressing drizzle, we went back out to finish the job. Because we didn’t have a liftgate, we had to unpack the heavy barrier parts from those massive gray containers in small batches while they were still inside the truck, eventually rendering the containers light enough to lift down.
It was a grueling process, but we were saved by an absolute cavalry of volunteers from Visit Beloit who showed up to help us brave the elements. Not pictured is Brian the high school administrator who let us inside and helped with unloading too.
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