In the end, Jeff Skilling felt more relief than joy. It had taken years to lobby the California Chess Commission to deregulate the chess industry. And now, with the letter in his hand inviting his team to compete in the first national chess tournament in California under new unregulated rules, a solid sense of righteousness and relief flooded through him. Throwing the letter down with his backpack on the kitchen table, he yelled upstairs for his brothers, but nobody was home. Just as well. He wanted to think about the chess tourney, playing against the best chess teams in the USA. As Captain of the chess team, he knew his men: the aggressive players, those who were more risk-conscious, those few who were the most fierce chess players he’d ever seen, looking at the board, watching, waiting, mean as little sharks. Now that the new rules had been instituted, the game would be better for all players. They simply could not lose.
Jeff decided to do homework later. After hours at school, his lean body was itchy for exercise. He quickly changed into shorts and sneakers and went outside for a run. He was less than a mile from home, jogging down a narrow road, when he saw a car turn a corner too fast. Jeff jumped out of the way but it was too late. The car struck him. From the side of the road, he blinked up at the driver who had stopped and was now looking down at him.
“Are you okay?”
Jeff shook his head. “Call an ambulance, asshole.”
It wasn’t catastrophic. His leg was broken and he had a few bruises, but there was no permanent damage. The worst part of it was his parents would not let him travel from Houston to California to compete in the chess tournament.
“But I’m the captain!” Jeff said after he was already home. He had a cast on his left leg and he used crutches to get around. Surely he was not too disabled to play chess!
“You can advise them from home,” his mother replied.
“You can’t play chess over the phone!”
“Darling, do you want more jello?”
Jeff was absolutely furious. This was the most important event of the whole year to him. It was the event that would put his name on the plaque of the high school wall. It was the event that would catapult him and his team into chess legend.
But he could not go. His parents refused to sign the permission slip, and so he was forced to stay home. Still, he had a system worked out with his team. Every afternoon, they would call and update him on the tournament, and they would take pictures of the chess boards then email them to Jeff so if there was a problem he could try to advise them a way out of it. It wasn’t like being there in the heart and the belly and the nerve of the action, but at least he was kept in the loop.
The first day went beautifully. His team won all the preliminary matches. The second day went well too. The third day, there was a problem.
Jeff got a call from the school principal. “Your team is accused of cheating,” he said bluntly.
Jeff shook his head, but then realized the principal couldn’t see him. “That’s not possible,” he replied.
“Well, you can speak to the organizers but they’re threatening to send the team back home, permanently disqualified from playing chess in California.”
Jeff felt sick. This couldn’t be happening. He quickly got off the phone with the principal and called the California chess authorities.
“The Houston team is cheating,” a nasaly woman reported from Los Angeles. “They’re taking advantage of deregulation.”
One thing Jeff always tried to do was solve the problem as it came up. He didn’t like to get into deep philosophical discussions about whether or not the problem was “right” or “wrong”, he just wanted it solved. But this allegation was so egregious that he could not help but point out the obvious:
“Ma’am, you only deregulated the rules for cheating. If you allowed the teams to play chess under a full deregulation, you would not have any of these irregularities.”
The woman was not interested. “They’re cheating, and we’re sending them home. You will never play chess in California again!”
Poleaxed, Jeff hung up and looked around his room. Here in Houston, there was nothing he could do about the behavior of the players on the west coast. And besides, whatever the problems this lady was complaining about, he knew they weren’t cheating; they all had too much respect for the game to cheat.
But California didn’t see it that way.
The team was sent home to Houston, and everyone, including Jeff, was called to account in the Principal’s office. “How many games of chess has this team played this year?” the principal asked.
“I don’t know, I don’t have those records with me,” Jeff replied.
“Would it surprise you to know that you’ve played 23 games of chess, and you’ve won every one of them?”
“No,” Jeff replied, “that wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Don’t you think its odd that you never lose a game of chess?”
“Sir, I know that in the entire time I’ve gone to this school and been the captain of the chess team, I never did anything that was not in the best interest of the players and the students at this school.”
Around and around it went. After a long meeting, everyone was given scholastic probation and forbidden from playing chess for a year. As the team stood up to leave, the principal asked Jeff to stay. The door closed behind him and he looked back at the principal with wounded eyes. “What?”
“You’re the captain,” the principal said. “You should have known better.”
Jeff rolled his eyes. “They didn’t cheat! And even if they did cheat – which they did not – I wasn’t even there! I didn’t do anything wrong.”
The principal disagreed. While everyone else got probation, Jeff Skilling was forever banned from the game of chess by the high school principal and the entire state of California.
Jeff Skilling is currently appealing to the superintendent of the school.
Others in this series:
Enron Online: The Enron Blog 