Fels school takes Pa. chess title

Their coach jokingly calls them the Bad News Bears of the chess world - five teenagers who lose things, goof around, and talk trash about each other's video-game skills.

But now, the Knights of Fels go by another name: state champs.

It's the first championship of any kind, ever, for Fels, a school more often in the news for trouble than triumph.

"We're going to have a banner made," said Greg Hailey, principal of the Oxford Circle school. "A big one."

The ragtag chess team, which before this year had not even made the playoffs, took the city championship in February. Last weekend, the team entered the 2009 Pennsylvania Under 1300 Scholastic K-12 Chess Championship seeded last, but managed to score that title, too.

Team members vow they'll fare well in Nashville, where the national championship will be played next month. Though so far the team has no money raised to get to Tennessee, Fernando Gallard, a spokesman for the Philadelphia School District, said yesterday that officials would "find a way to fund this trip."

In all, more than 100 city students competed in the state championships, and several teams placed well, including perennial chess powerhouses Masterman and Blankenburg Elementary. Both won their respective divisions.

But the Fels win was especially sweet, the team said.

"We came out of nowhere," senior Khalif Coaxum said between practice games yesterday at the school at Devereaux and Oxford Avenues. "Masterman's known as the chess school, not Fels."

Although Fels has fielded a team since 2004, things did not begin to gel until this year, coach Nick Ehling said.

The difference? Four strong seniors. Practices that began the first week of school. And a new assistant coach, math teacher Nodar Jagodnishili, a chess whiz the students still can't beat.

"Mr. J," a theoretical mathematician from the republic of Georgia, said he was occasionally frustrated by the five, who joke around and tease each other like brothers.

"Some of them cannot always focus," Jagodnishili said. "Some of them cannot see what happens in one, two, three moves. There's a difference between chess and moving pieces around a board."

But he said he is proud of their progress and astonished by their determination. Some of the team members carry boards around with them, Ehling said. They play in their free time, play online, and excitedly chatter about chess strategy.

When Ehling, who supervised the team at the state competition in Carlisle, called to check in on them late one night, he expected to hear a TV blaring or music playing.

"All I heard was 'check' and 'checkmate' in the background," said Ehling. "They play all the time."

Two players - seniors Hiep Song and Xingdi Lin - just learned to play in the last year. Others picked up chess in middle school but did not buckle down until recently.

Song, who was born in Vietnam and came to the United States four years ago, is a deliberate player, slow and defensive. His matches often take more than an hour, and he vies with the more aggressive Coaxum for top ranking on the team.

"Last year, I was horrible," said Coaxum, a gregarious young man who dreams of being a politician and is headed to the University of Pittsburgh in the fall. "Now, I'm No. 1. Sometimes."

His rival gave a small smile.

"That doesn't matter," said Song, who will study business at Pennsylvania State University in September.

Cijo Joseph, a senior who's planning to study biology at Temple University after graduation, could hardly believe it when the team won the states, hoisting a giant gold trophy that now sits in the Fels front office.

"It was like a miracle," said Joseph.

"We barely made it to the playoffs," said Trung Nguyen, the team's only sophomore.

Fels' come-from-behind story is a lesson for the 700 chess-playing students in city public schools, said Justin Ennis, director of chess activities for After School Activities Partnership.

"It tells you you're never out of it," said Ennis, whose organization coordinates student chess clubs around the city. "It tells you that you can overcome the odds by hard work and sticking together as a team."

And Fels faced odds: The former middle school has failed to meet state academic standards several years running and is also on Pennsylvania's list of "persistently dangerous" schools based on violent incidents.

But the students are relishing the team's victory, its coach said. Staff stop by Ehling's room to challenge students to a game and high-five team members in the hallway.

Principal Hailey couldn't be prouder, he said, and he's making sure that banner comes with him to the new Fels building, scheduled to open in the fall a few blocks away from the current site.

"It's the first championship in 16 years, in the history of the school," said Hailey. "That it's in chess is beautiful."