(Chess) Coach wins national title, takes entire team to new school

[steve2470]

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/04/texas-tech-chess-coach-wins-national-title-resigns-and-takes-entire-team/1#.T38GTS9_BRI



Some call it brazen, others unprecedented, but it is certainly shocking: A Texas coach resigns and takes the entire team to another school within hours of winning a Final Four national championship.

But it's a done deal: Texas Tech chess coach Susan Polgar is moving her all-star squad of seven chess grandmasters to private Webster University in suburban St. Louis, home to the World Chess Hall of Fame and the U.S. national championships, the Associated Press reports.

"The program grew rapidly, and Texas Tech wasn't ready to grow with the speed of the program," says Polgar, who founded the program there in 2007. "St. Louis today is the center of chess in America. It just seemed like a perfect fit."

Her players will also have access to the swanky new Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, a 6,000-square-foot shrine to the game that was bankrolled by local businessmen.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. as the average IQ in Texas schools continues its dive towards Rick Perry's level.

Alas, that poor state.

[trumad]

2. Boy that seems like a group that likes to Party.

[MADem]

3. I'd go! Particularly if it included tuition, room and board!

College is expensive nowadays--anyone who can get a free ride, should!


The Texas Tech students transferring to Webster in the fall will receive scholarships. At Tech, the program had a $30,000 pot for the entire team, but Polgar noted that some top chess schools award individual students that amount.

[d_r]

4. won't the ncaa require them to sit out a year?

[Johonny]

5. don't think it's a NCAA registered sprot

[Egalitarian Thug]

6. What? Texas Tech doesn't "believe in the free market"?

If they really wanted these geeks to stay, they could cut the 5th string of their football program and fund some perqs.

[hughee99]

7. They have to save up for potential "Mike Leach related" lawsuits. n/t

[Brickbat]

8. I find this story hilarious.