60 years later, Worthing alum reflects on chess team that desegregated Houston high school league
. But he positively glows when a curious young man steps off the basketball court at Sunnyside Park to ask about the timeworn trophy resting on his picnic table that he’s brought with him to reminisce about old times.
“Pleasure to meet you! Keep up the good work, young warrior. Each one reach one, now,” Griffin tells him, as they part ways.For Griffin, 75, the exchange encapsulates everything that is so important about the game of chess, and Worthing’s role in. The pair may not have known each other, but they are bound by a love for the king’s game and a history that, in Houston, starts with Griffin and his teammates.
By the time he had enrolled at Worthing, Griffin had already developed a passion for the game, and his mother, a teacher at the school, pointed him in the direction of Aeroanita Bell, a language teacher and sponsor of the school’s chess club. Soon, he was playing chess with teammates Elmo Jackson, Ollie Polk and Eddie Jones most days during lunch and before and after school.
The Houston Chronicle even had a chess writer, George H. Smith, who covered the league’s developments, and Griffin proudly keeps his report from the season opener in January 1962 on a framed plaque.Team Entered,” and the reporter lays out the details about how Worthing beat Lamar High School, a white school in Upper Kirby, by a score of 5-3. Griffin contributed a point by winning one of his two matches.
The Worthing students were somewhat aware of their position as trailblazers, but weren’t overly concerned with it, Griffin said. They were just trying to play chess.
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