Part of an occasional series of oral histories, as told to Anne Ford
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When I was seven years old, my grandmother introduced me to the game. I beat everybody in my family most of the time. Then, when I was 11 or 12, I happened to have a neighbor who was involved in competitive Scrabble. I would go over to his house on Monday nights, and he would just destroy me. He never showed any mercy. He would play fake words, and I would have no idea. One of those Monday nights, I beat him. Once.
The first few years, it’s all you think about. Every street sign I saw: “Hey, I’m on Touhy. That’s youth. What’s ‘LaSalle’ plus another letter? That would be lamellas and allheels.” It just consumes you.
I had a really close second-place finish in the nationals in 2008. Then I stopped playing for a while—it made more sense to concentrate on my MBA. Since I got it [this spring], I’ve gotten back into the scene. My first event back was a local Memorial Day event, which I bombed. There’s a road to getting back up to speed—if you don’t use it, you lose it. As for nationals, I finished second. There have only been two guys who have repeated the national championship. There’s too many good players out there. You just don’t know if it’ll ever be your week again.
