The Daily Journal Franklin, Indiana Wednesday, February 12, 1986 - Page 18
Checkmate
“Mulligan and Franklin resident Ken York organized a Franklin chess club during the height of the Boris Spassky-Bobby Fischer chess matches of the early 1970's.
County residents responded well to the club, with as many as 86 people attending Mulligan and York's weekly sessions. But as Spassky and Fischer's popularity faded away, so did the club's members.
“People saw how much money Fischer was making but when they saw how much work the game was, they all quit,” Mulligan said.
“Chess isn't a very popular game,” Moriarty conceded, “because it takes an awful lot of effort.”
Mulligan said the game isn't as hard as people think. Calling chess “checkers gone to college,” Mulligan said the key to learning the game is memorizing the names of the 16 pieces and the ways those pieces can be moved. …
Moriarty picked up the game in the late 1950s, when a chess wave swept the country. The Russians, who are considered chess kings, were ahead of the United States in developing and launching the first satellite, Moriarty said.
The pressure was on to catch up, and Moriarty said there was sentiment in the country that Americans needed to be more intellectual to combat Russian technology.