Maine school custodian helps turn chess team into a real-life "Queen's Gambit"
Hampden, Maine — The students at Weatherbee Elementary School in Hampden, Maine, may seem peaceful enough.
But start a war on a chessboard and these rookies — with their knight moves — become a royal pawn in the chess to anyone who dares try to dethrone their king.
Which is how they became the new Maine state chess champions. In fact, the only thing more unlikely than their success, is where they found it: in the broom closet.
School custodian David Bishop used to play chess as a kid. So, when years later he found himself cleaning the hall outside the Weatherbee chess club, he said he felt drawn to the game, as he had been when he was a child.
"And at the time I didn't really have any thought of how to teach," Bishop told CBS News. "I'd never done that before."
"I didn't really think he had a good background, like for doing it, but he obviously does," one student said.
"His name is Mr. Bishop, which is pretty cool," another added.
The chess club has become a community of intensely focused little minds who play like a real kingdom is at stake. And although no one here is a master, Mr. Bishop has convinced every last one of them that they have the potential.
"What I tell them is, if you love it, you're going to be better than the top player we have," Bishop said. "They say, 'No, that can't be.' I say, 'Yes, if you love it, you'll never give up and you're going to get better and better as the months and years go by."
Some can make the mistake of thinking their job descriptions are a box, confining who they are and what they do. Bishop sees it differently. He said that when they told him to make the school shine, they never said how.
"I found my purpose," Bishop said.
