The full story of why we founded the CoCo

We founded the Collins Coalition roughly one year ago. We spent the better part of last fall laying the groundwork - recruiting tournament directors, planning tournaments, building an infrastructure - and we then officially unveiled the organization to the world on Dec. 30. From that day forward, we've sought to build a brand by harnessing positive energy.

By and large, this has worked. There's a lot of positive energy out there. The people of this community have great enthusiasm for playing Scrabble tournaments - they demonstrated that earlier this year when they signed up for our live events across North America, and then, when COVID-19 changed everything, players were equally excited to play virtual events. Betting on people's positive energy has paid off. You catch more flies with honey, as the saying goes.

Now, though, it's important to talk about the vinegar.

The hard truth is that a lot of disenchantment with the status quo inspired the founding of the CoCo as well. After all, if everything had been going swimmingly, there would have been no need to establish a new organization. But it wasn't, and that's been clear for quite a while. Under the current governance structure, Scrabble in North America is dying.

This week, Sports Illustrated dropped a 6,000-word feature detailing the gradual downfall of organized Scrabble that we have witnessed over the last decade-plus. The article lists a handful of institutional failures on the part of the North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA) - among them are a frayed relationship with Hasbro, a lack of interest in growing the game, and a staunch unwillingness to listen to feedback from their own directors or players. But perhaps the most serious charge SI lays out is that NASPA has failed to adequately address sexual misconduct among its ranks.

The misconduct itself, while disgusting, is only part of the story. The other part is that NASPA leadership, rather than taking serious steps to protect victims of sexual assault, actively worked to disregard the women’s reports, cover up for the perpetrator, and avoid disciplining him. This work came from the very top of the organization.

Rich Baker, a member of NASPA's executive committee, referred to the women's complaints about sexual assault by Sam Kantimathi as "overblown wailing."

John Chew, another top executive, lied to his own advisory board and said Kantimathi had already been disciplined for his sexual misconduct when Kantimathi was suspended for cheating. He hadn't. NASPA’s own records and meeting minutes prove it.

Chris Cree, supposedly the leader of the whole organization, simply avoided the issue and passed the buck.

NASPA failed the 15-plus women who reported Kantimathi’s misconduct, and they failed us as a community. All of this is awful, but it's also unsurprising. It's all perfectly emblematic of what NASPA has been for more than a decade - stubborn, unwilling to listen, and completely apathetic about the interests of the players they supposedly represent. NASPA claims to be a players' association; quite simply, it has proven incapable of being that.

This is unacceptable - and unfixable. NASPA began not as a democracy accountable to the players, but as an organization where the only voting members, according to their own bylaws, are Chris Cree, his wife Carla Cree, and their friend Mary Rhoades. These are the only people, then and now, who have the power to actually change anything substantive about how NASPA functions. For more than a decade, NASPA and its leaders have shown no interest in changing or responding to concerns from its players.

I (Jennifer) joined the NASPA advisory board in mid-2018. I was aware of the long line of once-inspired players who quit the AB after becoming disillusioned with NASPA. Nonetheless, I was willing to try to work for incremental change within the existing system. In less than a year, I realized that positive change from within NASPA is not possible. As SI reported, NASPA’s leadership forced four AB members to recuse themselves from voting on the Kantimathi case. I was one of them. When I pointed out that Kantimathi was perversely benefiting from having harassed the community so widely that half the AB was connected with a harassed woman, NASPA’s leadership blocked my emails to the AB. They also censored their own community advocate from speaking on behalf of the women. How can NASPA change when they won’t listen or even let their players speak? Many of the harassed women expressed anguish about going on the record. Several chose not to report, citing their fear that NASPA wouldn’t believe them or care. Having to report back to the courageous women who did come forward that their reports changed nothing in NASPA’s eyes broke my heart.

Continuing to serve within NASPA is a waste of time, talent, and passion. There is nothing NASPA can do at this point to make things right. Banning Kantimathi now, after they've already been caught covering for him, is too little, too late. Likewise, an apology would ring hollow. Not even the firing of top NASPA brass would make a difference at this juncture. There is no repairing NASPA - it's rotten to its core. It's a house built on a foundation of incompetence and apathy. At this point, the only choice we have as a community is to let the house burn down and start over.

That, friends, is the full story of why we founded the CoCo. We aim to rebuild the Scrabble community the way it should be built - with an elected governing body at the center that truly cares about its members, listens to them, and represents their best interests. This is long overdue.

Having said that, we are not so arrogant as to believe we have all the answers ourselves. We don't. That's why we brought on an elected Board of Directors and why we're asking others to get involved and contribute, in whatever way they can, to move our community forward. If you'd like to join a CoCo team and help guide the future of the organization, we'd love to have you. If you're interested in directing tournaments, please come forward! If you're able to donate to our organization, you'd be most appreciated. The Scrabble community is in an ugly place right now, but if we come together and put in the work, the future can be much brighter. That’s what we’re striving to do.