Headline: Nogales is victorious in chess site dispute
Byline:Tim Steller
Publication Date: December 31, 1997
Nogales High School won the state chess championship in its class this year, but the city ranks low in Phoenix chess leaders' minds.
Valley chess authorities in August rejected the border town as a site for the state elementary and middle-school tournaments in April 1998. Criticism from Southern Arizona chess organizers led the Arizona Scholastic Chess Association to accept the site this month, but the Phoenix contingent says many of their young players won't play.
Worries about crime along the border are part of what separates Phoenix and Tucson chess supporters.
People are also reading…
The Phoenix officials insist that lodging and distance are their main concerns - "However, do you want your child running around a border town?" asked Richard Peterson, the executive director of the scholastic group.
One outcome of the chessboard rivalry between the two cities may be dual state tournaments in future years, one run by Southern Arizona chess nuts and another by those in the Valley.
"If we go our own ways, everything should be OK," said Peterson, of Phoenix. "This is a marriage that's just not going to work out."
The estranged spouses are the Southern Arizona Chess Association, based in Tucson, and a trio of scholastic association board members from the Phoenix area. The two groups formed the scholastic association last year in order to better organize tournaments.
The Phoenix members of the nine-member scholastic association board represent more than twice as many chess players as the Tucson-area members do, so they were able this summer to reject the Southern Arizona group's request to hold the tournaments in Nogales. The scholastic association voted to hold the championships in Tucson, instead.
By tradition, the tournaments rotated among Southern Arizona, central Arizona and the north.
"We didn't feel they had the right to tell us, since it was our turn, that we couldn't host the tournament where we wanted to," said Lee LaFrese, president of the Southern Arizona Chess Association.
This month, the Southern Arizona group appealed the decision to the statewide affiliate of the United States Chess Federation. The scholastic association made that appeal moot by deciding to approve the Nogales venue, a decision that was to be finalized last night.
LaFrese hoped to honor a retiring Nogales chess coach, Ray Gonzales, with the selection.
"I put the bid in because I figure it's time to get down south," Gonzales said. "As a leader down here, I like to see more people come down here and visit, as well as give them a good game of chess." The tournament is scheduled for April 4 and 5 at Desert Shadows Middle School.
The last elementary and middle school tournaments drew about 650 participants. Organizers have blocked off about 380 rooms in Nogales for the April weekend; if available rooms run out, chess players could find lodging in areas north on Interstate 19, such as Green Valley, LaFrese said.
The elementary and middle-school tournaments took place in Gilbert this year, Scottsdale in 1996 and Tucson in 1995 - an appropriate arrangement, according to Robert Tanner of Phoenix.
"It belongs in one of the major metropolitan areas," said Tanner, a member of the scholastic association board. "It's easier (to find) housing. It's easier to find sites. It's also easier to sell to parents."
At least one parent also mentioned a fear of kidnapping and other crime, because of Nogales' location on the U.S.-Mexican border, Peterson said.
Although kidnapping does occur along the border, that fear may have sprung from a 1984 incident in Tucson.
That year, William A. Castaneda kidnapped two 12-year-old boys taking part in a Tucson chess tournament. He sexually abused both of them and killed one, Michael Perry, leaving him in the desert outside of town.
The dispute between the state's centers underscores the cultural divisions within one of America's most successful chess states.
"We have volunteers running the tournaments," LaFrese said of the Tucson-based group. "Up there, the (tournament) organizers are professionals. They do this for a living."
Peterson and Tanner confirmed they coach chess, teach it and run tournaments for a living. "If there's something wrong with that, I plead guilty," Peterson said.
The difference between chess professionals and volunteers shows in the choice of Nogales as the tournament site, Peterson said.
"Let them have it where they want to have it. If they want to put (the tournament) in a place where people don't want to go, whose fault is that?"
Peterson said he won't go; Tanner said he will inform his 13 school teams about the tournament and let the schools and individuals choose.
