Sports Brooklyn Boro

All they do is win at Murrow

March 28, 2022 Andy Furman

Photo courtesy of Weiss Eliot

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They don’t run or pass. They probably don’t even sweat. And for sure, there’s not a ball to be found in play.

Yet they win.

Boy oh boy do they ever win.

The Edward R. Murrow chess team has won eight national championships, 18 state titles and 21 City Championships.

Eliot Weis is the Chess Coach now – and he was there from the beginning.

“I started the chess team in 1981, when I first came to Murrow,” he told the Eagle. “I wanted to contribute to the club directory,” he said. “I enjoy playing chess, and wanted to be original with a (chess) team.”

It wasn’t that easy.

There was a provision stating that Murrow should not have a competitive team, since the Department of Education didn’t want another school competing with – and taking – other athletes from nearby high schools, according to Weis.

Yet, 44 years later Murrow – the school with some 4,000 students – has emerged as a power in the sport.

“That first year, I remember making announcements for prospective chess players to compete in a chess club after school,” he said. “We started competing against schools like Erasmus, Midwood and Westinghouse. Those were informal tournaments.”

Murrow competed for the City Championship in 1989 –and won their first City title in 1992.

Success in chess – of course.

“We have two students who are grandmasters,” Weis said, “Inna Krush (also a former U.S. Women’s Champion) and Alex Lendemann.”

Add Weiss to the award winners, as well.

The Thomas Jefferson High grad has won Brooklyn High School Teacher of the Year Award in 2000, and Hometown Hero Award in 2016.

And when he’s not coaching – or teaching chess – the 68-year-old Weis is an Advance Placement Calculus teacher at Murrow – and he’s been doing that as long as he’s been involved with the school’s chess program.

“I’ve been very fortunate to teach the best kids in Brooklyn, both in mathematics and chess,” he said. “I’m also teaching three trigonometry classes. And even though I have been doing it for so long, I’m still having a ball this year. Of course, the chess team keeps me going too.”

Wonder what keeps Weis going?

He’d been teaching at Brooklyn College for the past 20 years, but has since taken some time off.

He’ll need that time to travel to Memphis for the National Championships.

The 11-member chess team leaves April 6th and will return – hopefully with another title – on the 11th.

“The actual tournament begins on Friday (April 8th),” Weis said, “and goes from 9am till 11 pm. It’s quite draining. We’ll be competing against the best high schools in the country.”

For the Edward R. Murrow Chess Team, well, the trip to Memphis is just another day at the office.

“We’ve been to Mt. Rushmore (1999), and in 2004 went to the Oval Office to be personally congratulated by the President,” Weis said.

Want more?

The Edward R. Murrow High School Chess Team’s success has been chronicled in, The Kings of New York: A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs and Geniuses Who Make Up America’s Top High School Chess Team, written by Michael Weinreb.

The Kings of New York follows the 2005 championship-winning season of the Murrow team.

“And we hope to have a major motion picture in production soon, based on the book,” Weis said.

“The Murrow chess program has become one of the shining stars of the school,” he added.

No ball, no glove, no hoop or helmet.

But all they do is win at Murrow.

Andy Furman is a Fox Sports Radio national talk show host. Previously, he was a scholastic sports columnist for the Brooklyn Eagle. He may be reached at: [email protected] Twitter: @AndyFurmanFSR