The 2007 Scrabble Players Championship has come to Dayton, Ohio!
Jake and I went downtown to Thai 9 for dinner Friday night
and spotted several players carrying their black and red tote bags (I’d love to
have one of those – I can’t explain why but I would). I’d loved to have talked to a few of them but
it wasn’t very convenient and I didn’t want to appear to be a Scrabble groupie
or anything. I just thought it might
make for some interesting conversation. I told Jake that I really wanted to write seven random letters on a
piece of paper and ask them what they could come up with.
As we were waiting for our check, a pair of players walked by
and I realized that Joel Sherman had been sitting two tables away from us the entire
time we’d been eating. And who is Joel Sherman,
you ask? Why only the man who won the tournament
featured in the documentary Word Wars! He’s
the one on the bottom left on the DVD cover.
On our way out I stopped, briefly, at a table of players and
wished them luck. They thanked me, a bit
stunned, and one of the older men pulled it together quick enough to wish me
luck as well just as we were walking out the door. Oh I love a good game of Scrabble and got a
great score once for the word “zen” and also won a challenge once when someone said
you couldn’t use brand names…I had spelled the word “sprite.” Ahem. But
it takes a special kind of person to play in a tournament.
Oddly enough, we had already had one brush with celebrity
that night…we walked around the Oregon District for a bit while waiting for our
table and exchanged pleasantries with Tom Archdeacon and his wife/significant
other/lady friend. Mr. Archdeacon is a human
interest sports writer for the Dayton Daily news – his articles are about the
only thing I might read on the sports page.
And to end on a Scrabble note: I found this photo while
looking for a picture of the Word Wars DVD. Very cool.
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