Danny Seemiller is an American

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

coach and former professional player. He was the United States

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...

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 USA Table Tennis, colloquially known as USATT, is the non-profit governing body for table tennis in the United States and is responsible for cataloging and sanctioning table tennis tournaments within the country. It was founded in 1933 as the Uni ...

). He was inducted into the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame in 1995. In 1996, he moved to

New Carlisle, Indiana New Carlisle is a suburban village in Olive Township, St. Joseph County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 1,861 at the 2010 Census. It is part of the South Bend–Mishawaka, IN- MI, Metropolitan Statistical Area. History New ...

and became the head coach for the South Bend Table Tennis Club. At South Bend, he has developed top US players

Mark Hazinski Mark "Haz" Hazinski (born April 20, 1985, in South Bend, Indiana) is an American professional table tennis athlete. He started playing table tennis at the age of 9 and by the age of 15 had become the youngest player in the history of United Sta ...

, 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 sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

. 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 (NL) Central division. Founded as part of the American Associati ...

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

{{DEFAULTSORT:Seemiller, Danny American male table tennis players Living people People from St. Joseph County, Indiana 1954 births