Story by Roy Garcia

(Photo by: Aaaatu, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International)

For Matt Garcia, a University of Houston student, the game of chess isn’t played in silence behind a screen—it’s a physical gathering. Twice a week, he joins his peers for six hours of face-to-face play, motivated by the “irreplaceable value of physical community.” That intentional, structured connection is not a relic of a bygone era; it is a vital campus resource that is suddenly and completely missing at Johnson County Community College (JCCC).

Having successfully run an annual tournament for a decade, the JCCC Chess Club vanished after the COVID-19 pandemic. The cause of its disappearance was not a lack of campus interest, but a flaw in its organizational model: the club was entirely dependent on a single leader. When that individual was compelled to step down due to personal circumstances, the lack of a formal succession plan led directly to the cessation of the club’s activities and the loss of the campus chess community.

For Anne Turney, Director of Student Life & Leadership, the club’s absence is a profound “miss out.” She highlights that the need for community and in-person socializing is greater now than ever. While JCCC offers student lounges, they are often described as “overcrowded”—lacking the intentional, focused atmosphere a structured club provides.

“It’s about having a reason to put your phone down and connect over one shared thing,” Turney said. “When the only options are to attend class or just hang out passively in the lounge, you lose that sense of active, focused community that makes college feel worthwhile.”

Why Real Boards Matter

The loss for JCCC students is not just social; it is developmental. While millions of players use platforms like Chess.com, experts agree that playing over a real board offers unique, irreplaceable benefits.

In-person play fosters critical skills like resilience, collaboration, and strategic thinking that are difficult to replicate online. The physical act of moving pieces, managing the clock, and reading an opponent’s body language translates the intellectual rigor of chess into valuable professional and academic soft skills.

The structured approach of the University of Houston club, in contrast, ensures these benefits are realized through intentional organization.

Matt Garcia’s club at the University of Houston is structured around competitive tournaments and built-in mentorship. A nationally ranked player leads the group, while a co-captain teaches beginners the fundamentals through a multi-week course, ensuring that players are always “pushing my opponent to do better.” This structure fosters consistent, high-level growth.

The Long Game of Leadership

The core challenge for JCCC is structural continuity. For the club to revive and thrive, it must move past the failure of its previous leadership model. The solution, however, lies not in finding the next dedicated single leader, but in changing the system itself.

Garcia’s club thrives because of an intentional succession plan.

“His leadership could pass on to someone else,” Garcia says of his current captain.

This ensures the club’s energy, competitiveness, and community do not vanish when the current leader transfers or graduates.

The JCCC administration has stated that the club is easily revivable, requiring only a handful of students and an advisor to approach the Center for Student Involvement. The game is already popular; the desire for community is clear. The question is whether JCCC students are ready to build a club that offers the structured community, skill development, and competitive incentives that make the commute—and the effort—truly worthwhile.

“It motivates me to see other people coming through and coming to these meetings,” Garcia concludes. “That feeling of shared presence is the unique, irreplaceable value that motivates me to leave my house and come to campus.”