Dimon Kendrick-Holmes: Spelling now a big-time sporting event

Late in the summer, after I wrote here about the beginning of college football season, a friend chided me for writing too much about sports. I told him I hardly ever write about sports.

"One time is too many," he said.

Since then, I've tried to avoid sports, though when writing about the struggles of the human condition it's hard not to mention Vanderbilt football.

Today, though, I dedicate this entire column to a single sport.

The great sport of spelling.

And spelling must be a sport because ESPN has been airing portions of the National Spelling Bee for more than 20 years.

A spelling bee is about as nerve-wracking as it gets. I know because I've judged the Muscogee County Spelling Bee nearly every year since I've lived in Columbus, which means I've watched hundreds of kids stand in front of a microphone trying to spell a word they've never heard before in their lives.

In the next 30 seconds -- it seems like an hour -- the kid will hurl up one letter and then tack on another and then fire out some more, and then wait for the judge to ring the bell signifying that the job was done right.

It's a bit like watching a baseball pitcher. Pitchers, like spellers, come in all shapes and sizes. Some pace nervously while others exude swagger. You never know what they've got until they take the mound in a game and throw a pitch. Then you wait to see what happens.

Likewise, a speller might look like he's got good stuff. He might know every word in the dictionary. But you never know what'll happen when he steps in front of the microphone.

On Wednesday at the Columbus Museum, the crowd knew for sure that one kid had game. It was Aaron Cohn Middle School's David Coats, who finished third as a sixth-grader and first last year as a seventh-grader.

While one boy wore a blazer adorned with his school logo, David was dressed for comfort in Crocs and a Captain America T-shirt.

He glided through the first round, while 24 of the 42 other spellers did not.

In the second round, things got tense. Good spellers fell prey to "latke" and "wunderkind." Others hurdled "Sahel" and "Naugahyde." David had lit

tle trouble with his word, which was "obfuscate."

About this time, our esteemed emcee, TV's Chuck Leonard, started calling on me to pronounce some of the words for him. This was a mistake. A lifelong reader, I know the meaning of "milieu" and "pusillanimous," but I don't hang around with people who use them in daily conversation, and apparently neither does Chuck.

We muddled through, but the kids were all right.

David ripped through "zeitgeist" and "tautology" and "appurtenances." The words kept getting tougher and tougher.

And then David stepped to the mike, prepared for another heater. That's when Chuck threw him a curveball. The word was "average."

David furrowed his brow. This had to be a trick.

"May I have the definition please?"

"Can you use it in a sentence?"

It wasn't a trick after all. A-v-e-r-a-g-e.

Boom goes the dynamite!

In the end, David defended his title and won another dictionary signed by district leaders.

And lest we forget that spelling is really a sport, he also won a flashy trophy.

Well played.

Dimon Kendrick-Holmes, executive editor, dkholmes@ledger-enquirer.com

This story was originally published February 6, 2015 at 11:14 PM with the headline "Dimon Kendrick-Holmes: Spelling now a big-time sporting event."