In this video, Rick Trepp, Founder and CEO of Rockport, speaks with Sunil Weeramantry, founder of the National Scholastic Chess Foundation (NSCF), about how chess is more than a game—it’s a tool for developing strategic thinking, decision-making, and real-world problem-solving. With over 40 years of experience teaching chess, Sunil shares the philosophy behind the NSCF and how the organization makes chess education accessible to all students, regardless of economic background. They explore how chess fosters critical thinking, adaptability, and time management, equipping young learners with skills that extend beyond the board. Sunil also discusses the NSCF’s mission to remove economic barriers, ensuring that every student has access to the benefits of chess education. To learn more or support the NSCF’s mission, visit https://nscfchess.org/.
Sunil, when I first met you, you were introduced to me as the Pied Piper of chess. Since then, you've dedicated yourself for the last 40 years to the scholastic teaching of chess and done that through the National Scholastic Chess Foundation. What was your original motivation for creating the foundation? There are different ways to approach the teaching of chess. And so, what I found was that the philosophy of teaching within the chess world was pretty much the same. They approached every situation the same, and I felt that there was a need to redefine and change the philosophy somewhat, so that you stress different aspects of the game when you are teaching in the curriculum, as opposed to outside the curriculum.
I think most people kind of think of chess as a material game. And based on material, I think you look at chess as having a lot more dimensions to it. Maybe you could spend a couple minutes and talk about what those dimensions are. Well, I think on the basic level, people understand force or the power. You attribute different powers to different pieces and what you discover very quickly is that, the power of a piece is contingent on the position. And so, absolutes never work.
You can have a piece that is more or less than its given value. And so understanding that from a very young age, I think is important because it gives you a certain flexibility of thought. One of the things that you've been working with, and I know you worked with Will on, scholastic chess where it's need blind. Anybody who can participate. And it's not a case of economics. It's available. That's in the schools where I've gone from kindergarten through to fifth grade.
So typically, when you have enough, a school provider will charge money for something, but depending on the community you’re in, not everybody can afford it. The school district was very keen on making sure that nobody would be, quote unquote, left behind. Will is the one who was the architect of this policy, came up with this idea, and, I wasn't sure it would work, but, you know, we tried it and, you know, it's worked for three years. How do you see it and what does chess do for the kids outside of chess and for their for their life?
Well, I think chess is a tremendous help in life, in learning life skills. It's a way of handling situations and you learn to handle situations. In fact, I think Will spoke at one of the fundraisers about when he gets into complex negotiations, and if things go wrong, it doesn't throw him for a loop because nothing ever went right during the game of chess. So he's used to it, right? I mean, I had never thought of it that way, but that's something that, you know, there are so many different skills that you that you can learn.
And it's this what I call soft skills that are transferable. And I think that they represent the greatest value. You mentioned Will Trepp, Will attributes a very large percent of his success and his ability to handle, to run the company, and to negotiate. He contributes a huge percentage of that to having played chess, both in terms of decision making, as well as time controls. Oh, yes. I mean, time management, you know, what is standardized test taking if it's not time management.
You can answer questions perfectly and have no time for the rest and fail the test. You learn that sometimes you cannot be 100% sure of something. You have to go with your gut. You have to trust your judgment. And in the interest of time, make a decision. You double check, you triple check, you quadruple check. You keep going back and wasting time and you end up making the same decision anyway. At some point you have to cut back, you have to make a decision and say, look, I'm going with this.
I trust my judgment. You know, rumor has it that, every once in a while you've done some writing or some books, maybe you might want to describe that just a bit. Yeah, so I have two books out. The first one came out in 93. It's called Best Lessons of a Chess Coach. So anyway, that got published and it was very successful as far as chess books go. And the other one was my history book. I did a book, along with Robert McClelland and Alan Abrahams.
It's called, Great Moves Learning Chess Through History. It was the history of chess because chess is just full of really fascinating stories. The book stands alone as a history book. It can stand alone as a chess instructional book together. I think it's very powerful. What were some of the bigger challenges in terms of the development of the NSCF? I think the biggest challenge has been to convince both educators and parents that there is a value to this game that goes beyond the game itself.
And, once they buy into that notion, then it's very easy. But there is a lot of hesitation at first as they don't see it. It's not a game where, there is a show of some kind of activity, but it's what is happening inside your head. So you somehow have to bring that out. You have to bring it out of somebody’s head and onto a screen, so to speak, so that other people can see the process that's going on. And that's the challenge, to be able to do that well, it's not easy.
Yeah. You've had as many as 3 or 4000 kids in the program at the same time in a year for just his classic chess. Yes, I would say that's accurate. Look, there's chess all over New York City. Every new charter school, they're all doing chess. All the leading private schools are doing chess. The leading public schools are doing chess. But it all started at Hunter because we were the trailblazers. I mean, we showed that it could be done and then people followed.
In terms of your students, over time, in order of magnitude, how many national championships have you have you probably won? Just counting first places, maybe around 200. 200 national championships. That's a lot of fun. And that probably does not include the results of your two sons. What do you attribute that to in terms of your coaching? Well, in terms of the coaching, I think the key is to understand the player. You can never coach two people the same way. And if you try to do that, you're bound to fail.
The first thing I do is try to understand the player, and then I tailor whatever I tell them to, you know, what they need to do. And I think I've been very successful with that. And the National Scholastic Chess Foundation has got a number of programs. I've talked a little bit about that. Those are different programs, a community program. But again, there are different approaches you can take, one is a school-based program, but I think the most effective programs are community-based programs where you have a buy in from different parts of the community.
This all started with what the NSCF did in the mid-90s in the South Bronx. That's when I had junior high school, '45. I remember Rob Johnson, who was the board president at the time, and he said, I would like to sponsor a program. Why don't you go and interview a bunch of schools and see where the money would be best spent? So I went to four schools, and then I called him up and I said, I think this school would be good because you'll have support from the inside.
But in order for that program to have worked as well as it did, it needed somebody on the inside, a local community point person. And we had such a person in this particular teacher who was also part of the community. And he was able to sort of galvanize the community around this idea. Then we went the extra step. What we did was we had parent classes in the evenings. We sent free chess sets to all the kids in the district. And then, I turned around and I told the kids, well, we are giving you all this for free, you got to give something back.
And that's when we sent them into the senior citizen homes, and so forth. And it was really remarkably successful. What has the relationship with the Trepp’s done to you, over the last years? Well, I get a good meal every once in a while. No, but really, it's been it's been great. It's not always that I get to work with three generations of the same family. Right, it’s you and Richard, and Will, and now Felix. I would say the value of a relationship with your family, for example, is that you have seen the value of what chess can do – And lived it, experienced it.
Yes. And so that's why, I have been able to work with the different generations. So, to me, that shows that whatever I did had been successful and to me that's especially rewarding. You know, on a personal level. Yeah, that's everything aside that is tremendous. And that should make you feel extremely good. Last thought is, people that are interested in the chess, how can they help? And there's forms and terms, like you said earlier, supporting within the community, within the school, or supporting financially.
We have a certain consciousness, social consciousness, I would say. It's not just a question of going and trying to make money by doing a chess program somewhere, but we will spend the money and take it to a community that needs it. I think that's extremely important. And you know, any support like that would be greatly appreciated. Because what I would like to do is to take it to all the underserved communities, so to be able to take something to them and say, “Hey we'll give you so much, can you match this?” And will you take over the ownership of this and we’ll bring a program to your community?
I think something like that can be done through organizations such as ours, such as NSCF. And in terms of from just outright contributions, I think there's a place on the website. Yes, you can go to the donate button and donate, and if you wish to your mark your money for a particular type of activity, that can be done as well. It's not like we have one size fits all. I think just like the same way that I evaluate a student when I coach and see what I feel that student needs this, we would do the same thing for our community and see what that community needs and what would serve them best and then we can come up with a program that's appropriate.
Thank you.