Nurturing the Future of Bridge

     by Johanna Strong

“Bridge is a great game. (The bridge class) may have led to one of my great passions!”

That was the survey comment from one of the students who attended a recent duplicate bridge class at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA). Located in Aurora IL, IMSA is an internationally recognized advanced, residential college preparatory program for academically talented Illinois students in grades 10-12. As a teaching and learning laboratory created by the State of Illinois, IMSA also serves thousands of educators and students in Illinois and beyond through innovative instructional programs that foster imagination and inquiry.

Every January, IMSA conducts a week long Intersession program between the Fall and Spring semesters.

“Intersession is an innovative way to enable our students to explore new and interesting concepts, academic and otherwise,” said Micah Fogel (photo), an ACBL member and an 18-year faculty member at IMSA. “Each student is expected to participate in one of the 60+ courses. This is our second year to work with Mike Strong to offer duplicate bridge and the feedback has been very positive.”

“We had six hours of class time per day, starting at 8:30 a.m.,” said Mike Strong, a Chicago Contract Bridge Association member who is active in teaching bridge to other high schoolers and novice/intermediate players. “There were 25 students in the class, of whom only two had had some prior exposure to bridge. While the goal was to introduce the fundamentals of bridge, most youths learn by doing, so we built in at least 50 percent of the time for play and practice,” Strong added. “By the end of the week, everyone was opening, responding, overcalling, and playing bridge based on the Standard American rules of bridge.”

On the last day, we held a 20-board tournament. The entire room was quiet and everyone took it very seriously. Thanks to the ACBL and Unit 239, we displayed the trophies and prizes from their donations so the students knew what was at stake. More importantly, it was a sense of accomplishment that everyone felt. There were surprises and cheers when the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place N-S/E-W winners were announced.

Intersession was an intense week but extremely gratifying. Because of the Internet and the baby boomers, bridge is experiencing a bit of resurgence. However, for bridge to remain relevant and prosper, we need new players and more young people to learn it so that they can take on the future ambassadorship as nurturers, promoters, and innovators of this game that we all love. Mike and I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to work with IMSA and hope to have, in our own small way, contributed to the future generation of bridge players.

Is there a school program that you can get involved with? Just do it!