Reflecting on the CoCo's growth at the 200 player mark

It may have happened quietly - if there was any fanfare at all, I sure didn't notice it - but just last month, the CoCo as an organization arrived at a pretty significant milestone. In March 2025, we saw our 200th unique player participate in a live, in-person Scrabble tournament.

It's a modest milestone, to be sure. We get that. To some other Scrabble organizations, both here in North America and abroad, 200 players is a drop in the bucket - shoot, some individual tournaments have 200 players battling over the boards at any given moment. But for us - a small, niche organization, serving a small, niche community of players, which we started doing just a few years ago with a small handful of directors running events in their kitchens - 200 is a milestone to be proud of. So forgive us if we need a moment to bask in this one.

We made our way to 200 from modest beginnings, to say the least. For a long stretch there, our total number of tournament players was 20. That's how many people made the trek to our first tournament - the Hood River Open in the winter of 2020 - which happened to come right before a pandemic came along and shut the whole world down. We had a fancy new website with a fancy new page ranking all of our tournament players, and that page had just 20 names on it for a good year and a half.

And yet, starting in late 2021 and making steady gains from then forward, we've been able to make the climb to 10 times that number. We came out of the pandemic with just a few tournaments on the schedule in a few select places - the Pacific Northwest, the D.C. area, and so forth - but gradually, we've been able to build an organization with a wider reach, and we've pulled in a larger swath of the player community.

As I see it, a number of factors have come together to help make that possible.

The trust of the player community: It probably required something of a leap of faith, at least in the very beginning, for players to show up to one of our events. "What is this 'CoCo' thing?" people probably wondered. "Is this even a real Scrabble tournament?"

We did our best to persuade the community that we were for real. But ultimately, that couldn't possibly have been the case without us having the player support to prove it. We're thankful that players in the early going were willing to show up and lend some credence to a fledgling new Scrabble organization.

The support of our directors: Likewise, becoming a CoCo director also took a leap of faith. For anyone looking to direct a Scrabble tournament in North America, it would have been much easier to simply go with an existing organization and follow the procedures they already had in place. Why rock the boat and take a chance on this upstart new group?

And yet, a few people did take that chance. And then a few more, and then a few more. Until eventually, we had a robust list of tournament directors with 39 names on it (and counting - we're in the process of adding a few more as we speak).

It's these 39 people who keep everything we do afloat. Without directors, no tournaments. Without tournaments, no 200 players.

The partnerships we've built: Obviously, our collaboration with WGPO stands out here, as it's enabled us to be a part of Word Cup, which is our biggest event of the year, along with a handful of other successful co-sanctioned events. But the partnerships don't end there. Everyone we've worked together on projects with, big and small, has helped make our organization stronger.

There have been streamers who have broadcast our events. Donors who have bankrolled them. People who have done work with us behind the scenes - everything from web design to accounting and legal support to working on pairing algorithms or rating systems. In short, it's taken a village of people to build a successful Scrabble organization from the ground up, and we're thankful for everyone who's been willing to team up with us.

Belief in our mission: Ultimately, I don't think anyone would have stuck by us for this long unless they actually believed in what we're doing. We founded a new Scrabble organization based on two fairly simple ideas - one, that the people of the Scrabble community should have leaders who listen to them and truly care about them, and two, that unifying North America and the rest of the world to play CSW together is an important goal - and hoped for the best.

To our pleasant surprise, these ideas have resonated with a whole lot of people. So many, in fact, that we stand here now, some 5-6 years later, and we've got a thriving, ever-growing Scrabble organization on our hands.

The hope is that all of the above factors continue to grow stronger and stronger as we move forward. Our players, our directors, our partnerships, our mission - all of the above have helped make us who we are so far, and all of the above should keep propelling us to new heights. Here's to the next five years; here's to the next 200 players.