Texas Tech University

Why Texas Is King in the World of College Chess

KUT 90.5

March 8, 2017

KUT 90.5 - Texas is the land of the gridiron. But what about just…the grid? You know, 64 squares, 32 pieces, knights, rooks, kings, queens. It turns out Texas is a hub for elite college chess.

Lubbock didn't have the same chess community to build on. In fact, there wasn't much of anything, chess-wise. Susan Polgar was the first chess coach at Texas Tech. She is a grandmaster from Poland.

"We had to buy chess sets and chess clocks and you know, furnish the office, recruit players – because we didn't have a single titled player at that time, so we started absolutely from scratch," she says.

Read the full story here.