By Jeff Mudd

The skinny kid across the table from me didn’t have a prayer. After all, I had won 88 straight games of Ping-Pong over two summers, setting down the best that Camp Champions had to offer. On this muggy afternoon in July of 1992, this match, I knew, would be no different. There were no official records kept on such things at this venerable sports camp, but my title of King Pong was well-earned, and no 13-year-old was about to dethrone me.

I winked at the kid and, conceding honors to the challenger, bounced him the ball. Let’s see what ya got, hot shot.

Sure, I had seen the kid around. Noticed how the other campers, even older ones, seemed to flock to him. Watched how he ruled the courts and fields, how he made the right plays at the most opportune times, even in the most trivial of contests. How he carried himself above his years. How he won. And won. And won.

For kicks, I spotted the kid an early lead. He was polite and quiet; no need to break his spirit. A small crowd of underpaid, overheated counselors, taking refuge in the break room, alternately jeered me and cheered his every shot. Goliath never has a big fan base. No sweat.

10-5, the kid.

Had it been a few years later, I would have known that this was not a kid to be underestimated. That every game, every point, every shot, wasn’t just a means to the end of a silly Ping-Pong game. It was a chance to prove himself against a competitor everyone believed to be his superior. Everyone, that is, but him. In 1992, though, I was young and stupid. He was just young.

13-8.

One of the counselors ran over to the mess hall to relay the update. King Pong was in trouble. Three points later, with the kid up 15-10, the break room was lousy with counselors and campers. On the TV above, the Dream Team faced an early deficit against some country named Angola in Olympic basketball. Here, on the shores of Lake LBJ, a far bigger upset was in the works.

I took off my camp-issued whistle and spun my cap backward. It was time. Sure, it was only Ping-Pong, but 88 is 88, even if you’re just catching grapes in your mouth.

So long, kid.

Only he wouldn’t go away. The more heat I handed him, the cooler he got. The longer the point, the more sure his stroke. The bigger the shot, the more narrow his focus. I edged back into it with a mini-run and pulled to 19-16, but he aced me with a spinner off the edge. I glanced up and gave him the eye, the one that had caused so many that were thisclose before him to wilt. He smiled, the punk, and tossed me the ball.

Game point.

The kid would one day leave these parts, this camp, this state, through no choice of his own, and make a bigger name for himself elsewhere. Many would cast doubt on him along the way, despite the successes that shadowed his every stop, and many would be proven wrong. I was guilty of the same on that day. Had I known then what I know now, I woulda known better.

I would like to recount that I rallied for victory; I would be lying. The kid rifled a cross-table, backhand return of my serve, and my reply bounced off the forehead of a counselor from Muleshoe. They mobbed the kid, mussed his hair, chanted his name. Above, the USA took control of Angola. Below, this was no upset at all. Turned out, it was the King who didn’t have a prayer.

A few years later, the kid and I crossed paths again. By then, he was making his mark on a different canvas, still a green one but much more vast and celebrated than that shaky table. I was following him around and chronicling such. Even then, he had his skeptics. Too short. Too skinny. Too this. Too that. I wasn’t among them. Everybody knows him now, see, but I knew him then.

He won’t remember any of this, by the way. Certainly not the specifics, probably not the game, perhaps not even me. These days, the kid is too busy throwing touchdown passes for the New Orleans Saints.

Jeff Mudd is the former sports editor at the Westlake Picayune