Pointing kids to the right direction

Novice chess players gain skills to make it to U.S. championship
BY SYLVIA RECTOR • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • April 22, 2008

Ernikka Johnson, 10, and Jirrell Echols, 11, sat in school desks facing each other in math teacher Douglas Carey’s classroom last Friday afternoon, a vinyl roll-up chessboard spread over the desktops between them.

It was Ernikka’s turn to move, and Jirrell was doing a good job of trying to be patient.

Volunteer coach Mary Rose Forsyth stood nearby, watching them, and the six other children on her elementary team at Hutchins-McMichael School in Detroit practiced for the United States Chess Federation national elementary team championships in Pittsburgh early next month.

As first-time players in a school that never had a team, the youngsters tied for third place in their age group in the city this year, an achievement Carey and Forsyth said they never dreamed they would reach when school began last fall.

Detroit school teams placing at least third in their level are entitled to attend the USCF national championships.

“When kids first begin playing, you don’t expect them to do this well,” said Carey, a longtime Detroit Public Schools chess coach who has led dozens of city teams and students to national chess honors.

He mostly worked with the middle schoolers at the first-through-eighth-grade Hutchins-McMichael school this year and credits Forsyth’s volunteer hours for the success of the elementary students.

“These are very bright kids,” Forsyth said. “They really wanted to play, and they worked hard.”

But as excited as the kids are about playing in a national tournament, they’re just as thrilled about going to Pittsburgh.

Some have never traveled outside Detroit, Forsyth said, much less taken an out-of-state school trip like this. They’ll stay in a hotel, swim in the pool, see the sights and meet other young chess players from all over the country.

“This is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to them,” Forsyth said.

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