I’ve shared how I was convinced to take a leap that propelled my professional and personal life down an unexpected path. But I should also relate how I landed myself in that conundrum in the first place. How in the world, sitting at a desk in my hometown of Sprinfield, Missouri, did I get an offer to travel to New Windsor, New York, for a job at, of all places, the U.S. Chess Federation?
And is there also a lesson in this story? A small one, I think.
But First: Life Leading Up to the Big Event
Through the magic of Encyclopedia Britannica, I’d taught myself how to play chess around age 13. I was nearly 17 when Bobby Fischer became a U.S. sensation in the summer of 1972, vying for the world championship against a Soviet player. This extreme introvert took a deep breath and showed up at the first meeting of the Springfield Chess Club. I played there through high school and college, and joined the college club too. For a time, I even got involved in the state chess organization.
Part of my early “chess career” involved producing this newsletter for local Springfield-area chess clubs. They provided me entrance into the most niche of niche organizations: The Chess Journalists of America.
Most important, as I mention in Ever the Nerd, I produced four issues of the Queen City Chess Bulletin (Springfield being the “Queen City of the Ozarks”). That distinction qualified me to join, for the shocking price of $3 per year, the Chess Journalists of America. Main benefit: the quarterly Chess Journalist newsletter.
Fast forward: Summer of 1979 arrives. I’ve graduated from college and, after a short stint at the Bass Pro Shops HQ, I’m a copyeditor at the Springfield Daily News. A few years earlier I’d realized being a chess master wasn’t in my DNA, but I still attended the city chess club and was considering ideas for another chess newsletter as a pastime.
And Then It Happened
The Summer 1979 edition of the Chess Journalist arrived.
It was a juicy one: 36 pages of complaint and outrage about the state of U.S. chess. I ploughed through it all and was probably exhausted as I came to the end. So perhaps it was even luck that I found myself peering at an obvious last-minute notice shoehorned in on the bottom of the last page: “Chess Life & Review Will Seek New Managing Editor.” See the illustration for the actual artifact.
The Chess Journalist newsletter, Summer 1979, retrieved from the https://chessjournalism.org/ archive. Last page, last story. My life would have been far different had I missed it!
The fateful announcement, just seven sentences. (Manipulated here for readability.) Click to open and read in a separate tab.
At the very moment this news arrived, I’d been sitting at my desk in my apartment (one much more modest than the AI-generated conception up top), mulling ideas about starting a chess newsletter. This seemed to be The Universe sending me a message.
But hold that thought. The previous 35 pages seemed to squelch the idea that a career in chess was a sane choice. During the “Fischer Boom” of 1972, USCF membership had mushroomed; cash flowed in. Bobby failed to show for the next championship in 1975, and so by 1979 the boom had become “The Fischer Bust.” The USCF was imploding. The executive director and several staffers had been replaced or laid off. In-fighting for board of director positions was vicious. So it was not shocking that magazine staff would be bailing too.
Still, I gave it some thought. I was about 50% qualified. Despite the announcement saying chess knowledge was optional, I figured they’d be deluged with resumes of master-level players far above my middling skills. A hard requirement was experience with a monthly magazine. My experience on the college student newspaper and now the city newspaper … could I talk a good game there?
Probably a waste of time, I decided. But … it would be fun to try, and I had time to waste. I crafted a resume, wrote a compelling cover letter, and stuffed the envelope with a sample of the Queen City Chess Bulletin. What’s the worst that could happen? It disappears into the darkness of a disintegrating chess org. Or at least hopefully I get a polite note detailing my shortcomings.
Another milestone in the summer of 1979: The movie “Alien” had been out a few weeks. I’d read it had a shocker scene so, being a science-fiction nerd, I wanted to see it before I encountered a spoiler. I got off my shift at the newspaper between midnight and 1 a.m., so I took in a late-night viewing. Intense! I didn’t exactly have nightmares, but it took me a while to get to sleep, probably 4 a.m. or so.
So, What Happens That Morning?
The phone rings. Early.
It’s Gerry Dullea, the new executive director of the Chess Federation. He wants to talk about the managing editor’s job. Sure, no problem.
I don’t remember a single word – not any of his questions, not any of my answers. He said he was off to the Federation’s annual meeting in Chicago in a few days, so it would be a while before he could get back to me. He seemed polite but not obviously impressed, so I figured that might be the last I’d hear from him.
A week or so later, early August, he calls again. He’d caught up with some Missouri Chess Federation folks in Chicago. Apparently, they had said not-discouraging things about me. I was incredulous. He was offering me a job. We’d talked probably less than an hour altogether. No interview with anyone else, not even the editor, Burt Hochberg (I learned when I arrived that he was leaving too). No offer to come out to see the office and meet the other staffers. The money? Hardly more than the paycheck-to-paycheck amount I was making. And New York would be more expensive I reckoned.
Cut to the chase: Early September found me driving East, headed for a new job and a new life in New Windsor, New York.
By the way, today the rebranded U.S. Chess is a thriving, professionally run organization, completely unlike the organization I joined forty-plus years ago. Now headquartered in St. Louis, membership had been growing steadily for years before the Pandemic gave it an even bigger boost. The internet is chock full of websites, influencers, and affable chess professionals available to help you learn more.
Despite those initial trepidations, my time in New York left me with nothing but good memories. I learned a lot about writing, editing, getting along with people outside my past Midwestern experience, and what constitutes a great Reuben sandwich. I made many good friends. At the risk of sounding a bit high-minded, I can’t help but recall these closing lines from the poem whose title I’ve appropriated:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”
Any Directly Applicable Lesson Here?
I’ll try to be honest: not so much. Well, maybe a little.
Job hunting today is fundamentally different from my experience throughout the bulk of my career. Today’s job seekers may submit hundreds of applications electronically in hopes they’ll beat the algorithm and make it through to a handful of candidates who get one phone call and are then ghosted. I was fortunate to have spent a big chunk of my professional career during a time when humans sized you up not just on the keywords in your resume but by applying a sixth sense as they talked with you directly: not just your experience but your demeanor.
What matters now? Looking back, I realize how close I came to talking myself out of even applying. I made assumptions about their assumptions. I didn’t have faith in my own credentials. Even after I got the offer, I dithered until I got the best career advice ever from my cousin Mike. Loading up my car and taking the Eastern highway to New York was a life-changing event that I almost missed. Not because I didn’t qualify. But because I almost didn’t even try.
Yes, job hunting today feels more like playing the lottery. But you can’t win if you don’t buy the ticket. Sure, odds in some cases are low. But someone will win. Why not you? Don’t sell yourself short. Give it a shot.
Buy the ticket.