I’m Ed Horch, and most of you know me, but if you don’t…
As of Monday, March 13, 2023, Scott Kitchen has retired as the club’s founding director. Scott asked me to take over as director, which I have agreed to do beginning Monday, March 20, 2023, having recently passed the NASPA Director’s Test.
Scott and I had been friends for several years when he read Word Freak, which got him started playing competitive Scrabble. He lent me the book, which I devoured, and suggested I give the game a try. We played a few games at my house, then I started attending the Princeton club, where Scott and the late Lynda Woods Cleary eased me into what I would later learn was much more of a math game than a word game. My first tournament was one of the monthly one-day events in Philadelphia run by Matt Hopkins, who was known for being patient with me and all tournament rookies. It’s easy to remember the date: 04/04/04.
Knowing that not everyone from this area would want to make the half-hour-plus drives to the nearest clubs, Scott decided to start this one. No fanfare: He just announced the time and place, and if anyone else showed up, fine, if not, fine. Well, there was no way I was going to let one of my best friends sit there all night, so I went too. Over the weeks, we gained a few more regulars. When we registered with what was then called the National Scrabble Association, we became Club #580, with Scott as Member #1 and me as Member #2.
In the intervening years, I’ve played in 43 tournaments, achieving an astoundingly mediocre 50th percentile rating, and have been coming to club continuously, often being the unofficial director in Scott’s absence. So now I find myself the official director, and if I can do half as good a job as Scott did, I’ll still be a pretty good one!
