Ep. 1 - Orry Swift on the Pursuit of Mastery and #NerdJoy
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A few weeks before I sat down across from Orry Swift in a studio in Houston, I was sitting in a watch room in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, absolutely riveted by him.
I was at the 2026 Scrabble Players Championship, very new to competitive Scrabble, and somehow sitting in a room with some of the best minds in the game watching the Division 1 final together.
Orry Swift versus Mack Meller.
Best of five.
Mack won the first two games.
Then Orry came roaring back and won the next two.
So everything came down to Game 5.
I did not understand every strategic detail of what was happening. Not even close.
But I understood the room.
Everyone was glued to the screen.
People who knew this game inside and out were gasping, reacting, whispering, laughing, groaning, and hanging on every turn.
And I was right there with them.
It was SO FUN.
The whole thing came down to the very end, and Mack ultimately won the deciding game by five points.
Five points.
After five games.
The room just exploded.
I remember sitting there thinking, this world is incredible.
I had already fallen pretty hard for competitive Scrabble, but being in that room made me understand something else about it.
The game itself is fun, but the people are even better.
Not long after that, I made a Facebook post about this podcast idea I had.
I wanted to interview people in competitive Scrabble and actually get to know them.
Not just their rating.
Not just what they had won.
Not just how many words they knew.
Them.
And Orry replied that he was interested.
I about fainted.
I am serious.
I had literally just watched this man play in the championship final.
I had not made an episode yet.
I barely knew what I was doing.
And Orry Swift had just volunteered to be my first guest.
There was also basically no time.
Orry is a professor, and his semester was about to start.
So if I wanted to do it in person, I needed to go to Houston pretty much immediately.
So I did.
I booked the flight.
I booked the studio.
I booked hair and makeup.
And then travel completely went to hell.
Delay after delay after delay.
The nice comfortable buffer I thought I had disappeared.
By the time I finally made it to Houston, I had JUST enough time to get my hair and makeup done and get myself in front of those cameras.
And somehow, that became Episode 1 of Off the Rack.
Once I actually sat down with Orry, I got exactly the thing I had hoped this show could be.
Because yes, Orry is an incredible Scrabble player.
But then you start finding out the rest.
He was a spelling bee kid.
He got deeply into Magic: The Gathering.
He is an accounting professor.
He got into speedrunning.
He has this pattern of finding something difficult or interesting and going all the way into it.
And I find that fascinating.
We talked about Scrabble, of course.
But we also talked about competition, mastery, obsession, teaching, fatherhood, video games, research, AI, goals that take years, and what happens when your life changes and you cannot give something the same amount of time you once did.
We talked about how he used to study Scrabble for hours and hours a day.
Now he has two little kids and a career.
And he is still one of the best players in the game.
That fascinates me too.
What stays in your brain after years of that level of work?
What changes?
What happens when the thing you were chasing is still there, but your life is fuller now?
And what makes someone keep going?
That last one kept coming up.
Orry has applied over and over for opportunities he wanted.
He has chased goals for years.
He has come very, very close to the biggest Scrabble title.
And he keeps going.
That tells you a lot about him.
This was my first interview.
Orry knew that.
He still said yes.
He brought his own Scrabble board and the rack from his university office that says “Dr Swift” to help dress our set.
He drove a long way and sat down with me for two hours.
He trusted me with this brand new thing I was trying to make.
I will always be grateful for that.
Because this is really where I figured out what Off the Rack was.
I had watched Orry Swift play Scrabble at an absolutely incredible level.
I knew he was great.
Then I sat down with him.
And I got to meet Orry.
That is the show. 🤍
