Freshman excels at a different kind of pong
By: Ron Stein
Issue date: 12/9/09 Section: Jews In The News
"I thought this would be a great sport for Joey," said David Goldstein, Joe's father, "he has tremendous reflexes and body control, and he loves to play hard and win."
For most people, ping-pong is a game they just played for fun, usually when hanging out in a basement with friends or at a recreation center.
Joe Goldstein, a lettters and sciences major from Potomac, Md., looks at the game in a different light, as it is much more than a hobby to him and plays an extremely large role in his life.
Joe Goldstein, who played baseball most of his life, picked up ping-pong when he was a freshman in high school.
"I missed the dates for the Maccabi baseball tryout," said Joe Goldstein. "I asked myself how else I can play in Maccabi and figured I would give ping-pong a try."
Prior to this, he hadn't had much experience with the game, only having played it occasionally in his basement. When he saw other kids playing, he became intrigued and decided to tryout.
After doing well in the Maccabi Games, he started to take lessons and his coaches agreed that Joe Goldstein was a natural. They began giving him advice on how to improve his game.
"Once they started helping me, I started to play better," said Joe Goldstein. "I figured that if I was making progress, I might as well try to keep going and get better."
Joe Goldstein played constantly throughout high school, practicing up to three times a week with his coach and playing in various tournaments and competitions in the region.
His training includes strenuous workouts lasting for about an hour and contains endless drills focused on improving his forehand and backhand and returning balls hit anywhere on the table.
His ping-pong playing was stunted when he went to Yeshiva in Israel for a year after high school.
"At Yeshiva, I didn't want to focus on anything besides religion because I wanted to find out what I wanted to do with my life in terms of religion," said Joe Goldstein.
Joe Goldstein, determined to keep his game strong, got in contact with the Israeli national ping-pong team to set up practices with them at least once a week. Since you have to be an Israeli citizen in order to compete on the team, most of the ping-pong he played there was limited to practice sessions.
For most people, ping-pong is a game they just played for fun, usually when hanging out in a basement with friends or at a recreation center.
Joe Goldstein, a lettters and sciences major from Potomac, Md., looks at the game in a different light, as it is much more than a hobby to him and plays an extremely large role in his life.
Joe Goldstein, who played baseball most of his life, picked up ping-pong when he was a freshman in high school.
"I missed the dates for the Maccabi baseball tryout," said Joe Goldstein. "I asked myself how else I can play in Maccabi and figured I would give ping-pong a try."
Prior to this, he hadn't had much experience with the game, only having played it occasionally in his basement. When he saw other kids playing, he became intrigued and decided to tryout.
After doing well in the Maccabi Games, he started to take lessons and his coaches agreed that Joe Goldstein was a natural. They began giving him advice on how to improve his game.
"Once they started helping me, I started to play better," said Joe Goldstein. "I figured that if I was making progress, I might as well try to keep going and get better."
Joe Goldstein played constantly throughout high school, practicing up to three times a week with his coach and playing in various tournaments and competitions in the region.
His training includes strenuous workouts lasting for about an hour and contains endless drills focused on improving his forehand and backhand and returning balls hit anywhere on the table.
His ping-pong playing was stunted when he went to Yeshiva in Israel for a year after high school.
"At Yeshiva, I didn't want to focus on anything besides religion because I wanted to find out what I wanted to do with my life in terms of religion," said Joe Goldstein.
Joe Goldstein, determined to keep his game strong, got in contact with the Israeli national ping-pong team to set up practices with them at least once a week. Since you have to be an Israeli citizen in order to compete on the team, most of the ping-pong he played there was limited to practice sessions.
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