Check and Mate for Webster

Here’s my favorite sports story from this week: College coach wins national title, then announces that she’s taking another job and taking her team with her. She’s a chess coach.

Texas Tech coach Susan Polger is taking a job at Webster University near St. Louis, which sounds like quite a gambit — ba-dum-ching! Webster, apparently, aspires to be the Kentucky of college chess. So naturally it has a new 6,000-square-foot Chess Club and Scholastic Center bankrolled by a local businessman. Kind of like the Phil Knight of college chess.

According to the link, Polger is taking her seven “athletes” with her to Webster, where they will receive scholarships. But it sounds like they’re just pawns in this move — ba-dum-ching!