Tom Ruttinger, chances are most people in this group have never heard of his name. Why is he the next PNW TT group profile, well from the mid-late 60's to the mid early-mid 70's he was among the most dominant players in the region. In October of 1967 at the first sanctioned tournament held by the newly formed Pacific Northwest TT Association Tom won the "A" Singles, U-17 Boys Singles, and was part of the Boys Doubles winning team. At the 1968 U.S. Open in March he won the Boy's U-17 "A" Singles vs Richard Nochenson and teamed with Philip Cheng to win the Boys U-17 "A" Doubles vs Gary Adelman/Charles Freund. Tom finished the 1968 year as the 12th ranked U-17 player in the U.S. In the 1969 U.S. Open he made it to the Top 16 of Men's Singles, quarterfinals of the Class "A" Singles, and quarterfinals of Boys U-17 Singles. In the 1969 final rankings Tom was now the 6th ranked player in the U.S. in the U-17 Boy's. In the November 1970 ratings list Tom was number 29 in the U.S. He was listed at number 18 in the November-December 1973 Topics. Here are two comments from May-June 1976 Topics regarding Tom. "Tom Ruttinger once again convincingly demonstrated his superiority over the challenge from the highest ranking players from Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and Canada. It has become automatic that Tom consistently wins every tournament he enters, and his consecutive winning streak now stretches beyond most players memories. Dr. Michael Scott". From Lou Bochenski "Just when some of us feel that Tom Ruttinger is about ready to step down from his number one position in the Northwest he steps out of semi retirement to once again show that he's still in charge".