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The front entrance to Citi Field was already crowded with hundreds of cheering fans hours before a Mets-Braves game in June, watching a dozen intense competitive eaters devouring stacks of hot dogs on stage.Among the audience for the Nathans Hot Dog Eating Contest qualifying event were Team USAs table tennis Olympians. They arrived early for their appearance, at an invitation from the Mets to throw the first pitch of the days game. Alas, Olympians or not, their presence was completely overshadowed by ... people devouring hot dogs.That is the reality for many years, said U.S. Olympic coach Massimo Costantini of the teams moderate profile. Costantini represented Italy for 23 years as a player and competed at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.In Rio, Costantini will oversee Team USAs six players: three females (Jiaqi Zheng, Lily Zhang and Yue Wu) and three males (Yijun Feng, Tim Wang and Kanak Jha).The 16-year-old Jha, an Indian American, is the first U.S. athlete born in the 21st century to qualify for the Olympics. He was selected to throw out the first pitch that Sunday.I was a little bit nervous, he said, speaking of the difference between swinging a paddle and pitching.It was a good pitch. The baseball made a perfect landing in teammate Lily Zhangs borrowed glove. These two, along with Zheng, were individually coached by Costantini. They were trained at India Community Center (ICC) in Milpitas, California, a town just north of San Jose.Table tennis used to be a basement game in the United States, especially among Asian immigrants, but it has grown significantly more popular during the past decade. According to USA Table Tennis (USATT), a nonprofit group promoting the sport domestically, about 19 million Americans play table tennis recreationally at about 250 table tennis clubs in America. Each year, more than 350 tournaments are organized.ICC, one of the largest clubs in the country, has 30 match tables and 14 full-time coaches. It claims to be North Americas largest dedicated table tennis center. Another Olympian -- Tim Wang of Houston -- trained there.Team USAs other coach, Lily Yip, is perhaps the best curator of table tennis in America. A retired professional, she began playing the game in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou at age 7. She moved to the U.S. in 1987 and represented Team USA at the 1992 and 1996 Olympics. Aside from her commitments to the national team, she has been coaching in New Jersey for more than 20 years.I have witnessed the development of the sport in America firsthand, Yip told ESPN.com.For years, her table tennis club in Dunellen, New Jersey, has been a household name for plenty of northern New Jerseys Asian immigrant families, many of them Chinese and Indian. The club serves as the regions breeding ground for the sport, since many of Yips students come from these local families.For Yip, table tennis is a family business. Her husband Barry Dattel also coaches at the club, along with her son Adam Hugh and daughter Judy Hugh.Yips son-in-law, Cory Eider, is the high performance director for USA Table Tennis. He can proudly pull up a video clip archived on his cellphone, showing a 2009 ESPN feature on the family that calling them the first family of table tennis.A day before the Olympians trip to the Mets game, they had a fundraising exhibition game at Yips club, a curtain raiser that allowed local table tennis enthusiasts to witness Team USA up close. With more than 200 people packing the venue, the six athletes took the challenge from promising youths in friendly matches. The event ended up raising $25,000.In the past, table tennis made headlines when Ariel Hsing -- who competed in the London Olympics -- was invited to play against Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. The fanfare surrounding that event turned into a lasting force to shore up the influence of the sport. After all, for most Americans, it is known only as pingpong.Here we are, we are hungry for sparks, said USA Table Tennis CEO Gordon Kaye.In Flushing, the six athletes shared a total of $1,000 prize money.Its not much, but better than nothing, said Yue Wu, a Beijing-born former professional player who came to New York in 2008 at age 17.Last November, Wu won the Pan American Games in Toronto to qualify for Rio. She trained in the basement of her uncles house in Fort Lee, New Jersey, for six hours a day, six days a week. During weekdays, she would board the bus to Manhattan, where she coaches at a club. Her famous students include Judah Friedlander, the comedian and actor of NBCs 30 Rock.It is very hard to find quality opponents to train with, and it is also hard to maintain conditions, Wu said. You only have yourself, so you have to be mentally tough enough to survive.She makes about $40,000 a year by coaching. After the Olympics, she plans to play in France, where she hopes to make more. Eventually, she wants to save enough to open her own table tennis club in New York City.Tim Wang and Lily Zhang both played at the London Games four years ago, both losing in the first round. Americans have never won an Olympic medal in table tennis, and this is unlikely to change in Rio, as it remains nearly impossible for any country to challenge Chinas domination.After the Olympics, Zhang plans to go back to school to pick up where she left off. A sophomore physiology major at the University of California-Berkeley, she took a year off to train for the Olympics.Feng, a native of Nanjing, China, will be a freshman at the University of Georgia in the fall, majoring in business. And the youngest Olympian of all, Jha, will return to high school.As for Wu, Wang and Zheng, they will continue to play and coach, waiting for their next opportunities. 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HOUSTON -- Texans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins said he wont wear his Yeezy 350 Boosts cleats designed by Kanye West again after he was fined $6,000 for wearing them Sunday against the Chicago Bears.The Turtle Dove Yeezys that Hopkins wore were gifts from West and Adidas last week. Hopkins was fined because the cleats broke the NFL uniforrm policy by not having a solid base color.dddddddddddd.Hopkins said he would not wear the cleats again in a game unless, Kanye wants to pay the fine.Hopkins signed a contract with Adidas during the offseason. ' ' '