Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 4, 1994 TAG: 9408050037
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Beth Macy
DATELINE: PEARISBURG LENGTH: Long
She's stacked against kids from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union - kids who learned the game when they were old enough to grasp the pieces.
Courtney, who is 10, picked up chess at the wise age of 7. Her teacher sent home a flier about a chess club at school, and she asked her doctor dad, ``What is chess?''
She's facing off against kids from Russia, Ukraine and Latvia - kids who are allowed to choose only one extracurricular activity, and that one thing is chess.
Courtney competes at least twice a month in chess - as close as Macy McClaugherty Elementary where she attends, as far away as New York and Illinois.
She plays violin for Roanoke Junior Strings, swims competitively for the Giles County Swim Team, takes tennis lessons in Blacksburg, gymnastics lessons in Narrows, clogging lessons in Christiansburg.
She attends a summer math and science camp at the University of Virginia, takes art lessons for the gifted and talented and just recently went, along with her 7-year-old brother, Ryan, to a camp for international kids in Harrisonburg.
As for her school performance, Courtney has never earned a B.
``Your American predecessors in this tournament haven't done real well,'' senior chess master Will Wharton of Charlotte, N.C., told Courtney during an eight-hour instruction session held at the Olsons' dining room table a week before the trip. ``In all the countries you'll be competing against, chess is a big part of their national culture.''
In the U.S., a big part of our national culture is the practice of sitting in the blue-white glow, eyes glazed and glued to Pearl Jam, Vanna White, Bart Simpson, Clint Eastwood. Our heroes aren't national chess masters or brain surgeons; they're thick-necked football players, overpaid actors and pencil-thin models.
What sets Courtney apart from so many American kids is the one thing she shares with her Russian and Latvian competitors: She doesn't watch television.
Says her Roanoke chess trainer Russell Potter, ``Her parents are strongly de-emphasizing TV in the household. Instead of stimulating her with low-quality entertainment and commercialism, she does activities.
``Courtney is experiencing life rather than spectating. She's the model of what happens when a kid isn't parked in front of the TV all day.''
Courtney's mother, Pam Olson, a nurse practitioner who works full time in her husband's internal-medicine office and logs hundreds of miles weekly on the Volvo wagon as family chauffeur, also grew up without television. The daughter of a corporate pharmacist, she lived her formative years in Guatemala and Brazil. For fun, she entertained her parents' friends by beating them at cribbage.
She insists she doesn't push Courtney to excel. ``We're just trying to keep up with her. We're just trying to get her to all these things - on time.''
Asked to select a favorite activity, Courtney scrunches up her freckled nose and drums her fingers on the table. She fidgets with the ribbons hanging from her T-shirt, fiddles with her shoulder-length blond hair.
``I wouldn't wanna criticize; I mean, I like em all,'' she says, kicking her feet under the chair.
``Yes, but you do need to think about giving some up,'' her mom suggests, eyebrow raised.
``OK,'' Courtney sighs. ``Next year I'll probably have to lower down on a few things.''
The Olsons' home isn't fancy or neat. Their living room is littered with board games and musical instruments. Courtney's bedroom contains more dolls than trophies.
The Olsons' art includes the framed first check Courtney won at a chess match in Roanoke - for $6.08, a photo of Courtney in her kindergarten school play, a vintage-'70s wedding photograph and two exquisite portraits of Courtney and Ryan painted by area artist Vera Dickerson.
``She's just a bright, normal little girl,'' Potter says. ``She's not spoiled, she's not nerdy or geeky. She works hard. When she loses, she takes it pretty well.
``If it's at the end of a long, tiring tournament, you might see a few tears flow. But I've never known her to knock over the pieces or scream. She always shakes her opponent's hand.''
Of the 10 members on the U.S. youth chess team, Courtney is the only one who doesn't come from a big city in California, New York or Michigan. She is possibly the only member of the team to take the time to learn two crucial Hungarian terms before embarking on the chess Olympics, which began Aug. 1.
One is the word for chess. The other is the question: ``Where is the bathroom?''
Her parents and brother, who are accompanying her on the trip, are using the tournament as a family vacation, also taking in Vienna, Salzburg, Munich and Zurich.
``Mr. Potter told her the goal should be to place in the top 10,'' Pam Olson said. ``We're looking at the whole thing as a family vacation.''
Courtney is competing against kids like herself, kids who know nothing of MTV and Fox, network and cable.
She's also competing against kids very different from herself - kids who have never seen a Volvo, let alone ridden to tennis, music, swimming, clogging and chess lessons in one.
She's competing against kids without choices, except for how to navigate pawn, knight, bishop, rook, king and queen.
And no matter how well she's performing this week in Budapest, Courtney Olson will win.
Beth Macy, a features department staff writer, watched a few too many episodes of ``Bewitched'' and ``I Dream of Jeannie'' as a child to have ever mastered chess. Her column runs Thursdays
by CNB