Junior bridge in Atlanta

Every time I go to a tournament or even a club game in Atlanta now, I see teenagers playing. Lots of them. And I think to myself, why were there no people my age in this area playing when I was a teenager or a college student? I mean, Brian Levy played for awhile and was pretty good but college life took over his life apparently more than it did mine. And at Tech, Mike Rice was there for a year or two while I was and we tried to have a bridge group but it was just too hard to get enough interest. My last year at Tech, Richard Starr and I taught a class at the student center for free. I thought that might drum up some interest, but we had maybe 6 people show up and there was some talk of re-starting a GT bridge club but it never happened. I blame it on computers and tv and the multitude of other things young people can do now.

So, I continue to be impressed by the work Patty Tucker has done with Atlanta Junior Bridge in getting so many kids interested in playing. I guess it is unrealistic to expect many people to stick to it, given the number or people I personally talked to about learning bridge. She got hundreds of kids in summer camps and it seems like a good 10-15% of them actually are playing in tournaments now. I suppose those are good numbers. But simple reaching out to them is a big thing.

In Macon/Warner Robins, it is going to be a lot harder because of the much smaller base of people. If we expect that 10% of the people we teach will actually like it enough to continue, in WR, that's maybe 2 or 3 people. And it's hard for them to continue unless they have more peers.