By Sam Prickett Last summer, Hoover resident Roy Martin traveled to Las Vegas for the 2019 Summer North American Bridge Championship. He came home with the trophy — something he attributes to a lifelong love of the game instilled in him by his family. To some, the game of bridge might seem like an anachronism. It doesn’t hold the cultural relevance it did in the 1940s, for instance, when 44% of American households had at least one active bridge player. Now, the average age of a competitive bridge player is 71. While the game has seen a recent rise in popularity in the U.K. and China, that resurgence hasn’t happened in America yet. The love of bridge has been strong in Martin’s family for generations, though. His grandmother, Eula, played for fun, “just with friends around the dinner table,” he said. She taught her three children how to play. “And so I learned when I was really young, probably 4 or 5 years old,” Martin said. “It was very addictive.” When he returned home from college, Martin and his father started going to the Birmingham Duplicate Bridge Club, where they would play as partners. “It was a fun way to spend time with my dad,” Martin said. “There’s just fun memories, and the club has always been really awesome and generous.” The father-son team eventually qualified for a national tournament, and while they didn’t win, the experience was too fun not to pursue again, Martin said. “We were just hooked from then on.” But his father, Guy, wasn’t available to trav-
A Trick of the Mind Hoover’s Martin Wins Bridge Championship, Enjoys the Complexity of the Game
el to Las Vegas last summer, which meant that Martin had to play with a different partner, Denny Cahan, whom he met in Atlanta during another tournament. “That was tough for me, because obviously my dad is my favorite partner,” Martin said. “But Denny’s a very nice guy, and I could tell instantly when I met him that he was a very skilled player … . I would’ve loved to win my first national tournament with my dad, but winning it (at all) was cool, and Denny is a great partner.” Having a great partner is so important, Martin said, because bridge is a deeply psychological game. “They say bridge and chess are the two great intellectual games, but I would say there’s more psychology in bridge because you have two opponents and a partner,” he said. In a tournament setting, for example, team members have to agree on a bidding strategy, which can include coded “artificial” bids.
Steep Learning Curve
Martin acknowledges the game is complicated to learn. “The only problem with it is that it’s got a high barrier to entry,” he said. “But once you take off, you’ll never regret it … . Every single hand is different, and it’s something you never really get bored of because there’s a challenge
on every single hand, trying to maximize what you’re doing. It’s something you never ever fully figure out. You’re always improving; it’s just a constant challenge.” For those who are looking to tackle that learning curve, the Birmingham Duplicate Bridge Club, located in Hoover, offers many resources to novice or first-time players. “I would say that it’s thriving,” Martin said. “You certainly have some older people there, but there are some younger people too. All sorts of walks of life are represented. If you’ve never played bridge a day in your life, they have ‘easy bridge,’ where you can learn to play in a day. There are a lot of people there to help you learn bridge, and most of them are volunteers who give a lot of their time and effort to make things successful.” Martin also encourages younger people to consider playing bridge, adding that there are more incentives to playing the game than just fun. “There have been lots of studies that show, especially for younger people, how good bridge is for math skills,” he said.
Building a Legacy
Emmet O’Neal Presents Tynes Award to Longtime Supporter Tom Carruthers By Emily Williams Each year, Emmet O’Neal Library recognizes an individual or group of individuals who have showcased a devotion to supporting both the city of Mountain Brook and the library. The 2020 Tynes Award, named in honor of former library foundation board Chairman William “Bill” Tynes Jr., was given this year to Thomas N.
OVER THE MOUNTAIN JOURNAL
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Carruthers Jr. A longtime Mountain Brook resident, Carruthers was a founding member of the Mountain Brook Library Foundation – formed in 1993 – and served on the board for its first decade. “And that was a busy decade,” said Emmet O’Neal Library Executive Director Lindsy Gardner. “That included a capital campaign to raise
money for the Emmet O’Neal Library building that we all love today, with its impressive foyer, abundance of natural light and second-floor view of Crestline Village. You can tell I’m a little biased.” Gardner introduced Carruthers at the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Luncheon on Jan. 30, where he was presented with the award.
Upon accepting the award, Carruthers thanked the library board and dedicated it to last year’s award recipient, Alice Williams, who passed away in November. He worked closely with Williams for many years, including serving on the Jefferson County Historical Society Board together and working on the capital campaign for the new library building. In addition, Williams was a formidable birding expert, a hobby she shared with Carruther’s late wife, Dale. “She was a remarkable woman and one of the finest women, person, people that I have ever had the privilege of … working with,” he said. “I’m very honored to have worked with her, and I’m very honored to receive this recognition today.”
Photo courtesy Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce
Gracious Service
Emmet O’Neal Library Executive Director Lindsy Gardner with 2020 Tynes Award winner Tom Carruthers Jr. and his daughter Virginia Carruthers Smith, Mountain Brook City Council president.
“There are a ton of transferable skills, just in terms of counting and making deductions and inferences. All of these can help people in school. If you add bridge to your curriculum, you’re just by nature going to do better with your academics.” “A lot of people play poker and video games now, which have kind of replaced bridge,” he continued. “There are so many more things to do. But bridge is superaddictive. It’s the most fun game I’ve ever played, and I’ve played tons of video games. I’ve lived in Vegas and played poker, and it’s great too. But bridge is just so much more complex and fun, no matter your age level. It’s just a fantastic game.”
Having been with the library for just three years, Gardner deferred to her predecessor Sue DeBrecht to properly describe Carruthers’ spirit in service to the library. “The first word that came to her mind was ‘gracious,’” Gardner said. DeBrecht noted that Carruthers was always cheerful in giving his time to the library, whether that required handling building contracts for the new library facility or speaking at a library conference to educate others on establishing a foundation. In addition, DeBrecht noted that Carruthers saved the library thousands of dollars during the building process,
National bridge champion Roy Martin.
Journal photo by Jordan Wald
10 • Thursday, February 20, 2020
Gardner stated. Those thousands were invested in the foundation to fund future projects, including author events, special collections and capital projects. “Tom also supports the library by using the library,” Gardner said. “And he passed along his lifelong love of reading and writing to his daughter Virginia Carruthers Smith, who continues Tom’s legacy of library support through her role as president of the Mountain Brook City Council.” Carruthers is a graduate of Princeton University and earned his juris doctor at Yale Law School, where he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal. He is retired and was a managing partner at Bradley Arant Rose & White. He was named Outstanding Lawyer of the Year by the Birmingham Bar Association in 2001. He received the Brotherhood and Sisterhood Award for Outstanding Community Service in 2000, awarded by the Alabama Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice. In addition to his service in Mountain Brook, Carruthers is a member and has previously held leadership positions with the Birmingham Rotary Club, Birmingham Museum of Art, the Lakeshore Foundation, Children’s of Alabama, Leadership Birmingham, the Boy Scouts of America and the Jefferson County Historical Society. He also has had many other philanthropic affiliations.
