Pingpong paddles spill out of a laundry bin on the floor of Rajul Sheth’s office in Milpitas — just a small hint of the large entrepreneurial success story at work here.
In a quiet corner of the South Bay, just beyond the neatly trimmed, cookie-cutter neighborhoods, Sheth has turned a boxy warehouse into the country’s biggest table tennis center. In doing so the Indian immigrant is changing the face of a sport that has largely been an Olympic afterthought to Americans.
Three of the four U.S. players headed to the London Games have honed their craft at the India Community Center — San Jose’s Ariel Hsing, Palo Alto’s Lily Zhang and Houston’s Timothy Wang, who moved to the Bay Area two years ago to improve his skills.
No club has ever sent three players to a single Olympics, according to Massimo Costantini of Italy, the program’s main teacher and 2011 U.S. coach of the year.
“It never happened anywhere in the world,” the coach of Italy’s 2004 Olympic team said. “Even in China. So this is a miracle.”
The International Table Tennis Association has designated the Milpitas center as one of 22 hot spots for the sport around the world.
The startup spirit can be found everywhere at the ICC, which hosts summer camps with almost 500 kids.
Sheth, 42, was once a national level player in India. Now he is the program’s director and coach — and the perpetually sunny promoter of a sport he loves. The center has 25 blue tables sitting atop red floors with hothouse fluorescent lighting bearing down, all good for simulating the atmosphere of major tournaments.
With the repetitive click and clack of hard-plastic balls pinging off tables, the airy warehouse has the sound of a primeval forest filled with singing insects.
“You have thousands of kids and you are trying to get that one,” Sheth said of finding a champion.
This is not what Sheth planned to do with his life. He came to the United States in 2002 with the intention of earning a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. Economic conditions forced him to work 80-hour weeks instead.
Sheth commuted to jobs by bus and bike while working at the Great Mall and the graveyard shift at a gas station. He often noticed a regular customer at the station wearing table tennis clothing.
That led to an invitation to play at San Jose State in 2004. It didn’t take Sheth long to impress local competitors. After a few more tournaments in the Bay Area, Sheth was asked to help the ICC start a program.
He began with five tables and a dozen kids. Within two years Sheth had attracted 60 students and quit his other jobs. It was time to get serious when Hsing joined the club in 2008.
Sheth laid out a plan to develop Olympic-level players in a country that lacks academies and professional table tennis leagues. The United States has only about 25 such clubs, while China has upward of a 1,000.
Sheth proved not only exceptional as a coach but knew how to work the angles like any good entrepreneur.
When he sought to move to a bigger facility, he found a benefactor in Steve Westly, who had stopped by the ICC while running for governor in 2006. When Westly walked in for a brief meet-and-greet, he was taken aback.
“They’re not playing wimpy pingpong,” he recalled.
After losing the Democratic primary, the venture capitalist returned to the ICC to take lessons from Sheth. Westly and ICC co-founder Anil Godhwani each gave $25,000 for the move to the current location. Sheth matched their investment through fundraisers.
Westly saw similarities between the industrial park table tennis factory and high-tech accelerators that have sprouted throughout Silicon Valley.
“He is the Steve Jobs of pingpong,” Westly said of Sheth.
In an updated version of pingpong diplomacy, Sheth hired coaches from India and China to help him with the growing number of prospects.
By the time Zhang joined the club in 2009, the center was a microcosm of the Bay Area’s rich cultural blend. Where else would children of Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants train at an Indian facility with an Italian coach?
“I do like how all the cultures blend together here,” said Hsing, who will be a senior at Valley Christian High in the fall. “It does symbolize the melting pot of America.”
The teen is a table tennis prodigy who has played exhibitions against the likes of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. She is a three-time national champion who at age 15 was the youngest to win a U.S. title in women’s singles.
Hsing’s mother grew up playing table tennis in the Henan province of China. Xin Jiang continued playing when moving to the United States. So did her husband, Michael Hsing, a computer engineer from Taiwan.
Their daughter started playing at age 7 when the parents took her to a club because they couldn’t find a baby sitter.
The goal now is not just to play in the Olympics but to win a medal in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Chinese players hold the top four places in the latest world rankings. Hsing, who once said she took 10,000 swings per day, is ranked No. 115. Zhang is No. 134. Wang is No. 408 among men.
Hsing and Zhang, who both want to attend Stanford, are among the world’s top junior players.
Sheth, though, leaves nothing to chance. He has imported seven full-time training partners, each with a different style. Before the final Olympic qualifying tournament, the director flew in an Indian player who uses an unusual style called “a chopper.”
That way when Hsing came up against a Canadian chopper for a chance to go to London, she was well prepared.
“There is nothing they are not familiar with,” Sheth said.
Contact Elliott Almond at 408-920-5865 and follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/elliottalmond.
