I played Denver’s mascots and won

I was staring down Miles, the Denver Broncos mascot. This point was going to be mine. I raised my pingpong paddle, mentally envisioning my serve while tuning out the taunts from the white horse.

And I had to wonder: How did I let this happen?

The day before, I had been talking with my editors about Ping Pong on the Plaza, an annual charity competition held outside Union Station that raises money for local nonprofits, hosted by the IMA Financial Group. We were throwing out story ideas when a co-worker poked his head up over his computer screen to shout, “You should enter,” before slumping back down.

Ten minutes later, I was calling to put in my name, as well as reporter Jesse Paul’s, for the mini doubles tournament of local “celebrities,” which included mascots and other news people.

There was one tiny, inconsequential problem: I’m awful at pingpong. But I can handle public embarrassment. What I can’t handle is a competitive teammate who also sits to my left all day and will surely judge me for a lack of skill, repeatedly bringing it up when he saw fit.

Which is why the night before the tournament, I was at the Family Star Montessori School gym in Curtis Park, playing pingpong with a Venezuelan lawyer while talking about geopolitics in as much depth as two people with limited comprehension of each other’s languages can.

A school by day, the gym became home to the Denver Table Tennis Alliance at night. Seven pingpong tables were set up across the gym with knee-level walls separating each court. People trickled in throughout the night, pulling out paddles from gym bags. But this wasn’t backyard pingpong. This was table tennis.

It’s competitive and intense, requiring players to be in top shape and have a strong mind, explained DTTA’s founder Angelos Gandullia. He started the club four years ago after a career in professional leagues in Germany and his home country of Peru.

“When you play recreationally it’s fun, but when you get to play it competitively, it’s extremely fun,” he said. “It’s something that’s very hard to stop doing.”

Table tennis is one of the most popular sports in the world — largely aided by its popularity in Asia, he said. Although it doesn’t have the same attention in the U.S., Gandullia said it’s growing as more people are introduced to it in bars with pingpong tables or events like Ping Pong on the Plaza.

There’s another factor contributing to the sport’s growth locally, though: overly competitive coworkers. Offices across the metro area have pingpong tables, and Gandullia said a number of people have come to him in the hopes of learning enough to show up co-workers and bosses.

One man set up an automated machine on a table behind Paola Montero (the Venezuelan lawyer) and me. The mechanism shot balls at the player, who skillfully sent them hurtling toward the table’s edge. We stared dumbfounded for a minute before shrugging at each other. I tried to hit a ball toward Montero, accidentally hitting it too hard and sending her tumbling into the miniature wall to catch it.

Montero wasn’t much of a player, either. She was introduced to the sport through her boyfriend, Daniel Fuenmayor, a former Venezuelan tennis table youth national team member, who is visiting and training with Gandullia.

Needless to say, the practice likely didn’t improve my skills enough to make a real difference, considering the tournament was less than 24 hours away. So I watched an eight-minute inspirational video called “Table Tennis — Believe in Yourself.”

People were regularly hit by stray balls when walking around the pingpong tables Thursday. Although the event started with a few tables five years ago, organizers say they now put a call out for as many tables as they can rent in Denver.

The pingpong tournament was 1980s-themed, so Jesse Paul and I came dressed appropriately. Around us, there were people in all sorts of gear, including sweatbands, a referee costume with polka-dot shorts and even a shower. Yes, a woman dressed as the shower itself.

Then, it was showtime. My pingpong partner Jesse and I were facing Miles from the Broncos, Wooly from the Colorado Mammoth and Bernie the St. Bernard from the Colorado Avalanche — all at once. I tried to run through the advice I overheard Gandullia giving: Don’t slap the ball but curve your arm. Don’t hit too soon. And stay low.

But Wooly’s mammoth snout was too distracting, and the mascots got an early lead with six points to our one, in a match that went to 11 points. Bernie was so confident, he decided to lie on the floor.

But then we got the ball — and something changed.

We started to get points. We were catching up; we were tied; we were pulling ahead. The mascot’s hubris had gotten in the way. Miles picked up the paddle in alarm, Bernie threw his St. Bernard barrel on the ground.

Game point; Paul served. Bernie hit it into the net.

We won.

And although we went on to lose in the finals to Fox31, taking home second, I still am proud about beating three large mascots at pingpong while wearing vintage ’80s clothes. I will always remember those mascots slumping in defeat, Miles going to shake my hand only to draw away at the last minute to brush his mane.

He later went in for a hug, deciding to chew my head while he was there.

But, hey, we won.