I would like to thank the following people for supporting the chess team, my students and me: The wonderful teachers and staff members at Reynolds Elementary School and Vaux Middle School. My brother and friend, Ishmael Al-Islam, Michael and Octavia Lewis, Elmer Smith and the entire Philadelphia Daily News/Inquirer family. The Philadelphia Tribune staff, Calvary Baptist Church, Miller Memorial Baptist Church, and Sharon Baptist Church. Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta and Zeta Phi Beta Sororities. To the best secretaries in the world: Edith Bridges, Debbie Brooks, June Ezekiel, Cheryl Henderson, Lillian Rochester and Denice Ross, I will always love you; Men of BACA, Vaux Alumni Association and all the former members of the chess team: You started the tradition and we are proud to preserve your legacy.
To Maurice Cheeks and Marc Zumoff: Thanks for your friendship and support over the years. Tony Irving: We lost you long ago but your memory lives on through our work. There will never be enough space for me to thank all the people who have touched my life. If I have not mentioned you, please forgive me. You will always be in my heart.
1
Failed Influence
When I see a life that goes in the wrong direction and it’s a young person whom I’ve had an opportunity to influence, I ask myself, “Could I have done more?”
I don’t know the answer. I don’t live with guilt over my failures, but I do have to live with the knowledge that I had the opportunity to do more and I failed.
That’s a heavy burden.
Of all the failures in my nearly twenty-year career in education, the one that hurts the most is the death of Willow Briggs. I was a teacher in 1994, when he entered fifth grade at Vaux Middle School. Willow was a good basketball player and the other kids admired him. Like many children in the inner-city schools, Willow came from a troubled background. In elementary school, he had been constantly reprimanded.
Willow was notorious for sucking his thumb (although none of his friends ever teased him about it), but he was amazingly mature for his age. That’s an odd combination, but there were few kids like Willow (or “Fu,” as most of his friends called him).
Some of his teachers predicted he would drop out as soon as he was able. Yet I saw something different about him and that’s what caught my attention: Willow could think. He was bright and his vocabulary impressed me. When he spoke, it was obvious that he had an excellent mind.
I tried to spend time with Willow because I saw qualities in him that could make him into an outstanding leader. I knew it would be difficult because Willow had so many things piled up against him. I wanted him to understand he had great potential and could train his mind and do something significant with his life. He had charm, charisma, and the ability to outthink the smartest adults.
Through our discussions and many one-on-one basketball games, we discovered I had taught Willow’s older brother. Because we connected there, he allowed me to be a positive influence in his life.
His major problem was that most of the time he used his superior ability in negative ways, and he often ended up in serious trouble. I needed to find ways to pull him out of his old habits and get him to focus on self-improvement. After thinking about it for several days, I took a chance and encouraged him to join the chess team.
I had organized students to play chess, most of whom were good students from elementary schools. Those with a good academic background easily became our best players.
“I got no time for games,” Willow said when I approached him with the idea of joining the chess team.
“It’s more than a game,” I countered. “It’s a real mental challenge. You have to be smart—really smart—to play well. I think you’re smart enough that you could learn.”
After I made several appeals to his bright mind, Willow agreed to try the game “and see how it goes.”
That’s all it took. Neither of us realized it then, but Willow would become our first outstanding chess player who hadn’t been academically successful before coming to Vaux Middle School.
Willow picked chess up quickly. Perhaps to his own amazement, once he understood the game, he excelled in it. In fact, he became a celebrity at Vaux because he was so good.
Willow was a year older than most of the other students in his grade because of his problems in elementary school. The other children had known he was a poor student, but they began to recognize a distinct change in him. By playing chess, he created a new “Fu.” Not only was he excellent in sports, but now he became more popular because everyone saw him as extremely smart.
I smiled whenever I saw the new “Fu” in action on the chessboard. He’d look up, smile, and go back to his game. The boy even smiled differently.
Teachers who had predicted he’d drop out were glad to hear of his achievements. One of them said to me, “I’m delighted to have been wrong.”
Because he was quick at picking up chess moves and committed himself to excellence, Willow had several mentors. Not only did he become a champion at chess, but his grades improved. He was like a different boy. For the next two years, chess became his focus. Willow left the wrong crowd and made definite attitude changes. I was proud of him—as proud of him as I had been of any student I had ever worked with.
I loved to talk with Willow. Because I saw that he had so much potential, I tried to paint a picture of a bright future for him; I knew he could accomplish anything he set out to do. At first, I assumed I was the first teacher who had ever talked to him that way but I wasn’t. As I learned, many other dedicated teachers had seen his potential and had tried to help him, but they got nowhere. I understood, because I knew most of his teachers and they genuinely cared about him and the other children.
Something about growing up in the inner city offers rewards for not listening to adults. Children get more respect from their peers and from some parts of the community for being defiant. I grew up on the same mean streets, so I know the hardships that boys face. Those influences can badly misdirect young people. I frequently told Willow how proud I was that he had changed.
During his three years at Vaux, Willow not only changed his behavior but also became a top student. He worked hard and even made up the year he was behind. He was able to graduate from middle school on schedule with his classmates who had moved ahead of him in elementary school.
As a seventh-grader in 1996—a kid who had played chess for less than two years—he was ranked number twenty-five in chess in the nation for his age and ability group after he played at the national championship tournament in Orlando, Florida.
Not only did Willow have the encouragement of teachers, counselors, social workers, and students, but also many people in the neighborhood volunteered to help in our programs, and they encouraged him. We made a difference in the life of Willow Briggs—we were proud of his achievements and proud of him.
At Vaux, we had kept him busy learning chess and teaching the game to younger students. We saw the best of Willow “Fu” Briggs come to the surface.
But that’s only part of his story.
After Willow graduated from Vaux Middle School, he went into high school. It’s unfortunate, but they had no chess program like the one he had been a part of in middle school. Willow had no community influence like the kind he had learned to rely on. Within a year, his grades went down, he skipped school frequently, and worse, he began to hang out with the wrong crowd again. Shortly after that, he got into trouble. He wasn’t expelled, but it was serious enough that he could have been.
From others, I heard Willow had lost his sense of direction. I didn’t see him during those months, but I often asked about him. By the time he was sixteen, the word in the neighborhood was that he often stood