J


Jerry Klein is one of those people for


whom “retired” doesn’t quite seem to fit. He’s in his late 70s, but he travels, he keeps his 30-year-old convertible in tip-top shape, and he’s even done some acting here and there. “I got paid $360 to kill Jimmy Hoffa,”


Jerry says, laughing. “It was a documen- tary for a Detroit TV station. They cast me as ‘Sally Bugs,’ a hit man out of New Jer- sey. I killed Hoffa, and then six guys in ski masks came after me.” Jerry’s true passion, though, is not on the


screen but on the table. He’s been playing table tennis at least a couple days a week since the age of 10, and he’s been win- ning tournament trophies for almost that long—300 or so by his count, including a bronze medal in Toronto in 1968. And he’s made it his mission to inspire a new gen- eration of enthusiasts here in Columbus.


out of the


basement and into the limelight


If you want to talk ping-pong with Jerry


Klein, here’s the first thing you should know: Don’t call it ping-pong. Or at least


know the difference between ping-pong (a hobby, as Jerry describes it) and table ten- nis, an officially sanctioned Olympic sport since 1988. “The ping-pong you play in a base-


ment has very low ceilings and very nar- row space, which is why a lot of people have never really seen skillful table tennis performed,” Jerry says. “Table tennis, like swimming, uses every part of your body. It


lesson, 20 minutes, you could see 1,000 shots. You’d have to play golf every hour of the day, seven days a week, if you wanted to do that many.”


Training the


Next Generation of paddle pros


Jerry first came to Columbus in the late ‘90s to help care for his elderly mother.


“Table tennis, like swimming, uses every part of


your body. It all has to work in synchronization...” -Jerry Klein


all has to work in synchronization. Hand- eye coordination is the first thing you develop, then timing, then footwork, then skill, and when you get going at it, you have to have control the ball—to be able to put it where you want it as hard as you want it. And you have to be so well-trained, you pick the right shot without even thinking about it. “But it’s easy to get good quick, because you get so many shots!” Jerry says. “In one


When she died two and a half years later, “I had to decide whether I wanted to go back to Michigan where it’s cold, or stay in Columbus where it’s warm,” he remem- bers. “And it didn’t take me long to make that decision.” It took Jerry a while to find the right


venue to pick up the paddle and start teaching table tennis again, but since putting up a flier at the Northside Recre- ation Center and offering free lessons, he’s


48


Columbus and the Valley


JUNE 2013


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