“It’s crazy that this came back full circle because I wanted to open a club 10 years ago,” the Lahainaluna High School grad. “The fact that I have one now is pretty bizarre.”
Starting at the age of 12, Clark was entering any table tennis tournaments he could after building a passion for the sport. Over the next year, he earned gold medals at two Aloha State Games on Oahu, as well as junior division titles at Hawaii island competitions.
In 2015, Clark entered the U.S. Open at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Wearing just a Surf Lahaina T-shirt with his racket and skateboard in hand, he became the first from Hawaii to win the title.
“It’s a very interesting, yet simple game. Just the fact that anybody can play it — from young, young kids to really old people to people in wheelchairs to people with half an arm or no leg — the people I’ve seen playing it covers a wide spectrum and it’s really amazing,” he said. “There’s not too many sports that are so inclusive like that.”
Clark acknowledged the many coaches that helped him with his career over the years, including coach Len Winkler from the Big Island, New York’s The Spin Club coach and Philippines player Ernesto “Jon” Ebuen Jr., and former Philippines national team coach Ebuen Ernesto Sr., who mentored and trained Clark one-on-one for a few months in the Philippines.
But still, there was and is scarce opportunity for recreational ping-pong players or serious competitors to play on Maui, or statewide, Clark said.
He hopes that changes with 808 Ping Pong, which has seen a slow growth in membership over the past few months.
“February was not bad for not advertising, but March was crazy, it was really good — I almost broke even with everything,” he said with a laugh. “It’s definitely a work in progress because there’s so many variables that I had no idea were going to happen, or just the whole idea of this club is different than any other typical table tennis club.”
There’s a lot of directions he could go with a sanctioned table tennis club, he said, including building a bridge for people to take ping-pong to the next level, coaching youth to compete at tournaments while representing 808 Ping Pong, or maybe one day, making it a Maui Interscholastic League sport.
“If we could take a team to nationals from Hawaii, that would be amazing,” he said. “My vision for the club is still somewhat the same as what it used to be, like I want it to be a legit, professional club with members coming in and training for something, the overall play would rise with people coming in and learning about the sport. … And yeah, I just want people to have fun.”