Jim VanSickle entered his junior year at Bradford Central Christian High School in the fall of 1979 to learn that he had a new English teacher: a young priest named David Poulson, who had recently been ordained in the Catholic Church.
It was a turbulent moment in the 16-year-old's life. His grandmother had died, and his father had fallen ill and couldn't work. "I was a lost kid," he said in an interview.
He found a mentor in the teacher, only 10 years his senior. Poulson anointed him captain of the chess team, which traveled from their town in northern Pennsylvania across the border into New York for competitions.