Word: medick
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Charles W. Medick, one of the nation's top table-tennis referees, smiles tolerantly when he hears the cry familiar to his trade: "Whatsa matter, you got no eyes?" Medick is blind, from an accident in infancy. But Medick, a 36-year-old Los Angeles X-ray darkroom technician, has been policing table-tennis players for a dozen years. "I'm sure I've made a bad call or two in my career," he concedes. "But I can't recall when...
Last week Chuck Medick began tuning up at local tournaments for the National Table Tennis Championships at Inglewood, Calif, in March, where he hopes to break his own record of scoring 54 matches at table tennis' biggest event. Medick's refereeing is uncanny, although he cannot quite explain the secret: "I just do something a blind man can do well -make his ears and sense of location work for him." He is helped by the fact that table tennis is one of the few sports that make sense being heard and not seen. Medick discovered this in college...
...Medick can tell almost exactly where the ball lands on the table. He can tell whether the player hits a backhand or a forehand, whether the stroke is a drive or a chop. He is unbothered by slight deafness in one ear, and his only problem is judging the service in doubles, where the ball must land on the proper side of the white line ("So far, I've never called one wrong"). Listening peacefully behind his dark glasses, Referee Medick is table tennis' most relaxed fan. "I don't get crosseyed following the ball," he says...
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