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Tom Filippini has a dream. He wants to get stuck in the kind of I-70 traffic where cars halt, engines turn off, and the highway turns into a parking lot. That’s when he’s going to hop out of his Toyota Tundra and introduce fellow drivers to his play-anywhere—including on the hood of your car—version of pingpong. “I hate traffic,” he laughs, “but I cannot wait to walk up and down the lanes of vehicles, pass out Pepper Pong sets, and have a big battle.”
When Denverite Filippini launched Pepper Pong last summer, he did so to help people find joy, even in the midst of despair—but not just the kind of anguish that comes from wondering when I-70 traffic will ever move again. He hopes the game will inspire fun times and togetherness, two powerful tools to help people avoid and escape addiction. “Connection is crucial to overcoming addiction because the default mode in the heat of it is isolation,” Filippini says. “Pepper Pong’s adaptability to all settings and players offers an ideal way to spark that vital connection.”
Filippini grew up in the ’80s in Chicago, where his family played what he calls an “obnoxious” amount of pingpong. Bouncing white balls back and forth provided a refuge from the long, harsh Midwest winters and offered some healthy competition among the five siblings and their parents. In hindsight, Filippini recognizes it was also a simple way to connect with each other.
One hitch? Whenever a newbie wanted to join the match. Sure, the greenhorn could pick up the rules no problem, but the skills to play—the ability to spin the ball, anticipate a volley, and smash an overhand return—those only come through hours (and hours) of practice. When one player is acing serves and the other is just struggling to hit the table, nobody has any fun. “The pingpong ball moves so fast,” Filippini points out, “that it’s difficult for new players to keep up and to have a good rally.”
So, the family began Frankensteining alternatives. They ripped the firmer, outer layer off their old paddles to expose a softer, more forgiving inner layer to slow down the game and make it more fun regardless of a player’s skill level. They also swapped the traditional plastic pingpong ball with a foam equivalent that moved more slowly through the air. Both efforts helped to make rallies last longer. “That sort of homegrown, cobbled-together game traveled with us,” Filippini remembers. “Multiple times I claimed that I was going to formalize this game that we had invented into a real commercialized product.”
He didn’t. After earning an economics degree at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, Filippini moved to Denver in 1997. He began to make a name for himself in the luxury travel industry, and in 2002 founded Exclusive Resorts, a vacation rental membership club for elite clientele. During that time, he also began drinking heavily. “I used to think life’s not worth living without drinking,” he remembers. “Alcohol was that powerful. It had such a spell over me. It was the center of virtually every social thing I ever did.”
Outside observers thought Filippini had it all together—he even began a second luxury travel company, Next Great Place, in 2010—but in his private life, alcohol addiction had firmly taken hold. “I didn’t know where to go,” he says. “I didn’t know who to ask. I didn’t know who to turn to. I just continued to spiral deeper and deeper into the darkness and isolate myself more and more.”
Finally, in 2016, he quietly got help at a residential recovery center in California. During his month-long stay, he learned that the more someone is entrapped by their addiction, the more likely they are to isolate. Activities that bring people together—even casually volleying a pingpong ball back and forth, which Filippini did a lot during his time in recovery—help enormously. “To the degree that you can connect people and get them to jettison that isolation,” Filippini says, “you’ve got a good shot at mentally helping them overcome their addiction.”
That opportunity for connection is precisely what this mashup of other popular sports and yard games brings to the table. Like tennis or pingpong, participants volley an object over a net. Like pickleball’s wiffleball or badminton’s shuttlecock, the foam Pepper Pong “pepper” moves relatively slowly through the air (compared to a tennis or pingpong ball), which makes it easy for volleys to last for 20 or 30 shots. Like cornhole or bocce, Pepper Pong is fun for players of pretty much any age or skill level—and anyone can compete competently within the first 10 minutes.
Pepper Pong is also portable (the whole set tucks neatly into a travel sack), quiet (foam ball and foam-covered paddles for the win), and can be—and has been—played on park benches, pool tables, communal surfaces in the airport, car hoods, and more. Soon, a Pepper Pong app will help to spur wacky and impromptu matches by offering challenges like playing in front of the Eiffel Tower or, in Tinder-like fashion, connecting you with fellow Pepper Pong players in your vicinity. “This is a universal—anywhere, anytime, anyone—type of game,” Filippini says. “Pepper Pong is the active version of a deck of cards.”
No question Pepper Pong’s “fun on the run” tagline hits the mark, but perhaps even more importantly, the game serves as “isolation kryptonite,” Filippini says. To drive the latter point home, he has shared his personal struggles with alcoholism—and the way connection has been integral to his sobriety—on a broad scale. “What I learned during my recovery process is that authenticity is everything,” he says, adding that he thought, “perhaps my story would give others a little bit of hope.”
It has. Filippini points to a professional golfer and a National Hockey League player who, after independently becoming Pepper Pong enthusiasts, have reached out to express their appreciation for both the game and its mission, given the similarity of their stories with Filippini’s. Another business acquaintance who heard the Pepper Pong founder’s history after purchasing a set reached out for help and is now taking steps toward sobriety. The company has also donated Pepper Pong sets to addiction treatment centers in more than a dozen states (including the set Filippini hand-delivered to the center he attended) and welcomes more addiction facilities to reach out, too. It’s unlikely Pepper Pong will ever formally offer or orchestrate addiction recovery services, but the team takes pride in reviewing each message they receive, and, where possible, offering suggestions to help overcome challenges.
So regardless of sales data—which show several thousand sets sold in just a year—there’s no doubt in Filippini’s mind that Pepper Pong has already been a success. “Everything is up from here,” he says, “because of the impact we’ve already made on people’s lives.”
Turning an I-70 gridlock into a parking lot party will just be icing on the cake.
How To Play Pepper Pong
- Number of players: Two or four
- Included equipment: One “fence” (net); four foam-coated “mullets” (paddles); one “pepper” (ball) chosen from three available options ranging from lower to higher bounceability
- Rules: After you’ve found a flat (or flat-ish) surface, picked a pepper, and decided who’s playing, the oldest player serves first. Hit the ball back and forth until it either hits the same side of the table twice or misses the table entirely. A point is awarded to the rally winner, regardless of who served. Games go to 11 (must win by two) with either three or five games in a match. In-depth official rules found here.
- Buy: Currently available for the introductory price of $69.99 (retail will be $99.99)
The 988 Colorado Mental Health Line is available for free, immediate, human support 24/7 in English and Spanish. If you or someone you know is struggling with an emotional, mental health, or substance use concern, call or text 988, or live chat at 988Colorado.com.
