Behind the chess pieces, nobody could touch young Jon Allen Jr., said his grandmother Sandy Allen.
Like the other members of the Moten special-needs chess club, Jon had been kicked out of his classes. But there he was a year later, in New York City, surrounded by thousands of other so-called regular kids, playing national championship chess and winning.
“It was truly amazing to watch him, especially his concentration, planning out every move, hitting the timer, writing down his moves on his scorecard,” said Sandy Allen, the former D.C. Council member for Ward 8. “He was so focused. Nobody could bother him.”
But what had been an uplifting story of how a team of emotionally troubled fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders from the Moten Center in Anacostia used chess to change their lives has turned into a tale of unrealized promise.
Four years ago, the city rallied around the chess club, raising $70,000 to send 11 students to the 2003 championships in Nashville, Tenn.
Last week, federal prosecutors charged former school business manager Sandy Jones with stealing more than $30,000 from the club shortly after the 2003 season ended. The team never recovered.
Within two years of the team’s demise, Jon, 15, was killed by a stray bullet while waiting one afternoon for a ride from his grandmother. Earlier this year, another teammate, James Carter, 17, was shot multiple times and died.
Vaughn Bennett, the volunteer coach who used chess to teach life lessons, said he can’t help but think about what could have been had the school continued with the resources Jones has been accused of stealing.
“We might not have seen as many incarcerated or six feet under,” he said.
Bennett moved on from the team after the 2003 season, he said, because the school administrators wanted to use the money for “chess research,” he said. He wanted to use the money to expand the program, to travel to more tournaments and to host free tournaments.
“Chess is like life,” said Bennett, a former D.C. firefighter who teaches the game at the D.C. Jail, HIV/AIDS centers and the Martin Luther King Jr. Library.
It has an opening game, middle game and end game, he said. It teaches you to never give up, even in the worst of situations; even the lowliest pawn can become a queen, the most powerful piece on the board, he said.
“It teaches you to believe in yourself,” he added.
Allen said the game kept the children off the streets of the city’s roughest neighborhoods. It opened new worlds to the group, most of whom had never ventured beyond Southeast D.C.
“Chess was wonderful for Jon. It taught him to stay focused. It taught him to play by the rules. It taught him discipline,” Allen said. “He was very good at it, and he liked it. That’s so important for these children.”
