Beginner Nights, happy hours foster affordability and community at Willamette Table Tennis Club
- Leslie Gomez, Staff Writer
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
Just a short 20-minute walk from campus, the Willamette Table Tennis Club (WTCC) has quietly built a welcoming and tight-knit space for ping-pong players of all skill levels since 2010. What distinguishes the group is not competitive intensity or flashy facilities, but a consistent emphasis on accessibility and connection within the Salem table tennis scene.
For Nancy Reynolds, one of the club’s longtime coaches, the journey into table tennis began quietly. She has been a part of the Salem community for 15 years, originally moving here from Boulder, Colorado. Reynolds worked as a bilingual school teacher and former high-level professional bike racer, and it was her husband, Matthew Barnes, whom she met while being a bike racer, who introduced her to the game. After researching organizations in Salem, they decided to give WTTC a try after retiring.
One of the club's most popular initiatives is Beginner Night, held on the first Monday of every month. These sessions offer free lessons alongside open play, giving newcomers the opportunity to learn basic techniques while meeting other beginners and casual players. Reynolds said some of the club's strongest competitors actually started playing at a Beginner Night.
“They came for the first time on a night like this,” she explained, “and then they just got really good form.”
Reynolds noted that one of the biggest challenges for older players is unlearning bad habits.
“When you've ‘played’ enough, you develop a bad form, and it could take you 15 years to get rid of it,” she said. New players, by contrast, have the advantage of building strong fundamentals from the beginning.
Table tennis is both a mental and physical sport.
“At any level, it's the brain and body. Sometimes, your brain’s not sharp,” Reynolds said.
The balance of strategy, reflex and endurance makes it uniquely engaging and challenging. In the facility, Reynolds and Barnes participated in a one-on-one match, where both of their skills were displayed as the ball snapped back and forth between them.
The Salem club operates without sponsors or corporate ties. Instead, it relies on a community-oriented model built on affordability.
“We just want to keep the club available,” Reynolds explained.
Thursday evenings feature a 6-7 p.m. happy hour, where play is completely free, followed by regular open sessions. If players don’t have their own equipment, donated rackets are available for use. The goal for the club is to remove financial barriers that often exist in other sports.
“We want people to come and play and not have to be wealthy,” Reynolds said.
Saturday afternoons at 1 p.m. are also open play, providing another flexible entry point for students and local participants to drop in without commitment. For communication, the club uses a shared Google Calendar that lists upcoming events.
Notably, membership is not required to participate, reflecting the club's accessibility-first philosophy. However, memberships and passes are available to help cover operational expenses, especially since visitor fees have remained unchanged for over 15 years.
Beyond weekly play, the club fosters community in other ways. Coaches from San Diego visit twice a year to host weeklong training camps. Members organize potluck dinners and birthday celebrations. There is also a small interconnected regional network of players across Springfield, Eugene and Corvallis.
Inside the facility, flags hang along the walls representing the diverse backgrounds of players, including Ukraine, Russia, China, Japan, Mexico, Great Britain and more. In a sport often stereotyped as niche, the Salem table tennis community prioritizes belonging.