Peter Schwartzman is Galesburg’s mayor and a professor at Knox College.
He’s also a competitive Scrabble player.
“I’m a Top 100 player based on my performance and that’s been true for probably the last 15 years or so,” he said. “But among those players, I don’t play very much, especially in tournaments, because there aren’t many tournaments around here or in the Midwest.”
Schwartzman has wanted to bring competitive Scrabble to Galesburg for a while now. He’s partnering with Darla Krejci to make it happen next month.
“I didn't really have a counterpart who was willing to step up and support that initiative. So when Darla showed some interest, I was like, wow. Let's do this. With her background in marketing and tourism, it was a great mix,” he said.
Krejci is a casual Scrabble player, but served on the Galesburg Tourism Board with Schwartzman and believes competitive Scrabble will be a draw for Galesburg.
“We’re holding the tournament downtown specifically so that people have time to go and experience Galesburg. That was my goal: to draw people to Galesburg and hopefully to return,” Krejci said.
The "Double Decker Tournament" will consist of two one-day Scrabble tournaments on Saturday, Sept. 14 and Sunday, Sept. 15.
Both tournaments are sanctioned by Word Games Players' Association and will be rated.
The two tournaments – The Silver Streak and The Zephyr -- will be in the Masters Educational Classroom at 101 E Main St., Suite 201. Each will have seven head-to-head games after which a winner will be determined.
There are also two dictionary sections – the WOW, which is considered the current American Scrabble dictionary and CSW, which includes words in the Collins global dictionary.
People do not need to have an official rating to play but they do need to join WGPO, whose membership is free.
“Not only will there be lots of Scrabble being played on Saturday and Sunday, but there will be social events for the participants as well,” adds Krejci. “Most players will be coming from outside of the area, and we’ve built time into the tournaments for participants to explore our great city. The Best Western in Galesburg is offering great rates that weekend for those participating in the tournament and our hope is other businesses will take the opportunity to welcome these visitors with Scrabble related signage or specials.”
Both Schwartzman and Krejci had to pass director exams to oversee an official Scrabble tournament.
They’re hoping for 40 participants for the inaugural Galesburg Scrabble tournament. Schwartzman said the word is getting out to the competitive Scrabble community.
“Someone signed up from Arizona. We have several people from the Minneapolis area coming down. Several people from Chicago. At the same time, there’s a couple people from Peoria, a couple people from the Quad Cities area. Some of them I’ve never met, so that was encouraging,” he said.
For more information or to sign up to participate in one or both tournaments, access the tournament flyer at www.cross-tables.com or wordgameplayers.org/tournaments/. More formation is available on the Scrabble Galesburg Facebook page, or by emailing Schwartzman at drearth1@gmail.com.
Schwartzman and Krejci would like to bring other sanctioned tournaments to Galesburg as well.
Dominoes, Backgammon, Go, and Spades are among the possibilities. Interested parties should contact Darla by email at krejcidarla@gmail.com
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