The most powerful piece on the chessboard is the queen. It has all of the moves of the rook and the bishop in one piece. She is also the most valuable piece in the game (apart from the king, of course).
In that vein, one of the most captivating battles during the University of Cincinnati football team's fall camp at the Higher Ground Conference and Retreat Center has been the daily game of chess between Cincinnati wide receivers coach Mike Brown and Bearcats cornerbacks coach Perry Eliano.
There are no queens, rooks, bishops or checkered-colored boards. Instead, there's Brown's stable of receivers, Eliano's group of defensive backs, and a daily matchup between UC's most experienced and explosive receiver, Alec Pierce, and arguably college football's top cover corner, Ahmad "Sauce" Gardner.
The matchup of Pierce and Gardner is a battle everyone in camp encourages and enjoys, including the two players involved and their respective position coaches.
"Ahmad and Alec are going against each other and it's a battle every single play," Brown told The Enquirer on Thursday. "That's the way that those guys get better and better and better.
"I'll say (to Eliano), 'Hey, man, look, I'm putting Alec in a different spot today, could you move Ahmad in there with him?' I know that's probably not Ahmad all the time, but at the end of the day, those guys, they don't care. They just go and compete."
Brown and Eliano may be even more competitive than the players on the field. As the team continues its preparation for its Sept. 4 home season-opener against in-state rival Miami University, the two coaches continue their daily chess match on the practice field at Higher Ground.
But as competition intensifies, Brown and Eliano keep one common phrase at the center of their heated back-and-forth exchanges: "Compete with each other to complete each other."
"Coach Brown has embraced that," Eliano said. "We're going to go at each other, but at the end of the day, we're bleeding the same blood and we're all trying to make each other better."
Making each other better is tough. The Bearcats went 9-0 last season, capturing the program's first American Athletic Conference championship, before losing to Georgia in the Peach Bowl on New Year's Day. Gardner was named first-team All-AAC and earned a spot on just about every outlet's All-America team.
The 6-foot-3, 200-pound junior, who made the switch from jersey No. 12 to No. 1 for the 2021 season, is again one of the most talked-about corners in the country, earning spots on the watch lists for the Bronko Nagurski Trophy, Chuck Bednarik Award and Jim Thorpe Award.
Pierce, on the other hand, is working toward a bounce-back senior year after an injury-plagued 2020.
The 6-foot-3, 213-pound Glen Ellyn, Illinois, native played just six games last season after leading the team with 652 receiving yards and a 17.6 yards-per-catch average in 2019.
"He's locked in," Brown said. "He really wants to get better and better and better. If you ask him, he hasn't done anything because he's so humble and hungry. It's a joy coaching him. He's an easy guy to coach and he works his tail off."
Whether Pierce and Gardner are racing down the field stride for stride, or yelling playful expletives at each other as they compete for the ball, it doesn't compare to the verbal sparring between Brown and Eliano.
"Every period, I'm over there talking trash to him, he's over there talking trash to me," Brown said. "We make a big play, I'm on their sideline, I'm talking to him. But at the end of the day, his DBs (defensive backs) respect me and my receivers respect him, so they understand where we're coming from. ... Yeah, we're competitive. Yeah, we want to see our guys win every single play, but again, it's just competing with each other to complete each other."
That's the goal, and in 22 days, when an expected capacity crowd fills the seats at Nippert Stadium, Eliano hopes all of the trash-talking and daily chess moves between him and Brown will translate to UC's 15th straight win in the Battle for the Victory Bell.
"When the lights come on and we're all in the one uniform, we know that we've put in the work going against each other and we know what the results are going to be."