Entire Champion Chess Team Jumps Ship

When offered better resources and all team members get a full ride scholarship, they (coach included) change schools and will defend their national championship from another school next year.  St. Louis ups the ante.

Good for them to get their college paid for, bad for loyalty points.  It certainly puts chess in the spotlight, and makes a promising advance for young players.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/post/entire-national-championship-chess-team-bolts-for-new-university?urn=top,wp394

Hmmz, despite having great respect for Polgar, I can just imagine how this worked out in real life. Private school calls Polgar with an offer that is too good the refuse, whole team is put under pressure to make the switch.

 I wish these guys all the best in their carreers, but I personally have a big problem with changing flag for some nice shiney stuf so easily. A well, with my rating it doesn't matter anyway, but to me this is a game about honor. Both on the board and especially beside the board.  

I personally don't think changing schools would be considered dishonourable.

WIth a complete team? - AND - the trainer? That is like going from the USA football team to the Nord-Korean Football team. Or from the Dutch/English Soccerteam, to Germany, all players and trainer included... I find that rather low. Sorry. 

The same exact thing happens in NCAA football. The fact that it happened with these guys is fantastic. A double standard shouldn't be applied.

Beachdude, that's never happened in any NCAA sport and never will.  Coaches leave all the time for better offers in football and other sports, but they never bring the whole team with them...  Polgar has never been known for having honor (case in point: the USCF fiasco), but for a coach to screw over their college to this degree instead of working out the details and staying for the remainder of the year or something to that effect is classless.

But with that being said, this is very exciting to see more money and more resources being put into chess.  Chess players are becoming higher in demand.

Well, if the USA football team transferred to North Korea, then that team could feel honourable in leaving the disgustingly dishonourable USA. 

But kids getting scholarships to universities for changing schools, can't be dishonourable unless the new school was dishonourable.

"My country, right or wrong", is not honorable. It's stupid.

That would bring me to my second point. I do feel Webster is being dishonorable. Some things are just not done in life. You don't sleep with your best friends wife or ex-wife and you don't buy a complete team away from the guys that got the team together in the first place. I could understand if this was just about the scolarship, but then Polgar would and could have stayed at Texas. She didn't. This is about money and nothing else. I wonder what this will do to the paycheck for Polgar. If she had to take less pay so her students could get the scolarship then I will apologize here, but if she happens to get more - and then pursuited her team to make the move - well... That to me would be a dishonourable act. 

You bring up some good points! Yes, I don't know the variables in the transfer which could make it dishonourable.

Well done the coach, getting a better deal for everyone all round is great negotiating. And they have every right to go to wherever they are most valued.A major strength in the US is job mobility after all.

And no point in being somewhere and loyally struggling when the place you are struggling for doesn't repay that loyalty in a meaningful way.

They got to became champions twice... Seems like Texas got them all they needed to get their goals. Ah, I guess that's why my rating is so low. I'm a romantic. 

In the U.S., if you sign-up for the military to have your schooling paid for, then that is dishonourable. 

The world isn't going to subjugate and terrorize itself, trysts - duty calls! 

Making choices for money is dishonorable?  Then is changing jobs for higher pay dishonorable?

The U.S. military is the leading producer of terrorism and subjugation.

That isn't quite what I was trying to say. Players are lured away all the time to other universities. The whole team all at once? No way, because they team would have to sit out for a full year in football and those rules don't apply to chess probably because the NCAA hasn't decided to butt into chess. But it happens all the time on a less visible level one individual players and coaches are lured away.

I think you did hit on the important point, which is that the move is good for chess as a whole.

No, the National Collegiate Athletic Association can't say poop about chess.