Well, it was really kind of interesting because I didn't even have a
room back then. And I'm not sure where I got the set, I think I went out
and got some sets. I may have gotten a little bit of money from the
school, I'm not even sure. I've put out so many, I've probably put out
hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years out of my own pocket for
this program. But I remember I bought about a half a dozen sets. And we
made the announcement. I found a science teacher, David (Shope?), who is
still here, by the way, and he let us come into his room one day a week.
It was on Tuesday afternoons. And we had about four or five kids that
wanted to play chess, that wanted to learn how to play competitive
chess. None of them had ever played any competitive chess. I'm trying to
think back. It was Wade Duster, who became my best player. A fellow by
the name of George Battle the third, I think. His father, George Battle,
is a
[unclear] resigned bishop, and he was
the chairman of the school board for about ten years or so. So you might
have heard that name. We had
[unclear] . We
lost him after
Page 8two years. He went to the School of
Science and Math, up in Raleigh, I think. Durham? Science and Math. And
then a kid named Andy (Overhuffer?). So I think what we had, we had
three sophomores and one junior. And we may have had one or two other
people on the periphery there. But basically we had four people who I
thought were players. And it's just four people's scores on a team. So
you could have a team of fifteen people and you go into a major
competition, but it's only the four best scores that count for your
team. So we needed four people. So we started very tentatively. I just
thought it would be kind of fun to see how far I could take them that
first year. And if they stuck with me, how far they could go. And so
that first year we had three sophomores and a junior. And we just
started playing every week. And started making some improvements. And we
entered the state championships that year, almost on a lark. I really
wasn't sure that we were ready for that level of competition. So I was
very hesitant at first even to enter my team. But we went ahead and did
it, just for the heck of it, I guess. And at that time, East
Mecklenburg, which won the state that year, they finished, I think,
tenth in the country in the national championships. They were a dominant
team. The
[unclear] was an expert. But we
wound up doing very, very well in that competition. We finished second
in the state and scholastic that year. We were a distant second to East
Meck. But we beat a lot of other teams that had pretty good chess
pedigrees and traditions. And the most interesting game was, I remember
Wade Duster, who was a sophomore, he had just started playing
competitively that year. He played in the final
Page 9match. The final round. He was playing Carlos Reina, I think was his
name. Who was the number one board. He was an expert player. And here I
had Wade Duster, who was unrated. And they played on that, that game was
the last one to be decided. But I remember Wade had Carlos (Raina?) in
time trouble. He was down in material, but he had him in time trouble.
And they agreed upon a draw. It was really very exciting, chess wise.
It's kind of like the two minute drill when you have a team that's
driving for, to
[unclear] into field goal
range and then they try to kick a field goal and if they make it they
win, if they don't make it they lose. But this ended in draw. It had all
of that drama, chess wise, of a football game that's going right down to
the final kick. And they drew. They agreed upon a draw. If they had had
five more minutes in the game, Wade certainly would have lost because he
was— [Interruption]