James Varrone is a retired educator having worked as a high school French teacher, a school administrator and a college instructor. Mr. Varrone learned chess at an early age and during his teaching years, he founded two chess clubs at the schools he worked at. He decided to begin playing competitively when he was in his late 30’s, and since then has participated in hundreds of tournaments. He recently achieved his tournament director credentials and has participated in many scholastic and regular tournaments as a director. He began teaching at Progress with Chess in September 2014.

Aside from chess, Mr. Varrone is an avid reader and writer and is a lifelong learner. He has a wide variety of interests in many areas such as languages, philosophy, history, theology, leadership, management, and teaching.