Jim Beckford
Contributor | 2014
Jim im Beckford began coaching table tennis players with disabilities in 1973 with three players in New York at the Bulova School. He went on to coach seven of the players table tennis players in the Hall of Fame: Ken Brooks, Ruth Rosenbaum, Rich Rosenbaum, Tyler Kaus, Bart McNichol, Jennifer Johnson, and Sebastian DeFrancesco, as well virtually all National and International players on Team USA since that time. He was a coach, event organizer, head coach, and also an International Technical Classifier.
He continued to do outreach by running training camp programs for disabled veterans, in addition to doing camps at local and national events, including the Dwarf Athletic Association National Games.
Later in 1973, Jim was appointed Tournament Director of the National Wheelchair Games table tennis events in New York. He also began coaching the Team USA, including the players noted above plus Michael Dempsey, Gary Kerr, and John Gray. He was the USA Head Coach for the Table Tennis team at the Paralympic Games in Arnhem, Holland in 1980. In 1982, Jim was the coach of Team USA at the World Championships at the Stoke Mandeville Games. Also, in 1984, he was the Team USA Table Tennis coach for both the Paralympic Games in England and the ISOD Games in Long Island, NY. Jim was the Team USA coach at the Austrian Open Table Tennis Championships in Vienna in 1985. In 1986, he became part of the coaching staff of the New Jersey Wheelchair Athletic Association for both Juniors and Adults in Table Tennis.
Jim continued as a coach on the staff for the World Wheelchair Table Tennis championships in Brisbane, Australia for a team of 24 wheelchair table tennis players in 1987 and in 1988, he coached Team USA table tennis at the Paralympic Games in Seoul, South Korea. In 1980 he coached the USA Table Tennis team at the World Championships in Assen, Holland. Jim was the Team USA coach for the PanAmerican Table Tennis championships in Buenos Aires Argentina and the Team USA coach at the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta. And in 1999, Jim coached the Team USA at the PanAm Games in Mexico City.
Following his stellar coaching career, Jim became a Table Tennis classifier, working multiple tournaments, including the Costa Rica Open and PanAmerican Table Tennis championships in San Juan, Costa Rica. Jim’s contributions to the development of quality Table Tennis programming were innumerable.
