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Date of Birth: March 20, 1978 Residence: Milpitas Education: Postponed college for table-tennis career Ethnicity: Caucasian Rating: 2604 Style: Two-winged all-around looper Equipment: Killerspin Stilo Blade with Killerspin Nitrx 5Z and Nitrx 4Z rubbers Sponsor: Killerspin Clubs Played: Palo Alto, Mountain View, Concord, Oakland |
Barney started playing table-tennis at the age of two as his father hung a string from the ceiling with a ball attached to the other end of it. He swung at the ball over and over and could hit fifty forehands before he could count to fifty. His father would teach him on a table with cut legs on crates when he was too young to see over a regular table. Barney hasn't stopped swinging since.
Growing up, Barney was the #1 ranked junior in the US in every age group and has won nearly every age event in the US in every major junior tournament. His travels have taken him to Sweden, Germany, China, Taiwan, Japan, Croatia, England, and the Dominican Republic and many of those countries repeated times. He has played with many famous players including World and Olympic Champion Liu Guoliang of China, Sweden's World Champion Jorgen Persson, and European Singles Champions and World Championship runner-ups Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus and Timo Boll of Germany. He has won the North American and US National Doubles titles and been on four US World Championships.
He has also become the best known table-tennis player in the US as he was called "King Pong" in Sports Illustrated. When he was handed a two-year suspension by the US Olympic Committee for steroid use (Barney said he used Andro), the nation was in disbelief and perhaps this could have been the best form of publicity table-tennis could have received. "Steroids for ping-pong?" the nation wondered as perhaps many realized that day that table-tennis was more than a rec-room game. Barney was talked about in sports radio shows throughout the country, was on the front page of the USA Today sports section, and even made it to Jay Leno's monologue as Leno said "why would anyone use steroids to play ping-pong?"
Since then, Barney has been signed by Killerspin, the American table-tennis company that has broken table-tennis television viewer records in this country, and has had one of his matches featured on ESPN. He also was invited as a guest on the Conan O'Brien show representing Killerspin to advertise their ESPN Mohegan Sun event featuring the world's best players. Besides being interviewed, he played table-tennis on the air with Conan O'Brien and Adam Sandler who was the other guest on the show. He hopes to be the first American to win a medal in the Olympics and is a full-time professional table-tennis player. He moved to the Bay Area in 2005 as it is one of the strongest regions of table-tennis in America and was 2005 TMS Semester Smash League MVP and Finals MVP with a 17-1 record in the regular season and a 5-0 record in the postseason to lead his Palo Alto team to the league title. TMS Semester Smash was the name of the league until the name changed to Northern California Table Tennis League.