Profe. Cabrera has a challenge for all students. All you need to do is beat an NCAA table tennis champion and you get an “A”. So far many have attempted it, but nobody has beaten the table tennis wizard.
Global Education Director David Cabrera has remained unbeaten in his nine years here. He has been playing table tennis competitively since he was 10 years old in his hometown of Arequipa Peru.
“[My hometown team] got very competitive really early on, and I practiced a lot almost every day of the week for all my youth years,” Profe. Cabrera said. “I had a lot of good role models and pretty good coaches for table tennis in Peru, so I got a lot of experience nationally.”
After setting a year aside after high school for table tennis, Profe. Cabrera set his sights on college. He found out about two schools in America that gave scholarships for table tennis, one of which was Lindenwood University.
“The coach saw me as someone very assertive and was very generous,” Profe. Cabrera said. “And he gave me almost a full-ride scholarship to play table tennis at Lindenwood.”
He was one of the best players on his well-assembled college team, which went on to win the 2012 National Title. He later became the head coach.
“It was a pretty cool experience,” Profe. Cabrera said. “I was able to bring a lot of really good players from many parts of the world to compete.”
After Lindenwood Profe. Cabrera took a job at Desmet as a Spanish teacher, a tennis coach, and the head of the table tennis club.
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