Chess: A booming business

Cobb Business: Chess for kids a smart move
Program teaches game, life skills
By Leslie Everton Brice
For the Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/11/07

Within the world of childhood sports and activities, a quiet revolution is taking place.

Baseball, football, basketball, soccer, swimming, gymnastics: These are sports that might typically fill a child’s extracurricular time.

More and more kids are discovering chess as an alternative activity.

And in metro Atlanta, you can attribute at least some of that newfound interest to a program called Kid Chess.

Developed by Justin Morrison, the program has grown about 30 percent a year since it opened in 1998. Morrison, a former management consultant, was a champion chess player in high school, a three-time Georgia High School champion from 1976 through 1978, as well as Southeastern U.S. champion in 1996 and Georgia Junior Champion in 1978.

“I really kind of lucked into this business,” said Morrison. “At the time I started, I thought I’d like to coach basketball or chess.”

He opted to teach chess at an after-school program. The class became “incredibly popular,” Morrison said, and he started to realize he was onto something.

Today, he has a staff of 35 —- most of them instructors, with teaching as well as chess backgrounds. About 2,800 kids are involved in Kid Chess after-school programs and home school programs. Another 2,000 to 4,000 come to chess camps or take private lessons.

Here is the full article.