Webster University Kills Its Chess Dynasty: 14 Years, 90 Titles, Done
One of the most successful chess programs in American college history is gone.
Webster University announced it has terminated the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence (SPICE), effective immediately. Head Coach GM Liem Le confirmed his departure on April 30. The program that produced two world championships, three Olympiad gold medals, and over 90 national titles in 14 years was shut down without public warning.
"I am incredibly proud of what we accomplished together," Le wrote on Facebook. That's a graceful exit from a situation that is anything but.
What Webster Built
SPICE was the brainchild of Susan Polgar, the former Women's World Champion and oldest of the legendary Polgar sisters. She relocated the program to Webster University in St. Louis in 2012, and within a few years the small private university had become a chess powerhouse.
The numbers are staggering:
- 2 world championships
- 3 Olympiad gold medals
- 90+ national titles
- 13 consecutive President's Cup qualifications (including 2026, after winning the Pan-American Intercollegiate just months ago)
For context, Webster is a private university with around 10,000 students. Its chess team was routinely beating programs from much larger schools. The program put Webster on the map in ways no marketing budget could match.
GM Liem Le, who took over as head coach and director in 2021, continued the winning tradition. A former world junior champion from Vietnam, Le is one of the strongest chess players ever to coach at the collegiate level.
Why Webster Pulled the Plug
University officials cited two reasons: money and visas.
Patrick Giblin, Webster's director of public relations, stated that "the University must focus on its primary mission of supporting educational programming." Behind that corporate language sits a blunter reality: the program cost more than $1 million annually. Personnel, full scholarships, housing, travel, and equipment added up to what the university called "multi-million dollar annual losses."
The second factor is trickier. Webster acknowledged that its chess team was built largely on international talent, and that tightening visa restrictions had made recruitment increasingly difficult. The university ranked second in Missouri for enrollment declines tied to visa issues.
These aren't small problems. Webster has been dealing with multi-year operating deficits, and the financial pressure on tuition-dependent private universities is real. But the way this was handled has drawn sharp criticism from the person whose name is on the institute.
Susan Polgar Fires Back
Susan Polgar learned about the closure the same way the rest of us did. She was not consulted, not given advance notice, and not offered the chance to relocate the program to another institution.
Her response, posted on social media, directly challenged the university's narrative:
- The actual annual budget was below $1 million, not the "more than $1 million" the university claimed
- The program had no assistant director
- The team operated in less than 1,000 square feet of campus space
- Four of six men's team members are US citizens or have legal status, undermining the visa argument
The sharpest point: if the program was in financial trouble, why didn't anyone in the current administration reach out to Polgar for help? She has the connections and reputation to potentially find alternative funding or a new institutional home. Instead, the decision was made behind closed doors.
"If Webster could no longer support the program, she should have been given sufficient time to relocate it elsewhere," Polgar said.
Given that Polgar's sister Judit recently led a world-record chess lesson at ChessParty Stockholm, the Polgar family's influence and network in chess remains enormous. A heads-up call would have cost Webster nothing.
What Happens to the Students?
This is the part that hasn't been answered yet. Players on chess scholarships at Webster are in limbo. The university hasn't publicly addressed what happens to those commitments, or whether the 2026 President's Cup berth that the team earned will be honored.
For the international players who came to Webster specifically for SPICE, the situation is especially precarious. A terminated program could mean lost visa status on top of a lost scholarship.
The Bigger Picture
Webster's decision reflects a broader vulnerability in American collegiate chess. Programs live and die by institutional willingness to fund them, and when budgets get tight, chess is one of the first things on the chopping block.
St. Louis has positioned itself as the chess capital of the United States, largely through Rex Sinquefield's investment in the Saint Louis Chess Club and related institutions. Fabiano Caruana has publicly pointed out that countries like Uzbekistan and India succeed in chess partly because of state-level investment. In the US, chess relies on private patrons and university goodwill, and both can disappear overnight.
The irony is that Webster won the Pan-American Intercollegiate just months ago. The program wasn't failing on the board. It was succeeding there, consistently, for 14 years. The failure was in the business model, or at least in the university's willingness to keep funding it.
SPICE joins a growing list of once-dominant collegiate chess programs that fell victim to institutional priorities shifting away from the chessboard. The difference is that most of those programs faded gradually. Webster's dynasty was switched off with a press release.
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