Will Smith Applauds Educator Who Wins ‘Best Philadelphian’ Award
Will Smith, star of the hit new movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, praises Principal, Teacher and Chess Coach Salome Thomas-EL, for answering the call to serve young people in his foreword to Thomas-EL’s new book, The Immortality of Influence.
Philadelphia, PA (PRWEB) December 26, 2006 — Will Smith, star of the hit new movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, praises Principal, Teacher and Chess Coach Salome Thomas-EL, for answering the call to serve young people in his foreword to Thomas-EL’s new book, The Immortality of Influence (Kensington – May 2006).
Salome Thomas-EL, winner of Philadelphia Magazine’s 2006 Best Philadelphian Award, has helped hundreds of troubled children get into major high schools and universities. Yet, he stills finds himself devastated by the long-ago death of a promising young student named Willow Briggs. Thomas-EL worked with and encouraged the struggling boy, who ultimately became a top chess player and student.
When he moved on to high school, he found no real positive influences and was murdered on a street corner at sixteen. Willow’s death launched Salome Thomas-EL on his mission to be a positive influence, and to encourage all of us to set the best example possible for the young people in our lives. Over 400 people have been murdered in Philadelphia this year, many of them young black males.
Salome Thomas-EL is also author of, I Choose To Stay (Kensington – March 2003), a best-seller written by the award winning teacher, mentor and father. His work has garnered the attention of Walt Disney Pictures, which has agreed to distribute a movie based on Thomas-EL’s life story.
A humble yet dedicated educator, he revived the chess team of an inner-city Philadelphia middle school and led them to victory at the national championships. Thomas-EL is encouraged by Will Smith’s initial reaction to the movie project. Smith, a native of Philadelphia and a promising chess player, welcomed reading the script written by Don Scott (Barbershop movies).
The Disney movie will be produced and directed by brothers Greg and Gavin O’Connor, at Solaris Entertainment. They were most recently teamed together with Disney for the hit, ‘Miracle,’ an inspirational movie about the 1980 Gold Medal winning USA Olympic Hockey team.
Here is the full press release.
Nice story! We need more of this and less of Sam Sloan.
Salome spoke at a American Foundation for Chess event in Seattle 2 years ago. I read his first book and it was very moving. We need more people like him!
I read Thomas El’s first book several years ago and found many things in it that I can relate to as a volunteer chess coach at a Jr. High and two High Schools in Phoenix. It is very inspirational and shows how much a single individual can do if they just try and are persistant.
I hope many chess players who are retired from their careers read his book and decide to volunteer some of their spare time to teaching youngsters the great game of chess.