The USCF Awards

At the same time I posted about the 2015 CJA Awards Announcement, I intended to mention the USCF Awards, but ran out of time. Good thing, too, because the USCF's annual awards deserve a full post at least once on this blog.

The awards are determined during the second quarter of each year at the USCF Executive Board meeting. I found a summary of all awards in the 2013 USCF Yearbook, added the awards for 2014 & 2015, loaded the lists into a database, and ran some simple queries.

The first two awards -- the 'Distinguished Service Award' and the 'Koltanowski Award' -- were made in 1979, and a 'Meritorious Services Award' was added the following year. The number of awards has grown since then to around 20 in recent years, although not all awards are made in every year.

The winners of the awards are the movers and shakers of American over-the-board chess. The Koltanowski Award (sometimes called the 'Koltanowski Medal') is made to an individual or organization offering outstanding financial support to U.S. chess, with the Sinquefields receiving several awards in recent years.

KOLTANOWSKI AWARDS
1979 Gold: Bill Church, Jacqueline Piatigorsky, Louis Statham
1980 Gold: Thomas Emery, Lessing Rosenwald
1981 Gold: Fred Cramer; Silver: Howard Gaba, Fred Gruenberg, Al Hansen
1982 Gold: Rea Hayes; Silver: Nobert Leopoldi
1983 Silver: Stephen Jones, Don Richardson, John Rykowski, Ralph Slottow
1984 Gold: Jose Cuchi; Silver: M. Vacheron
1985 Gold: Frank Normali; Silver: R. W. Twombly
1986 Gold: Shelby Lyman, NCR Corporation; Silver: Fanueil Adams, Jr., Paul Arnold Associates, Equitable Life Assurance, Prudential Insurance
1987 Gold: Frank Samford
1988 Gold: Sid Samole
1989 Gold: Novag Industries, Les Crane
1990 Gold: Arnold Denker, Helen Warren
1991 Gold: Ted Field; Silver: Neil Falconer
1992 Gold: Banker’s Trust
1994 Silver: Dr. Martin Katahn
1995 Gold: Interplay Productions, Brian Fargo
1996 Gold: Saitek Industries, Ltd.; Silver: Zamagias Properties
1997 Gold: Interplay Productions; Silver: Novag Industries, Wizards of the Coast
1998 Gold: Chess In the Schools; Silver: Internet Chess Club
2000 Gold: The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD); Silver: The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD)
2001 Gold: The Seattle Chess Foundation
2002 Gold: Floyd and Bernice Sarisohn, Dato Tan Chin Nam
2003 Gold: Dr. Martin (Dick) Katahn; Gold: Tennessee Tech University
2004 Gold: Kasparov Chess Foundation
2005 Gold: Al Blowers (from HB Foundation)
2006 Gold: America’s Foundation for Chess
2007 Gold: Frank K. Berry
2008 Gold: Hanon Russell
2009 Gold: Rex Sinquefield
2011 Gold: Rex Sinquefield; Silver: Doyle Engelen, Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.
2012 Gold: Rex Sinquefield, Jeanne Sinquefield
2013 Gold: Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield and the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis; Gold: Garry Kasparov and the Kasparov Chess Foundation; Silver: Trophies Plus
2014 Gold: Bill Goichberg and the Continental Chess Association
2015 Gold: Frank Berry; Silver: Amy Lee

As with most of the USCF's activities, the growth of online chess has been largely overlooked. The ICC received a silver Koltanowski award in 1998. For a list of the 2014 awards, see Brownsville Recognized as Chess City of the Year [FULL AWARDS LIST] on the USCF's USchess.org.