The Charlotte Observer Charlotte, North Carolina Wednesday, March 09, 2011 - Page 34
Waging Battle Over The Board by Lisa Thornton
…Newsom, a tireless promoter many consider the patriarch of chess in this region, wants more people to get in the mental ring of the game.
The late Bobby Fischer, one of the most well-known chess players in history, had a similar view of chess years before Newsom.
“Chess is a war over the board,” Fischer once said. “The object is to crush the opponent's mind.”
Like many kids growing up in the 1970s, Newsom has Fischer to thank for introducing him to the game. Newsom recalls the interruption of his Saturday morning cartoons when he was 12 by a news clip of the 29-year-old American Fischer winning the 1972 World Chess Championship against the USSR's Boris Spassky during the Cold War.
After that, Newsom was hooked, he said — and he was not alone.
“If you ask people my age that are playing chess, that's probably where they had their first contact with it,” he said. “It was far and away the most popular chess event, as far as getting publicity into the United States, that there has been before or since.”
After the clip, Newsom turned off the TV, walked to the library and checked out a book on chess. At his school in Tennessee, he watched the popularity of the game explode around him. Kids began setting up chessboards to play during lunch, and soon after, a teacher formed the school's first chess club.
Since those days, Newsom has earned the rank of Candidate Master, a merit only bested by Master or Grandmaster. He is the current president of the North Carolina Chess Association and has as many championship titles as a winning heavyweight boxer has belts.
True chess players, said Newsom, don't care where they play, only that they have the chance. …
Waging Battle Over The Board Wed, Mar 9, 2011 – 34 · The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, North Carolina) · Newspapers.com
