He taught chess to well over 35,000 kids and has recently created an app to help even more students develop a love for the game.
Coach Jay Stallings began teaching chess to a group of students in 1993. Chess For Kids continued to grow as Santa Clarita residents began to fall in love with the game. His program eventually became the California Youth Chess League, where thousands of students have learned to become better chess players.
Having been taught by Coach Jay, Santa Clarita resident Kyle Sellers teamed up with his old coach some 20 years later to create an app to help even more students. “Coach Jay had a huge impact on my life,” states Kyle. “So we came up with an idea to double his life’s work by creating an educational app to help teach chess.”
The planning stage began in March of this year and was recently released to the public on iTunes as “Coach Jay’s Chess Academy.”
“Coach Jay takes his teaching curriculum and over 100 lessons and 1,250 puzzles so kids can practice chess. They learn a concept and through repetition, they can be tournament ready,” states Kyle. Kyle, now working on his MBA at Pepperdine University, competed and won several tournaments nationwide under Jay’s tutelage.
“We both work with a lot of students on a daily basis, and parents constantly ask what the best app is to practice, so we decided to develop an app to help teach and give students opportunities to practice.” After a developer was hired, Coach Jay and Kyle took decades of lesson plans and digitalized the concept.
Jay’s Chess Academy will not only help students hone the skills needed to succeed at chess, but will also help fund tuition for children who cannot afford to pay for a chess club or take classes. A portion of the sale of the app goes directly to SeansFund.org, an organization which honors the memory of Sean Reader, who lost his battle to leukemia in 2006. At the age of 12, Sean was a nationally ranked chess player who fought his battle with leukemia with the same tenacity as he did playing chess. Coach Jay was fortunate to coach Sean and the team at the 2005 Super Nationals in Nashville, Tennessee, where his team placed second among the nation’s best young chess players. In honor of Sean, Sean’s Fund works with CYCL to provide financial aid to those who need assistance paying for chess classes and tournaments as well as providing funds for private lessons for children in the SCV who suffer from cancer.
“Jay is just an awesome guy and has without a doubt, been the single most influential person in my life,” states Kyle. “He has really helped a lot of kids over the years and looks forward to helping many more.”
For more information about Jay’s Chess Academy, visit http://coachjayschessacademy.com and like their page on Facebook. For more information about California Youth Chess League, visit http://cycl.org. For information about Sean’s Fund or to donate, visit http://seansfund.org.
To download iOS (iPhone/iPad): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/coach-jays-chess-academy/id907007624.
And for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ghostmaninc.coachjayschessacademyandroid.