Thanks, Bobby Fischer
The grandmaster spurred my interested in chess and surprisingly, Latin.

By Steve Coronella
Christian Science Monitor, MA
from the February 24, 2009 edition

It’s funny how things work sometimes.

For instance, if Bobby Fischer hadn’t traveled to Reykjavik, Iceland, to take on Boris Spassky in the world’s most celebrated chess match in the summer of 1972, I never would have gotten the opportunity to learn Latin at my junior high school in Medford, Mass.

Sounds like a real non sequitur, I know, but hear me out.

For starters, you don’t have to be a chess geek to remember the American grand-master Bobby Fischer.

In his time he elevated the game to unprecedented levels of popularity, thanks to his spectacularly bold play and dazzlingly eccentric behavior. (He passed away only last year back in Iceland.)

Anyway, after a lot of prematch wrangling, mainly over prize money, Fischer agreed to meet Spassky for the World Chess Championship in the remote venue of Reykjavik. The first game took place on July 11, 1972.

I’m not exactly sure what my summer vacation routine consisted of back then, but I’m pretty sure that it included large amounts of what today would be called “unscheduled time.”

As a result, I spent countless hours watching the World Chess Championship on Channel 2, Boston’s PBS affiliate.

Incredibly, the show – which featured grandmaster Shelby Lyman analyzing each game (and indeed each move) of the Fischer-Spassky contest – was at the time the highest-rated PBS program ever and yet had an endearing slapdash feel to it.

The studio contained little more than a giant wall-mounted chess board, reconfigured by Lyman after each new move would arrive via teletext, as well as a few seated chess pundits enlisted for their own powers of analysis.

Even so, the show was an inspiration, and in September of ’72 I entered the eighth grade at Lincoln Junior High School convinced that I possessed the mental muscle to become the next great American chess champion.

To condition myself, I stayed after school a couple of days each week to engage my English teacher, Mr. Kelly, in a series of friendly matches.

Mr. Kelly, I recall, had a similar enthusiasm for the game but unfortunately didn’t appear to have benefited from the helpful advice offered by Shelby Lyman and company on PBS. He took forever to make a move, and when he finally did commit one of his pieces, it pushed him invariably closer to checkmate.

Here is the full article.

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