Glenburn Middle School Chess Team Back from National Championships

Let's catch up with the Glenburn Middle School's Chess Team and their trip to Texas for the National Finals.

When they won the regionals and then the Maine State Championship and with that an invitation to go to the Nationals, I asked Coach Tom Coleman to take notes and take photos.

He did both.  Or made sure the parents took the photos.

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Sorry to jump around but let's begin with something Coach sent after the first day.

Regardless of where we place we have already won. These players are amazing and have accomplished so much already at the local, state, and now national level. We are so impressed to have our Glenburn Players winning at this level.

"We have already won." That is the take-away.

Years from now the experience will still be theirs. Theirs forever. Their accomplishments. Their trip. Their shared time. Theirs. And nobody takes that away, ever.

Here is Coach Tom's RESULTS write up

Congratulations to the Glenburn Chess team who returned late last night from Texas placing 7th place in the U900 section, and 13th place in the U700 section at the National Middle School Championships. Outstanding job. Well done.

More from Coach Tom

I feel that many may not fully understand how competitive Nationals is and how special it is to have a small Maine town compete against almost 40 schools around our nation. Many of these teams have private chess coaches or their school is a private or charter school and have a school-focus on chess.

It was quite a surreal experience. I truly didn't know what to expect and if we could erase the first two rounds of play and have a do-over, I know we would have been in the Top 5 contention. We got caught a bit off-guard being in a playing hall with approximately 500 chess boards and between 900 to 1,000 players. We only got two wins that first round, so we really had to play catch up...which we did in the following rounds.

Congrats to all the players, the coach, the teachers, the parents, the sponsors and the community who came together and raised money to offset the cost of the trip.

Be proud, Glenburn.

You walk together forever.