It is time for the summer Olympics where we find new heroes for old sports. Maybe we need some new sports too. ESPN has been televising mind games like the Spelling Bee why not more competitions involving the mind? What actually defines a sports competition? There are video game competitions that do not involve physical prowess. Even poker competitions are slowly getting labeled as a sport. Let’s call it brain games and put that in the Olympics too. Then we would be including more exceptional people from places like India and Korea. The people involved in the Mind Games like to call themselves Mental Athletes.

The National Spelling Bee has become the Super bowl of smarts broadcast live  on  ESPN every year. It includes the thrill of victory when they spell correctly and the agony of defeat when they misspell a word just like any sport. The winner receives a trophy and a check for $40.000.  Some of the kids in the spelling bee could spell spoon before they could use one. Most of the children are homeschooled. Most in this contest are from India. If Dominicans dominate baseball and Canadians dominate hockey, Blacks dominate track these kids dominate mind games.  The last 10 winners of the Spelling Bee have been from Indian dissent. These kids not only compete in spelling bees but also in Science, Math, Vocabulary and Geography competitions.

Hershey High School in Hershey Pennsylvania, a place known for chocolate making is now known for brain making. It is the home of the best memory athletes in the country. The memory exercises started there in 2007 and since then the graduates have been competing   in major memory competitions. Last year they won in all 4 events. It is an emphasis in higher order thinking.