As girl power was celebrated at the DIA, 2 Detroit dads and a granddad loved the show, too

Supporting the enrichment of their daughters and granddaughter means the world to three Detroit men. And their devotion was revealed during a chess event at the DIA that was designed to empower girls.

Lots of folks these days are familiar with the monikers “Soccer Mom” and “Hockey Mom.” But have you heard of “Chess Dads”?

Well, there’s a group of Detroit dads that have been making moves for years; taking their kids to practices and tournaments all over; sitting in silence — sometimes for hours at a time — as their progeny test wits, strategy and skills against their opponents, and loving every minute of it. Unlike soccer or hockey, any congratulatory cheers are saved for the end of the game. But these fathers’ pride is on display all the time.

“When I introduced my daughter to chess, it was all about giving her critical-thinking skills, and she was like: ‘Oh, I love this game,’ ” said Keith Walker, whose middle school daughter, Madison, is on the chess team at Bates Academy. “Now, I’ve been a part of the chess community in Detroit for about six years, and I can say that the fathers behind the chess scene are very strong. We give our kids security and safety, and we also look out for all of the kids that are playing. So all the kids are my kids and we become a unit.”

And that’s the attitude Walker carried into the Detroit Institute of Arts’ Walter B. Ford Great Hall on June 7, while slipping into a comfortable, back-row seat among the chairs set up for spectators to view a simulated exhibition — or a “simul” as its called in chess circles — where Madison and 26 other Detroit girls were competing against rising chess star Jessica Hyatt.

The 18-year-old Hyatt is vying to become the first African American female chess master. And the enthusiastic group of girls gave the highest-rated African American female chess player in history a spirited standing ovation as she ascended the stairs before gracefully entering the Great Hall in a flowing black gown to simultaneously face her eager opponents in an atmosphere that was 1,000% “positive” at the DIA. 

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“My heart is overflowing with love — the welcome to Detroit has been amazing,” Loy Allen, of Brooklyn, New York, Hyatt’s mom, said just minutes into the exhibition and after she had been presented with an enormous gift basket stuffed with uniquely Detroit items. “I’ve been to a lot of New York chess clubs with my daughter, but this has a different energy. Everything is so positive.”  

The event, sponsored by the Detroit City Chess Club, was designed to empower girls in what Hyatt called the “cool” city of Detroit. But, while promoting girl power was the primary objective of the evening, a visit to the DIA’s student lunchroom when Hyatt was giving a lecture, or a stroll to the Great Hall during the “simul,” showed that the event was just as important and empowering to the dads.  

“Just like you have soccer moms, we are the chess team dads,” Walker said.

In the April 20, 2023, edition of the Detroit Free Press, photojournalist Mandi Wright captured Walker moving and grooving at Roller Skate Detroit, an “adult-centric skating facility” that he operates at 1561 E. Eight Mile, between Woodward and John R. On June 7 at the DIA, the often on-the-move roller skating teacher, DJ and entrepreneur was delighted to just be still and take it all in. 

During the time that his daughter has been playing chess, Walker has watched Madison rise to captain of the middle school chess team at Bates Academy, where she will be entering the eighth grade next school year. Throughout that journey, Walker says he has grown, too, with a little help from the daddy-daughter chess time that is now a staple in his life. 

“My life has been nothing but a game of chess the last few years, so watching Madison play gives me a chance to wind down and think about her, as well as my own next moves (in life),” said Walker, who has worked in the roller skating industry for 41 years all together and was a part of the first graduating class in 1996 at the Detroit School of Arts (originally known as the Detroit High School for the Fine and Performing Arts). “Madison and I have gone out of state together for chess where we get more father-daughter time, and I think it is something that we will never be able to replicate.

“It’s just been an amazing experience to watch her grow through chess and have fun with it at the same time.” 

The smile on Michael Slater Jr.’s face as he took advantage of the minutes right before the start of the simul at the DIA to take some up-close pictures of his daughter Amara — a rising third-grader at Bates Academy — let everyone in the Great Hall know that Slater, too, definitely was having fun. Shortly after the chess action began, Slater slipped away from the Great Hall to do something important that he had neglected to do all day — eat. Putting the needs of his daughter first, including her chess needs, is something that Slater says he is accustomed to doing and he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“I support Amara in chess because she enjoys playing and I enjoy watching her,” Slater said after feeding his hunger with some minestrone and a short-rib sandwich from the Cafe DIA. “But I am going to speak for all of the dads in Detroit’s chess community and say that we’re here and we’re involved in everything that we see our children do.” 

For Slater, involvement in his daughter’s chess world means sometimes becoming the student as his daughter teaches. 

“Amara taught me how to play (about a year ago). And she doesn’t know it now, but she just taught the next grandmaster,” said Slater, a fire inspector for the Detroit Fire Department’s Fire Marshal division. “I don’t know any strategies yet, but I’m learning.”

And while Slater continues to learn the game of chess, he says his daughter is learning through events like the simul that her potential is limitless. 

“To see Amara have an opportunity to play a wonderful player tonight is beautiful,” Slater, who holds the rank of lieutenant within the Detroit Fire Department, said. “And opportunities like this set her up to be successful in anything she wishes to pursue in life.”  

Like Slater, Dr. Reginald O’Neal talks about long term, big-picture benefits when discussing how chess impacts Detroit youths, including his granddaughter, 10-year-old Windsor Polk, another Bates Academy student that participated in the simul. 

“It’s wonderful that we have the opportunity to celebrate and support activities that aren’t limited to one’s physical capacity,” O’Neal, an internist at Henry Ford Hospital, said. “Brain power is what we should be developing, and chess does that. 

“The other nice thing about it is that normally, about 90% of the individuals playing chess are of the male gender. For the females, their competition across the table is often not another female. So, it helps them to understand that their brains are just as big and just as capable as those that are of the other gender. Because with chess, you don’t have to be faster or stronger, you just have to be able to sit down and compete.”

By being an important part of his granddaughter’s educational support system, O’Neal, who grew up in Detroit’s Boston-Edison Historic District and graduated from Redford High School in 1970, says he is carrying on a family tradition taught to him by his father, the late Clarence O’Neal, who operated two Detroit pharmacies within Paradise Valley at John R and Garfield, and later at 12th Street and Collingwood.  

“My dad was really good at coming up with one sentence that made all the difference in the world, and one day he came home when I was doing really well in school and he said: ‘Yeah, I know why you’re doing well in school, you’re doing well because you are my child,’ ” said O’Neal, who added that he believes between the ages of 6 and 12, is when children most need to develop “confidence and expectations” that they will succeed in life. “In other words, my father was saying ‘I got your back.’ And now I have my granddaughter’s back — absolutely.”

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Earlier in the day on June 7, O’Neal had received an early Father’s Day present in the form of a yard sign that his granddaughter Windsor brought home from Bates Academy announcing that she had concluded her fourth-grade year as an honor roll student. Windsor would add to her recent achievements at the DIA by lasting the longest — roughly two hours — against Hyatt during the simul. But judging from the attentiveness and enthusiasm displayed by all of the simul participants and their supporters gathered in the Great Hall, it was clear that many inspiring stories would be shared in the coming days by the families represented at the event, including the Slater family, which had to exit the simul earlier than expected because Amara was not feeling well. 

“Amara is doing much better now and on her birthday Saturday (June 15) we will be playing chess,” said Michael Slater Jr., who, on the afternoon of June 13, also was happy to share that his father, Michael Slater Sr. was in town to celebrate Amara’s birthday and Father’s Day. “On Sunday, my dad and I plan to play golf at Rackham. But afterward, I may still be able to get in a game or two of chess with Amara. We’ll just play it by ear.”

Scott Talley is a native Detroiter, a proud product of Detroit Public Schools and a lifelong lover of Detroit culture in its diverse forms. In his second tour with the Free Press, which he grew up reading as a child, he is excited and humbled to cover the city’s neighborhoods and the many interesting people who define its various communities. Contact him at stalley@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @STalleyfreep. Read more of Scott’s stories at www.freep.com/mosaic/detroit-is/. Please help us grow great community-focused journalism by becoming a subscriber.