On Sunday, April 6, 2014, UMBC Chess took second place in the President’s Cup, also known as the Final Four of College Chess. UMBC has won the President’s Cup a record six times, and this year competed against Texas Tech, the University of Illinois and Webster University, which grabbed the title this year.
Alan Sherman, director of UMBC’s Center for Information Security and Assurance, has been director of UMBC’s chess program for over a decade. Joel DeWyer, associate director of The Commons, is business manager for the team. His live tweeting of the competition, with play-by-plays conveying the energy of the team, generated a buzz on social media.
DeWyer has previously said of the UMBC chess team, “I admire their passion for their sport, the efforts they make in balancing this passion with their priority of earning a degree, and how they support one another by offering suggestions.”
The Washington Post ran two articles on the President’s Cup this year, calling UMBC’s chess program “one of the oldest and most successful” and a “powerhouse in college chess.” Click to read “The other Final Four — of chess” and “Webster University wins (chess) Final Four” in The Washington Post.
