At just 12 years old, Ben Morgan has something none of his sixth-grade classmates at Wescott Junior High School have – a varsity letter.

Morgan received the letter recently for his performance as a substitute player on the Westbrook High School varsity chess team at the state tournament in Orono. Steve Morgan, Ben’s father and the coach of the chess team, said school officials told him his son was the youngest person ever to be awarded a varsity letter in Westbrook.

Morgan earned his “W” after winning two of his four matches at the Maine State Scholastic Championship held March 5 at the University of Maine at Orono.

Morgan got the call to join the high school team after one of the varsity players told Steve Morgan the night before the tournament that he was not available to attend.

“We needed somebody to play,” Morgan said. The team called a couple of other high school players, but they were unavailable as well, so they needed to find a fifth player to round out the team, or else Westbrook wouldn’t have been allowed to play.

So, the team turned to Ben.

Already heading to Orono to play in the junior high section of the tournament, Morgan arrived at the tournament and learned from his father that the high school team needed him. After determining there were no other high school students from Westbrook to fill the last spot on the team, Steve Morgan explained the situation to tournament directors and got clearance for his son to play.

“The only time you can have a kid lower than high school come up is if you don’t have another high school player to play,” he said.

Because Ben had some experience playing practice games with the Westbrook high school students, Morgan knew his son would be able to handle playing in the tournament. “He’s been beating up on them for years,” he said with a laugh. “I knew he could handle it. I also knew if he had a rough day, he could handle that. I knew skill-wise, he was capable.”

For his part, the younger Morgan said he was “kind of surprised” when he learned he would be called up to the varsity team. He first wondered how opponents might react to getting beat by a sixth-grader.

“I was thinking how funny it would be if I won,” he said.

Morgan said his strategy for playing the older players was a simple one. “I was just trying to capture (their pieces),” he said. “Trying to figure out what they were doing.”

Morgan said the long ride to Orono and the 9:30 a.m. start to the tournament combined with the surprising news that he would be joining the high school team gave him a little trouble at the beginning of the tournament. But as the day went on, he said he got into a groove.

“The first game, I was kind of tired and shocked at being asked to play high school (players),” he said. “The second game, I was starting to get a little warmed up, and by the third game, I was warmed up. By the last game, which was at 4 p.m., I was kind of tired of playing.”

As for earning his varsity letter as a sixth-grader, Morgan, who said he plans to have it sewn onto his backpack, said he was excited at hearing the news. “I think it is cool that I was the youngest kid ever to get one,” he said.

While chess may have suffered from an uncool reputation over the years, Morgan said that is no longer true among his peers. Morgan said a lot of kids his age play chess. He said he wasn’t sure why the game was so popular.

“My sixth-grade classmates really like chess,” Ben said. “During free time (at school), that’s all we do sometimes.”

Steve Morgan said he sees evidence of the popularity of chess among Westbrook students at the high school level as well. He said the high school chess team draws students from all sorts of backgrounds. He said he has had athletes from the football, swimming and wrestling teams, among other sports, join up to play chess.

“Chess has that ‘geek’ mentality,” he said. “But at Westbrook, they don’t have that at all.”

When asked about his next goal in chess, Morgan said he still hasn’t beaten his father. Ben looked at his father and said, “I need to beat him.”

“That would be a great day,” Steve Morgan said with a laugh.