Can you name the five four-letter words that contain two Z's?
Hamilton College Junior Brendan Sullivan can. It's just one of the many
tidbits of word-related trivia he picked up during a summer full of the
board game Scrabble, the focus of his summer research project. After
receiving a stipend through a William Bristol Merit Scholarship, he
used the money to enter and travel to a number of Scrabble tournaments
around the country.
Brendan's interest in Scrabble started
last year, when a professor introduced him to a club in New Hartford
that met once a week to enjoy the board game in a friendly, competitive
atmosphere. He then read the book "Word Freak" by Wall Street Journal
sports writer and Scrabble expert, Stefan Fatsis, which gave him the
idea for his project. Fatsis spent years studying the game and learning
its intricacies all while keeping a journal for the book. Being a
member of the Hamilton College golf team, Brendan's original idea for
the project included golf, but his new found love for Scrabble and
inspiration provided by "Word Freak" sent him on the road to the
National Scrabble Championships (NSC) in Reno, Nevada.
The
journey led Brendan to Scrabble tournaments in Stamford, Conn., Albany,
N.Y., and Atlantic City, N.J., where he placed 3rd out of 22 players in
his division. During all of these tournaments, he would keep a journal
documenting all the people he met. At these tournaments involving
hundreds of players, he noticed the same friendly, competitive
atmosphere that was present at the New Hartford club with no more than
20 people.
At the National Scrabble Championships in Reno,
Brendan was placed in the sixth division which included 120 players.
The 700-plus players in the tournament are placed into the six
divisions based on their performances at National Scrabble Association
sanctioned tournaments. Each player must play in at least one
tournament to be eligible for the NSC. The experts play in the first
division for a grand prize of $25,000 while the winner of Brendan's
division earned $1,000. Brendan came in fourth place of the 120 players
in the sixth division.
But the chance to be at the NSC was not
just about playing Scrabble. He was able to contact Fatsis, who was
there as a player and also to do commentary for ESPN's coverage of the
event, and schedule an interview with the Scrabble expert. He was also
able to meet the President of the National Scrabble Association, John
D. Williams, Jr., who spoke with Brendan about the possibilities of
starting Scrabble on a collegiate level.
Since his return to
Hamilton, Brendan has started a Scrabble club on campus. He says about
20 people come to each meeting and he hopes it continues to grow. The
club meets on Thursday nights in ELS at 7 p.m. While the Scrabble pros
of the world have the entire dictionary memorized, you need not go to
such extremes to be competitive at the Hamilton Scrabble club; just
start by learning the two and three-letter words. "Seventy-five percent
of the words played in Scrabble are under four letters," said Brendan
in an interview for his hometown paper, The Record. Of course, he has
them all memorized. And the five four-letter words with two Z's: buzz,
fizz, fuzz, jazz and razz.
-- by Mike Kennett
