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Life after the Spelling Bee: 'It’s one of the most unique, odd clubs you can be in'
There are fewer than 100 past winners of the Scripps National Spelling Bee and a few of them have gone on to follow idiosyncratic career paths.
Money, membership in an elite club, and the certainty of having spelled better than the rest: these are the guerdons of Scripps and the honors of knowing your argot. By and large spelling bee champions make the most of it.
“It’s one of the most unique, odd clubs you can be in,” said Dan Greenblatt, a software engineer, voice actor and winner of the 1984 Bee (his winning word was luge). “There’re only 90 of us, give or take, in this little club.”
The US has crowned a Spelling Bee champion almost every year since 1925, and those champions have mostly pursued careers in fields that reward dedicated study and a knack for jargon, such as medicine, law, chemistry or engineering. But given a hefty cash prize, a trophy and a résumé line that could justifiably read “orthography prodigy”, a few follow more idiosyncratic paths.
Pratyush Buddiga, 26, won the Bee in 2002 (prospicience) and won $840,000 playing poker in 2014 . “I found after the spelling bee I really missed competitions. Competing to be the number one student in your class isn’t that exciting, or the same as winning a tournament,” Buddiga said. “Once I found poker, that was a new avenue to try to be the best.”
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/may/27/scripps-national-spelling-bee-past-winners-clubMoney, membership in an elite club, and the certainty of having spelled better than the rest: these are the guerdons of Scripps and the honors of knowing your argot. By and large spelling bee champions make the most of it.
“It’s one of the most unique, odd clubs you can be in,” said Dan Greenblatt, a software engineer, voice actor and winner of the 1984 Bee (his winning word was luge). “There’re only 90 of us, give or take, in this little club.”
The US has crowned a Spelling Bee champion almost every year since 1925, and those champions have mostly pursued careers in fields that reward dedicated study and a knack for jargon, such as medicine, law, chemistry or engineering. But given a hefty cash prize, a trophy and a résumé line that could justifiably read “orthography prodigy”, a few follow more idiosyncratic paths.
Pratyush Buddiga, 26, won the Bee in 2002 (prospicience) and won $840,000 playing poker in 2014 . “I found after the spelling bee I really missed competitions. Competing to be the number one student in your class isn’t that exciting, or the same as winning a tournament,” Buddiga said. “Once I found poker, that was a new avenue to try to be the best.”