NYU economics professor Bill Easterly, a highly respected expert in foreign aid, global poverty and development in Africa, can add a novel title to his lengthy resume — pingpong player extraordinaire.
Easterly, 67, picked up the unusual skill as a way to cope with Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder that can cause tremors, slow movement and depression.
“I just can’t get enough of it,” Easterly told The Post. “When I play pingpong, I just feel my brain come alive.”
There’s no cure for Parkinson’s — but Easterly and others have found healing by playing several times a week at SPIN New York Flatiron as part of PingPongParkinson.
The nonprofit has been a smashing success with over 300 chapters in 25 countries and an inaugural New York Open tournament held earlier this month.
Participants rave that the rhythmic movements and social interaction have boosted their mood and helped delay the progression of their Parkinson’s symptoms.
“I don’t know if it’s because of the pingpong or not, but I started with a tremor in my right hand, which I now don’t have,” said Joan Greenberg, 77, a retired writer and mosaic artist who now half-jokes that she’s an elite NYC elder athlete.
One of the appeals of pingpong, Greenberg told The Post, is that she can track her improvement. And being in PingPongParkinson makes it easy to share her experience of being diagnosed in 2020 and hear from others.
“It’s created a social circle of people who are in the same situation,” she said. “Not only that we have Parkinson’s, but we’re the type of people who want to do something proactive for ourselves.”
Camp Parkinson’s
PingPongParkinson is the brainchild of Croatian-American musician Nenad Bach, who has performed with Bono and Luciano Pavarotti and rocked Woodstock ’94 with “Can We Go Higher?”
He was diagnosed in 2010, with his symptoms getting so bad that he could no longer play guitar to a syncopated beat.
“I had to stop performing publicly,” Bach, 70, told The Post. “After I started playing [pingpong, after three or four] months I could play again. If I help myself, I said, why not others? That’s where everything started.”
Bach founded PingPongParkinson in 2017 — now, there are over 3,000 players worldwide, including 50 at the Flatiron location.
He forged the partnership with SPIN in 2021. Three times a week, 17 to 25 seniors fill about a dozen SPIN tables designated “Parkinson’s camp.” The two-hour afternoon sessions occur before the underground club opens to the public.
Bach said nobody is turned away, even if they don’t have the $15 participation fee, which pays the pros who help everyone get into the swing of things.
Near a neon sign that reads: “Do it together, never alone,” players kick off the sets by stretching and loudly introducing themselves — a common symptom of Parkinson’s is a soft voice.
Pretty soon, small orange balls are flying everywhere.
“It’s a joy for me to play,” Bach enthused. “I don’t know how to explain to you. I cannot wait to play again. It’s just like drinking water — you’re thirsty tomorrow and in the afternoon and the evening and the next day. Water is always welcome.”
SPIN, which was co-founded by Oscar winner Susan Sarandon, is exploring nationwide expansion of the partnership. There are lounges in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and D.C.
Serves a purpose
Nearly 1 million people across the country are living with Parkinson’s, with about 90,000 new US cases expected this year.
The disease, which primarily affects people over 60, is characterized by the progressive loss of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain. Known as the “feel-good hormone,” dopamine is key to movement, motivation and the experience of reward.
Dr. Elizabeth Kera — director of neuropsychology at Hackensack University Medical Center — said Parkinson’s patients often struggle to walk and control tremors because the disease significantly affects the basal ganglia region of the brain responsible for movement.
“We’ve constantly been looking for a way other than medication to activate that area of the brain to produce more dopamine,” Kera told The Post.
Kera, a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist who co-founded the first New Jersey chapter of PingPongParkinson, said table tennis is a perfect match for Parkinson’s.
Pingpong significantly improves motor function because it requires hand-eye coordination, quick reflexes and balance. It can also strengthen cognitive skills like concentration and decision-making.
Kera said it’s not uncommon in her chapter to see septuagenarians play with high school students or volunteers who are even younger.
“I think it helps to reintegrate patients with Parkinson’s back into society. It helps them to feel less self-conscious,” Kera said.
“It helps everybody out in the lay public understand more about Parkinson’s and understand that they’re not different,” she added. “This is just a chronic illness that they’re dealing with, just like somebody with diabetes or hypertension.”
Netting a win
Easterly credits the PingPongParkinson community with helping him bounce back from the depression he suffered when he was diagnosed six years ago.
The news came as a “big shock” even as he struggled with a slight limp and a bit of a tremor in his left hand. He didn’t know where to turn.
“I was kind of on my own,” Easterly recalled. “I think that’s true of a lot of newly diagnosed people. This just became a wonderful support group.”
He said his mild progression of symptoms has allowed him to continue teaching full-time and finish a book on the history of colonialism, due out in November.
In the meantime, he’s having a ball trying to get even better at pingpong. He’s no Forrest Gump — but he can beat his 33-year-old son and compete with the best of the group.
“It doesn’t really matter whether it’s winning tournaments or just kind of playing informal games with each other, I feel like there are really no winners and losers,” Easterly said. “It’s Parkinson’s that’s losing whenever we play a game. So that’s a wonderful feeling.”
