Atlanta Man Uses Chess to Change Lives of At-Risk Youth
In 2001, Orrin “Checkmate” Hudson mortgaged his house, quit his job, and founded a non-profit organization with an impressive — and, some would say, impossible — mission: to improve the lives of at-risk young people by teaching them how to play chess.
Though many might question the ability of chess to turn around a young person’s life, a July 7 article by Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Kristen A. Graham reports that Hudson has a good reason for believing in the power of this famous game:
Growing up in the housing projects of Birmingham, Ala., as one of 13 children, Hudson recalled, he was rescued - from stealing, gang involvement, poor grades - by chess.A high school teacher believed in him and taught him the game, stressing how the strategic thinking needed to succeed at chess would serve him well in life.
“Chess saved me,” he said.
The game offers many lessons, he said: To win, you need patience, focus, and the ability to see beyond the short-term.
“It takes teamwork to make the dream work,” Hudson said. “The king surrounds himself with other pieces that make moves the king cannot.”
Hudson told Graham that he started his foundation, Be Someone, after having “an epiphany” when reading a news article about young who robbed a Wendy’s restaurant in Queens, N.Y., and murdered five employees.
The shooters, he told Graham, had to make a series of bad decisions to get to that point in their lives. The article left him with a pressing question: How could he prevent others from getting there? The answer, he believes, lies somewhere among the 64 squares of a chessboard.
