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NSC 2009 Commentary: Before the Tournament

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Go to: Before the Tournament, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, Round 23, Round 24, Round 25, Round 26, Round 27, Round 28, Round 29, Round 30, Round 31, After the Tournament.

Pre-event

Friday

A few of us headed to Dayton a day early to hit the ground running on Friday. So, I was one of the first people to be greeted with a great "Welcome SCRABBLE Players, 2009 National SCRABBLE Championship" banner at the Dayton Airport. It was a delightful surprise that stopped me in my tracks!

The NSA, though no longer the hosts of this event, are here in force this year to help NASPA run its first NSC. Jane Williams, Theresa Bubb, and Megan Mills set up the playing room entirely by themselves on Thursday and helped us during registration today. Patty Hocker, Katie Shultz, and John D. Williams arrived today and Patty had made name badges for all the players, which were distributed to each division's registration stations. In addition to their time, the NSA's other major contribution to the event is that they paid for all of the event's printing needs: contestant score cards, round result slips, name tags, scoresheets, etc. These gifts of time and materials are invaluable and we thank the NSA.

Registration began at 10:00 am sharp at the Dayton Convention Center. A variety of players volunteered in shifts to help check participants in, handing out scorecards, name tag lanyards, event tiles (their choice: purple with white letters or white with purple letters) and wonderful event bags (Merriam-Webster donated them this year!). Once players had those items, they headed over to the T-shirt area. This year's NSC shirt has NSC spelled out in purple tiles. It matches the event tiles!

Kenji Matsumoto (Amherst, MA) and Rafi Stern (Seattle, WA) decided to demonstrate the registration room's spaciousness by playing frisbee! Last year's champ, Nigel Richards (MYS) arrived early and spent much of the morning chatting with Jane R. Williams and visiting with one of the other foreign players who would love the NSC crown this year, Pakorn Nemitrmansuk (THA).

Mary Rhoades, our director extraordinaire, ran around like crazy all day with a Star Trek phone device attached to her ear. Her phone never stopped ringing. At one point, I heard three people trying to speak to her at once; each seeking her attention by calling out her name. I laughed at this and she deadpanned, "I also answer to Mom, Grandma, and Director."

Sam Kantimathi (Sacramento, CA) wins the "eye candy" merchant award for hiring a crew to help him at his SamTimer.com table. Joe South (Piqua, OH) and his buddy, Shea Holowecky, were two of three workers Sam had hauling and selling. Flat boards, folding boards, colored timers, Smoothtiles, large SCRABBLE rugs, etc., all for sale!

Gene Tyszka (Mississauga ON) had merchandise for sale, too, just outside the playing room. He had out the zircote raffle board (a rare wood and only four boards have ever been made by Gene of this material) and other raffle prizes. Raffle tickets sell for $10 each or 3 for $25. They are still for sale and can be purchased by those not in attendance if someone on site is willing to buy the ticket and deliver potential prizes. This is Gene's way to raise funds for NASPA. Go Gene! In addition to his boards, racks, and timers, Gene had a stock of Bob Schoenman's Protiles for sale, too. A new feature of the Protiles is a polished finish that makes the injected tiles even better. They look to have a more matte appearance.

In the center of the registration room Bryan Pepper collected fees for those joining NASPA (membership required to play in this year's NSC). He and those that helped him, processed at least 40 new members, just today. Chris Cree (Dallas, TX) points out that NASPA is now up to 1700+ new members. He says, "That means that in just four months, 85% of those who have played in a tournament in the past two years, have joined." And he thinks this is great. I agree!

At times, registration slowed down (it was a beautiful day outside!) and players would sit down with registration volunteers for a game! Betty Cornelison (Portland, OR) was one of these volunteers who sat down and played with Ruth Hamilton (Lake Oswego, OR) to pass the time.

As she does at most of her touraments, Mary Rhoades put an "announcement sheet" into each contestant bag and all players were required to read it so she could keep the annoucements to a minimum. Go Mary!

The School SCRABBLE program continues to affect the National scene and three parents of players are volunteering as division as assistants: Amy Krafchick, Cara Canik, and Lynn Sneed.

Throughout registration, players gathered in the Convention Center's atrium foyer to play at the tables scattered about. The City of Dayton had a table set up with information on the city's restaurants with discount coupons for our SCRABBLE group.

During registration, Terry Oblander (Medina, OH) pulled out an article from The Medina Gazette (29 July 2009). Both he and Pete Zeigler (Medina, OH) are participating in the NSC and the article focused on their club and this event. Nice front page story, too!

At 4:00 pm, Mary held a staff meeting at at 7:00 pm, hris Cree hosed a dinner on the top floor of the Crowne Plaza. Workers and spouses all met to view the city at sunset and enjoy the calm before the storm. As we stood and introduced ourselves to each other, Dan Stock, read aloud his recent story told in 100 tiles about Dayton. I asked to stop by his room after dinner to see the board as he created it. Purple board/purple tiles!! It is featured in the pre-event photos: check it out!

As registration was winding up across the street at the Convention Center, Paul Epstein (Keego Harbor, MI) found a pinao in the foyer and he was playing with great verve. Players were already gathering in the after-hours room and Mary Rhoades and Bryan Pepper were wrapping up the list of names to be tossed into the pairing. John Chew was waiting to generate tomorrow's first few rounds based on this list. Mary's phone was still ringing at 10pm with more news on late arrivers!

Saturday

Pairings were posted in the registration room (now pairing/standing room) last last night, so as players made their way into the Convention Center this morning, they just found their division and table and set up quickly. The room, as it was two years ago, is unbelieveably spacious and disconcertingly loud. The latter isn't as much of of problem as it might seem, because the continuous fan sound make a kind of white noise that dampens out most of the sounds that make a tourament loud (talking, tapping tiles, shaking tiles, etc.).

Chris Cree (Dallas, TX) took to the stage and welcomed the players to the first NASPA NSC. He quickly turned over the microphone to Alan Stern (Shadow Hills, CA) who is going to be the event's Master of Ceremonies. Alan was quite funny, starting off with saying that it was fitting to be playing in a hangar since this was the "birthplace of Aviation." He was referring to our large spacious room! He knew fun facts about how Dayton is the "gem city" and that coal was considered a gem. Famous Daytonites include Hall of Famer, Mike Schmidt (of the Philadelphia Phillies), Martin Sheen, and Roger Clemens. Alan then introduced a special guest: The Mayor of Dayton, Rhine L. McLin. Mayor McLin welcomed us to the 2009 "S C R A B B L E" Championship (she spelled every letter out, slowly). She thanked Lois Greene (Dayton, OH), the former director of the Convention Center (Lois has been retired for a year now and is loving life), for all her hard work bringing the event to Dayton twice now. Mayor McLin let us know that Dayton is well known for more than just aviation. Two other famous items were created in Dayton: the stepladder and the ice cube tray.

Alan Stern next announced "recognition awards." Reprensentatives from the first four sanctioned NASPA tournaments were called to the front and presented with certificates. Accepting for Laguna Woods, CA, was Bruce D Ambrosio (Los Angeles, CA); for Charleston, Il, Marty Gabriel (Charleston, IL); for Reno, NV, Jerry Lerman (San Francisco, CA); and for Albany, NY, Linda Wancel (Flushing, NY). All four events took place over the first weekend in July. We all toss in our thanks to these trail-blaxing events.

Wooden plaques were then handed out to Paul Avrin (New York, NY) and Stuart Goldman (San Francisco, CA) for having reached the 5,000 rated tournament games mark!

Event director, Mary Rhoades, then took to the microphone and reminded folks to read their announcement sheets. She suggested all review the updated rules that went into effect today. Due to a mispairing, division 3 pairings were reprinted and hung in the pairing room during opening announcemetns. So, just as Mary was about to begin the games, she suggested division 3 so check the new pairings.

And then the 2009 National SCRABBLE Championship began!