Long before Miller Moss earned the USC starting quarterback job, he sat in front of a chess board at the Santa Monica Public Library. He was just 3 years old, his eyes full of wonder, barely able to peer over the chess pieces at his opponents, who were often several decades his senior.
His parents signed him up for the chess program at the library, where Moss’ grandmother worked as a librarian, with the hope it would help hone his young mind. They always tried to encourage their son’s curiosity — reading every night, piano lessons, teaching Greek mythology, anything that might pique his interest. Chess spoke to him. Even as a toddler.
“He just really loved the game,” said Emily Kovner Moss, Miller’s mother. “He loved looking at the board and the strategy of it all.”
It’s not difficult to connect the dots between the little boy behind that chess board in Santa Monica and the redshirt junior quarterback set to lead USC into Sunday’s season opener against Louisiana State. Trojans coach Lincoln Riley is counting on Moss’ mind — more so than his athleticism or his arm — to make USC’s offense go this season. Chess, for Moss, served as a critical precursor to that role, shaping how his mind works as a quarterback.
For that, Emily Kovner Moss largely credits the man who ran the chess program, Mel Bloch, a Vietnam vet and pony-tailed poet whose years teaching the game in the community made him a fixture in Santa Monica.
Bloch, who died in 2012, took special care to encourage kids — especially Moss. He taught Moss opening and endgame strategies and how to defend against each. He introduced him to speed chess at the beach in Santa Monica and Venice. He even signed him up for a humbling exhibition match with a grandmaster.
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Over years of teaching Moss the game, Bloch refused to play down to his pupil.
“One thing Mel really did is he taught Miller how to not win,” Kovner Moss said. “I don’t think Miller ever beat him. Mel just taught him how to shrug it off. That was a really great lesson, to not ever be deterred.”
That lesson resonated as Moss waited his turn to be USC’s starting quarterback, sitting for two seasons behind Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams.
Along the way, he had plenty of chances to pick up and go elsewhere. But Moss kept patient until an opportunity presented itself in December at the Holiday Bowl. That’s when he made his move, throwing six touchdown passes.
Now Moss takes over leading an offense that could look quite different with him at the helm. Unlike Riley’s previous quarterbacks, no one is likely to describe Moss as a “dual threat.” Nor does he have the rocket right arm that Williams brought to the role.
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But Moss learned while playing chess how any number of personalities or strategies can suit a game, if the player understands the whole board and their opponent. The same could be said of USC on both sides of the ball, but especially at quarterback, where Riley has reiterated how he’d adjust the offense to his signal caller’s strengths.
“He understands not just what we’re doing or what a defense is doing, but why they’re doing it,” Riley said of Moss. “In the world of quarterbacks, he’s certainly on the higher end in terms of what he can process, what he can retain, the way that he can adjust, the way that he can understand what all 22 [players on the field] are doing.”
Riley has seen enough from Moss to know not to challenge him at chess.
“I don’t like my chances there,” the coach said.
Nor have his teammates presented much in the way of competition, Moss said with a grin. He has heard there’s a potentially promising new opponent.
“Kamari [Ramsey] is supposed to be really good,” Moss said earlier this month. “So I need to play him.”
Ramsey didn’t really get chess at first.
“I thought it was a little weird,” he said.
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Ramsey didn’t come about the game with wonder and curiosity the way Moss did. His friends at Chatsworth Sierra Canyon started playing every day during lunch as freshmen, and after so long spent watching, he decided to learn, too.
“And when I learn something,” he says, “I want to win it.”
It wasn’t long before he was devouring YouTube videos explaining different chess strategies and practicing with friends in whatever spare time they had in the waning moments of class. Soon, others in their classes were playing chess, enough that tournaments were organized in the library, where tables were set up with eight separate chess boards.
“It got kind of crazy, how much it spread,” Ramsey said.
For Ramsey, it was the strategy that spoke to him. He loved how chess required him to see the whole board, anticipating moves that might happen two or three turns later. It suited the way his mind worked.
“You have to have the vision,” Ramsey said.
USC defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn could see last season while directing the UCLA defense that Ramsey was ahead of the curve. He integrated seamlessly as a redshirt freshman safety into Lynn’s new scheme, which demands its defensive backs understand every position in the secondary.
So when Lynn left to take over USC’s defense in January, Ramsey followed him across town. Since then, he’s become indispensable on the back end of USC’s revamped defense, tasked with diagnosing the intentions of opposing offenses.
“Some people just get ball, and he’s a guy who just understands ball,” Lynn said. “There’s certain things that we don’t need to teach him that he just naturally gets.”
That’s proven especially helpful as USC takes on a totally new defensive scheme, with a coordinator who’s content to switch up concepts, depending on the opponent and its tendencies. Ramsey, with his deep understanding of Lynn’s defense, is a critical piece in that ever-changing equation.
It’s a chess match, in its own right, that could ultimately determine the direction of USC’s season.
As for the real thing, Ramsey plays most of his chess online now. He’s taken part in more than 2,000 matches at this point on chess.com, including a few against teammates.
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The results of one of those matches is still under contention, according to fellow starting safety Akili Arnold.
“He beat me one time — but listen, it was on the phone, and I didn’t know it was timed!” Arnold said.
In a budding locker room chess hierarchy, Arnold would prefer to state his own case.
“I just think I’m still the best chess player on this team,” he said, with a smile. “Just saying.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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