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Justin Teng & Rachel Daley Win 2012 AGF College Scholarship

Justin Teng of Rockville, MD and Rachel Daley of Boulder, CO are the winners of the 2012 AGF College Scholarship, $1,000 awards to distinguished college-bound go organizers. Teng, the president of his local go club and the current VP of The American Go Honor Society, planned and presented a go demonstration as part of his Eagle Project, a requirement to become an Eagle Scout. In his essay, Teng described his discovery that go could even help disruptive kids: “One kid caught my eye, making disruptions and getting out of his seat every few minutes. Yet once he started playing a game of Capture Go with the student across from him, he was completely focused, like a whole different person.”

Applicants are encouraged to write about how go has “affected you as a person." Daley’s essay was particularly striking in this regard. “I’m not an especially social person,” she admitted in her essay, but “the go club forced me to leave my house at least once on weekends and spend time with other people, from older men with hearing aids to a young Korean girl who has since moved back to Korea.” She started a club at her school and began helping the organizer of the local club. “One week he left me in charge of teaching anyone who dropped by. For a 14-year-old it felt like a lot of responsibility . . . .  I found that I was better at teaching the game than actually playing. Without even realizing it, I became more confident with strangers. . . . Go also taught me how to be comfortable in a room where I was the only female. I saw [the male players] as my peers and rivals instead of some different entity. This gave me the confidence to never feel intimidated by the male majority in my science and math classes. . . . I realized that this is how society changes – not by a sudden huge wave but by individuals not accepting degrading stereotypes and moving forward despite them.” Applications are now being accepted for the 2013 scholarships. Click here for more information.
-- reprinted from Sensei: The American Go Foundation Newsletter