Table tennis may have not been an Olympic headliner over this summer’s games, but it became a headliner club at North Hollywood High School.
Table Tennis, commonly known as Ping-Pong, is currently the world’s sixth most popular sport, with over 850 million fans. However, North Hollywood’s Ping-Pong club never matched the sport’s popularity. That is, until this year.
The revival began when Seniors Cameron Laaly and Parker Gantt, competitive table tennis players since elementary school, took over as club presidents. “I couldn’t believe how few people knew about the club,” Gantt recalls. “I’ve been a part of the club for two years, and we had maybe five regular members last year. Cameron has been a part of it for four years and he even says that the most the club ever had was 8 members.”
Laaly and Gantt decided to change that. “We worked on many plans together, and once complete, Cameron approached the school’s clubs administration with a detailed proposal: dedicated practice space, proper equipment, and most importantly, structured training sessions,” Gantt claimed. Lucas Cefalu, North Hollywood’s club facilitator, was impressed by Laaly’s initiative. “Cameron’s passion was contagious,” he says. “He showed us videos of high school table tennis competitions in other countries, and we realized we were missing out on something special.”
Cefalu, approving of the club idea, guided Laaly and Gantt through the proper qualifications for the club to get approved by the rest of the administration. The club was refounded and established under the two’s leadership on September 12th, 2024.
Word spread quickly. Within a month, membership exploded from five to thirty students. The diverse club includes everyone from experienced players to complete beginners like freshman Eli Katz, who previously played only in his garage. “It’s completely different playing here,” Katz explains. “Parker taught me proper technique, and now I’m actually understanding the strategy behind the game.”
The club’s success has sparked interest from other schools in the district. North Hollywood hosted its first inter school tournament in October, drawing teams from Van Nuys’s Ping-Pong club to join the competition. The event was such a success that plans are already underway for a larger regional competition in the spring.
But perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the club’s transformation is its impact on school culture. “Table tennis, or Ping-Pong if you prefer, has this unique way of bringing people together,” observes Mr. Alvarado, the club’s faculty advisor. “We have varsity athletes playing alongside computer club members, seniors mentoring freshmen. The social barriers just seem to disappear around the ping pong table.”
As the rhythmic pop-pop of ping pong balls echoes throughout the school hallways, it’s clear that this once-overlooked sport has found its place at North Hollywood High. And while it may not be an Olympic headliner yet, for these students, it’s become something even better – a community.
