Miami Jackson ChessThe Miami-Dade Scholastic Chess Association
The organization behind the county tournaments where the Generals were made, and the man who ran it, Arden W. Dilley.
The Miami-Dade Scholastic Chess Association (M-DSCA) organized scholastic chess across Dade County, including the monthly county tournaments where Miami Jackson forged its dynasty. The Generals won every one for over four years running, along with nine county team championships. The old team website linked to M-DSCA in the footer of every page. The association no longer exists, but it was the ground floor of everything the team achieved.
Arden W. Dilley
Arden W. Dilley has been called the grandfather of scholastic chess in Miami-Dade. A physical education teacher, he began letting students play chess before school, at lunch, and after school at Olympia Heights Elementary in 1968, and never stopped. He founded the M-DSCA as a nonprofit, built the county's scholastic Grand Prix circuit, and appears throughout the press coverage of the era as scholastic chess in Miami-Dade exploded, always an advocate for the inner-city kids the game was reaching. The U.S. Chess Federation named him Organizer of the Year in 2003. He died on June 2, 2009.
“These kids don't have swimming pools, soccer and baseball fields, so they sit around and play chess. And when they do well, they become heroes… Who ever has given some of them that much attention?”
When Marcel Martinez arrived from Cuba in 1997, it was Dilley who put the moment in perspective for the Miami Herald: “I started teaching chess 25 years ago, and I've never seen anybody like him. Getting Marcel out of Cuba was like getting El Duque out of Cuba. It just doesn't happen.”