John D. Williams, Jr.

John D. Williams, Jr. has been the Executive Director of the National Scrabble Association and official spokesperson for the game since 1987. Williams is a co-founder of the World Scrabble Championship, as well as creator And Co-producer of several ESPN SCRABBLE television shows. Additionally, Williams and the NSA conceived and launched the National School SCRABBLE Program in 1992, using the classic game as an innovative teaching tool in over 20,000 schools nationally. Over a million kids have participated.

During Williams’ tenure, the SCRABBLE subculture has been chronicled in a New York Times best-seller Word Freak by Wall Street Journal writer and National Public Radio correspondent Stefan Fatsis. It was also subject of several documentaries, most notably Word Wars, a Sundance Film Festival favorite later nominated for an Emmy on the Discovery/Times network. Williams, along with three-time National SCRABBLE Champion Joe Edley, co-wrote Everything SCRABBLE1 (Simon & Shuster/Pocket Books) and produced the nationally-syndicated SCRABBLEGRAMS column.

Williams has worked in other game arenas as well. He has been the keynote speaker at the American Crossword Puzzle Championship, a judge at the National Monopoly Championship and his company organized the largest National Jigsaw Puzzle Championship in history. He has also written and/or produced television shows for Nickelodeon, Spike TV, ESPN, TV Land and others. Since 2004, Williams has also created ads and commercials for Hudson City Savings Bank, one of America’s foremost financial institutions, named “Best Managed Bank” in the U.S. by FORBES.