Kings of New York’ Win Fourth Consecutive National Crown
by Brooklyn Eagle, published online 05-01-2007
Murrow H.S. Chess Team “Unbeatable”
By Kathy Wang
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
MIDWOOD — They have six national championships, 12 state titles and 15 city titles across the board, and the youngest among them are only 15 years old.
And after finishing in first place among 415 school teams and being crowned their seventh national high school title at the 2007 National High School Chess Championship in Kansas City on April 12 to 15, the chess team of Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn is pleased.
“It’s very satisfying. I can’t be any prouder,” said Eliot Weiss, a calculus teacher at Murrow and coach of the chess team since its creation.
And rightly so, for this is the team that, after being crowned National Champs in 2004, was escorted by U.S. Senator Charles Schumer on an official visit to the White House, where President Bush congratulated the members.
“The president wanted to meet with the Murrow High School team because their guts, smarts, and grace under fire make all of us proud,” Schumer said of that occasion.
“Once again, the Murrow High School chess team has proven itself the nation’s cream of the crop in winning this year’s national championship,” said the senator, whose Brooklyn district office when he was a Congressman was five blocks away from Murrow.
Here is the full story.
Ouch! More bias for the NY team?
Whatever happened to win with grace and lose with dignity? The Brooklyn should admit that they got the 2nd place trophy.
To make matters worse they were second on tie breaks. The team from Arizon are THE champions
Well, you’d expect the Brooklyn Eagle to be biased towards New York. No shock there. But still, why does it say they’re the champions if they’re not?
Murrow High School did indeed tie for first and is considered co-champion. But they received a second place trophy. They were not “being crowned their seventh national high school title” as the story says. An objective news site should have at minimum researched the issue and concluded that Catalina Foothills was first on tiebreaks.
Michael Aigner
I don’t think it is bias as much as it is lazy reporting. The Murrow coach is known to send out press releases after every big tournament and I assume he spun the tie/loss on tiebreaks in favor of his team. Personally, I think it’s tacky/bad sportsmanship.
NO Comment
LOL.
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I don’t think it is bias as much as it is lazy reporting. The Murrow coach is known to send out press releases after every big tournament and I assume he spun the tie/loss on tiebreaks in favor of his team.
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That could well be. I had a few minor local HS tournaments that I was in in upstate New York that the local paper printed a squib on, and they never sent a reporter around to gather information. The guy who ran the Chess Club just sent information to the paper and they printed it.
On the other hand, this Kathy Wang from the Eagle definitely knew about the tie, because it’s mentioned in the story, albeit buried in the 7th paragraph. The guy from Murrow definitely didn’t withhold that information from her, she must have made the choice to bury it herself, while leaving misleading references earlier on that seem to imply they were sole champs.
That’s the journalism biz for you. All the news that fits, we print.
Oh, one other thing. Tiebreaks are sometimes held for trophies only, but not titles. There have been a couple of US Championships where they had a tiebreaker for the Championship Ring only, but the title itself remained shared even after the tiebreaker. Sounds like that’s what happened here, in which case it would be accurate to call them co-Champions, and there would be nothing misleading exactly about failing to report that they got the 2nd place trophy.
On a different note, my favorite line in the story is this:
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“It’s a game that takes more than a lifetime to master,” said Weiss.
And master it Murrow’s team does.
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Huh??? You just said…