As the A.I.A. director Mr. Voie Coy attempts to field questions from his easy chair down in the Phoenix Valley, he apprears to have a great deal of difficulty finding suitable rationale for his recent recommendation to remove the state high school chess team championship from Tuba City and place it in the Valley. While he stated to the Navao Hopi Observer that I might have a problem if I suspected that racial discrimination may be involved, he has much greater problems--either a short memory, a lack of honesty, or lack of adequate justifications for his decision. Definite problems he now suffers include a lack of credibility for the A.I.A. and huge public relations problems caused by poor communication and insensitivity to the people on the Reservation and to northern Arizona.
Ironically, in 1987 Mr. Voie Coy is the person who suggested to Cecil Walker (who was then our state high school chess executive) that the chess coaches consider having the state championship team host the following year's state tournament. Mr. Coy indicated to us that this would accomplish the following: it would force the reluctant Phoenix area schools to travel outside their district since it would be for the State title, and it would bring added prestige to the winning school and community. The chess coaches tabled the motion that year because some were afraid they might have to travel to Tuba City one year, but they passed it the following year, and the A.I.A. adopted the rule into its manual.
Mr. Coy's prediction came true. Phoenix and Tucson students came to the Reservation for the first time, and great prestige was given the Tuba City community. We had school officials and a Navajo Code Talker greet all the chessplayers at the opening ceremony, we had unprecedented community and school assistance in running the championship, and had over 50 spectators witness the championship. You will never see such a sight in the Valley schools. Why has Voie Coy, then, so radically changed his mind and seemingly forgotten that it was he that first recommended this rule change?
It is commendable that Mr. Coy wants to keep students in school, but continually locating our championships where the majority of schools lie means that northen teams will ALWAYS be travelling to the Valley. On the one hand, the Reservation schools' test scores have always been below the state's average, yet it is always the Reservation schools who are required to miss the most school due to travel requirements.
While Mr. Coy claims the travel costs will be lowered to the state, is it fair that most of the Phoenix area schools do not pay one red cent all year for its chess students to travel while the northern teams constantly have to pay travel bills in order to play anyone? is the A.I.A. willing to subsidize the schools that always have to travel to offset the Valley schools, who refuse to spend money on their teams?
I can sypathize with Mr. Coy when he cites weather conditions because I don't enjoy travelling through snowstorms either. Last year we had a heavy snowstorm the night before the state tournament, so I drove into Flagstaff to see if the roads were passable. They wer, and all 16 qualifying teams arrived in Tuba City in plenty of time for the championship. We "northerners" hear complaints about winter driving from the Valley people occasionally, yet these same complainers have no problems making it through the Flagstaff weather when they decide to go skiing at the Snowbowl.
If this is all Mr. Coy can come up with for his rationale on changing the state chess tournament site without properly notifying or consulting with the chess coaches' association, he stands on very shaky ground. How quickly he has forgotten that the original rule was his idea. Even more quickly we have seen him change his rationale in the media stories from day to day.
The bottom line is that the A.I.A. is nothing more than a "good ole boy" network that is actually run by a few Valley lobbyists who make sure their interests are met. There were no complaints about Tucson hosting the chess championship in 1989, and there were no complaints when Tempe hosted it the following year. All of a sudden after Tuba city hosts the championship last year--the first time a state championship had been held on the Navajo Reservation--we begin to hear rumors that the Glendale district and other Valley districts were pushing for a change last spring.
I naively ignored these rumors because I felt the A.I.A. would surely contact our chess coaches association, contact our school, and discuss this openly. I didn't think the A.I.A. would stoop so low that they would be that insensitive to our kids in Tuba City or to our community.
I was wrong. The A.I.A. has demonstrated its true colors clearly in this case. It is nothing more than a small, autocratic organization primarily concerned in serving Maricopa county. While the rest of Arizona is good enough for Arizona Highways, the A.I.A. will continue to myopically insist that all roads lead to Phoenix and that all schools must therefore travel there.
