Fourteen-year-old Zaila Avant-garde has won the Scripps National Spelling Bee 2021 with $50,000. The 8th-grader from Harvey, Louisiana is the first African American winner in the Bee’s 96-year history to win this competition. She’s also the competition’s second Black champion.
National spelling champ isn’t the only title to her name. Zaila holds three Guinness World Records for her basketball talents: the most bounce juggles in 1 minute with four basketballs, the most basketball bounces in 30 seconds with four basketballs, and ties the record for most basketballs dribbled at once 6 by one person.
Zaila has described spelling is her as a side hobby, although she routinely practiced for seven hours a day. She is a basketball prodigy who hopes to play someday in the WNBA.
The only previous Black winner of the bee was Jody-Anne Maxwell of Jamaica in 1998. Zaila also breaks a streak dating back to 2008 during which one champion or co-champion was of South Asian descent.
Chaitra Thummala, a 12-year-old from Frisco, Texas, was runner-up. Both Zaila and Chaitra are coached by Cole Shafer-Ray, a 20-year-old Yale student who was the 2015 Scripps runner-up.
