Danny Seemiller is an American

table tennis Table tennis (also known as ping-pong) is a racket sport derived from tennis but distinguished by its playing surface being atop a stationary table, rather than the Tennis court, court on which players stand. Either individually or in teams of ...

coach and former professional player. He was the United States Olympic head coach and is the current head coach of the South Bend Table Tennis Club. He has an unorthodox playing style called the Seemiller grip, which he is famous for inventing in the 1970s.

Career

Seemiller began playing table tennis as an early adolescent in the 1960s. By 1972, he was the top player on the U.S. Men's National Team. He won five United States Men's Singles Championships (1976, 1977, 1980, 1982, and 1983). Seemiller reached #19 in the World Rankings and is considered one of the best American table tennis athletes of all time.USATT Hall of Fame Profiles, http://www.usatt.org/organization/halloffame/dseemiller.html From 1990 to 1995 he served as President of United States Table Tennis Association (now called USA Table Tennis). He was inducted into the US Table Tennis Hall of Fame in 1995. In 1996, he moved to New Carlisle, Indiana and became the head coach for the South Bend Table Tennis Club. At South Bend, he has developed top US players Mark Hazinski, Joey Cochran, Jared Lynch, A.J. Brewer, and Dan Seemiller Jr, all of whom are former members of the US National Team.USATT Ratings, http://www.usatt.org/history/rating/history/index2.asp

Personal life

Seemiller was a dual sport athlete as a teen, playing both

and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

. Seemiller was drafted by the

Pittsburgh Pirates The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central ...

in the 1970s as a shortstop/2nd baseman, but declined their farm league team offer to further pursue his

career. Danny is an author of two books, "Winning Table Tennis" (1996) and "Revelations of a Ping-Pong Champion" (2016).

References

American male table tennis players Living people Sportspeople from St. Joseph County, Indiana 1954 births 20th-century American sportsmen {{US-tabletennis-bio-stub