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| Scott Plaster |
The Atkins HS Chess Team
of Winston-Salem, coached by teacher Scott Plaster, recently clinched the third
place trophy in the K-12 state championship tournament held Feb.13-15 in
Charlotte.
In this article, Plaster
tells the story of his duel with rival coach - yet friend - Johnny Williams of
Northern Vance High School of Henderson:
The opening: It all begins with the kids
Some coaches tout their
ratings and play “simul” games to challenge a roomful of hapless students.
Atkins HS Chess Coach Scott Plaster says, “The goal for a chess coach should be
not to show everyone how great of a player he is, but to do everything he can
to make his players great.” In between rounds at the K-12 NC State Scholastic
Chess Championship in Charlotte the weekend of February 13-15, 2015, Plaster
played a friendly game with Johnny Williams, a rival coach from Northern Vance
HS. Plaster and Williams soon had a large mass crowded around their board and
the game quickly turned into a team vs. team game, with their players
interacting with their coaches, and the two coaches engaged in competitive
banter.
“All right, now. I see
what you’re tryin’ to do,” chimed Plaster. “Trying the old Orangutan or the
Swiss ice castle or something like that!”
“Just make your move.
Make your move, and you’ll see what I’m gonna do!” Williams quips in his best
Samuel L. Jackson voice.
“I’m going to. I’m going
to. I see how you’re eyeing F7 with your knight to go for the fork. Now you
know I’m not going to fall for that old trick,” Plaster jovially responds.
The students can’t talk
inside the game room, so the coaches talk it up outside the arena in a
gentlemanly game with jokes that border on the “trash talk” of a basketball
pick-up game at the park. Plaster’s team at Atkins HS in Winston-Salem is the
largest high school chess team in the state, with more than 50 total players,
and 20-plus tournament players. “I can’t imagine a more ideal place to be a
chess coach than Atkins HS,” said Plaster, who teaches English and Journalism
at Atkins, a technology magnet school that recruits math and science-minded
students from around Forsyth County for its unique high school programs in
Biotechnology, Game Design, and Engineering.
Local tournament
director Tom Hales of the Asheboro Chess Club was pleased with Atkins’ success.
“Congratulations to Team Atkins!” he said. “This is a major achievement since
you have to contend with teams from much larger cities with more resources.
Your hard work and dedication is paying off.”
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| Johnny Williams |
Develop Your Pieces:
Recruit and Nourish
Unlike Plaster, teacher
Johnny Williams has the odds stacked against him in building a chess program at
Northern Vance HS at the other end of the state. Plaster praised his dedication
in an article last year in the Camel City Dispatch. In a day of decreased
funding, lack of community support, and political climate, Williams and his
students sell candy bars and drinks in the mornings and afternoons at school to
raise the necessary funds to pay entry fees and fund transportation costs to
attend tournaments. Williams’ magic allure with his kids all began when he
brought out a chess board when covering another teacher’s class. Huddled around
the board, the students learned more than simple math, but began to gather and
assemble the building blocks of logic, creativity, and critical thinking
skills.
Plaster has different
challenges at Atkins HS; many of his players have multiple commitments with
other activities and academic teams so luring them to twice-weekly chess team
practice isn’t as easy as it sounds. Since Atkins is a technology school,
Plaster considers chess applications and web-based tools one of his secret
weapons. “It’s not always easy having so many players. It sounds like a great
problem to have, but then you consider that it takes two classrooms to even
have practice. Many of my casual players just want to play, but at the same time
I’m trying to challenge my better players to improve their game,” Plaster said.
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