BRANDON, Fla. — Focus, thinking ahead, planning and analyzing are all skills that one Hillsborough County school resource officer says can be taught by playing one game: chess.

Officer Hillary Mitchell said he took it upon himself to teach those skills to students at Kingswood Elementary School. He meets with a group of third, fourth and fifth graders once a week, to share his love for the game of chess.

“Forty years ago, I was in the Air Force and one of my roommates taught me how to play and ever since then, I’ve been very interested in the game,” said Mitchell. 

And while chess is a game, studies conducted by ChessEDU have shown that children who play not only perform better academically, but, among other things, also have better critical thinking skills and are more creative.

Fifth grader Jeremiah Mack says he can attest to that.

“I’ve learned the movement of the pieces and how to attack,” he said.  

Mack said that playing chess isn’t easy, but every Monday, he stays after school to learn from Mitchell.  

“There are a lot of novice chess players in here, like most of them, so I try to teach them certain things and I try to have the ones with a better game play with the ones that are weaker, hopefully to help them strengthen their game,” said Mitchell.

He started this chess club after noticing how many students lacked focus, and thought this would be a great way to help change that.

Now, the club has become so popular that there’s a waitlist to get in.

“I explained to them that chess is like life — the moves you make today will dictate how things turn out tomorrow ," Mitchell said. "So it’s very important that you think about what you’re going to do — just like in chess, you think about your moves and you see what could happen if you make a certain move."