Pawnbroker

Forbes

2/09/1998

TRANSPARENT EYEBALL: Pawnbroker

By Juliette Rossant

As the second semester of college gets rolling, corporate recruiters will survey the graduating classes of schools like Princeton, Wesleyan and Stanford with great attention. But there’s one school they will probably overlook: the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

They just might be making a big mistake. The tiny college, nestled in the shadow of Manhattan’s World Trade Center, just emerged victorious from a grueling three-day chess tournament. BMCC, as it is known, crushed New York University as well as the Universities of Maryland, Toronto and Illinois to capture the 52nd Intercollegiate chess title.

You didn’t catch this on ESPN, but BMCC has quietly forged one of the most remarkable records in the country in the brainy sport of nerds. The title was BMCC’s third in the last five years. In two of those years, the Panthers ground the mighty Crimson of Harvard into dust.

What does this mean for Wall Street’s talent scouts? Consider that a few years ago Bankers Trust was flooded with more than 1,000 rsums after placing a trading division recruitment ad in games magazines such as Chess Life. “Bankers Trust hired an international master to do currency trading for them, Norman Weinstein, and he was very successful at it,” says Allen Kaufman, executive director of Chess in the Schools.

“They have since made a decision to hire other chess masters to see if they could find another Norman Weinstein.” Now they know where to look.

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