David Gibson

David Lawrence Gibson (February 8, 1951 – November 22, 2019) was an American professional Scrabble player and mathematics professor. Ranked the top player in North America and widely regarded as one of the greatest Scrabble players, Gibson won the North American Scrabble Championship twice.

Early life The eldest of three children, David Lawrence Gibson in Raleigh, North Carolina In 1975, Gibson and his family moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina. He began playing tournament Scrabble in 1983 and won the North American Scrabble Championship (NASC) in August 1994; although he had kept a relatively low profile in the Scrabble community, the win propelled him to No. 1 in the North American rankings. In 2016, Gibson won his second NASC title in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The term "Gibsonization" for a process of pairings in a single-elimination final was named after Gibson due to his tendency to clinch tournaments before their final rounds. Gibson also taught mathematics for some four decades at the Spartanburg Methodist College, and was awarded with an honorary distinction of professor emeritus by the college in early 2019.

Major championship wins