I’ve never been comfortable with change or the uncertainty that comes with it. Throughout high school, my routine was the one thing that grounded me. A 6:00 a.m. shower, the same peanut butter-no-jelly sandwich for lunch and a New York Times crossword puzzle right before bed. Rinse and repeat.
Coming to college, I wanted my aversion to change — to change. While some variety came naturally — my shower time was now partially determined by the schedules of the other 20 people in my hall, and my lunch palette was forced to expand to the delicacies of O’Hill — my crossword habit remained unfazed. Maybe it was peer pressure, seeing 20 other screens solving puzzles in the Chem 402 lecture hall, but truthfully, I found the puzzle bringing some sort of normalcy into my chaotic days. Though each day brought a new puzzle with a new theme and a new mosaic of symmetric black-and-white squares, the task at hand never changed. Fill in the 15-by-15 grid using the clues.
Crosswords have their own language, dubbed “crosswordese.” After years of solving, you start to pick up on archaic words that seem to only appear in puzzles and rarely ever in modern culture. Despite knowing nothing more than their name, I had my silent film stars on lock, minor Eurasian rivers memorized and knew my ECRU from my ERHU. Solving alongside friends led to groans of “Why would they put this in the puzzle? No one under 65 knows what this is.” My newfound philosophy of diving into the unknown inspired me to create my own puzzles — ones a collegiate audience would relate to.
After months of trial and error — though mostly error — I finally crafted a bare-bones puzzle, packed with eight U.Va. streets and Gen Z references. LEA was no longer a “Grassy expanse,” but instead “‘Glee’ star Michelle with illiteracy allegations.” After sending it out to friends and receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback, I realized the rest of the puzzle-loving community at U.Va. would likely also be interested. So, I approached a contact at The Cavalier Daily to assess interest in potentially publishing my puzzle. Though the newspaper did not publish any sort of puzzles, perhaps the organization was willing to embrace change alongside me.
Similar to my distaste for change, large organizations are often set in their ways. In fact, in 1924, a New York Times editorial called crossword puzzles “a primitive sort of mental exercise” and a “sinful waste” of time, after being berated by readers who wanted the puzzles. I was met with similar initial hesitation by The Cavalier Daily. I was dumped on the Cartoons Desk, required to write lengthy proposals defending the crossword and told I’d only be placed in print if the back-page ad fell through.
Eventually, the glorious day came, and my puzzle made it into print. I walked past students solving my puzzle on the Lawn, went (lightly) viral on Yik Yak and noticed CD newspaper stands emptying out more than usual. Quickly, leaders at the paper revised their stance on puzzles, and I was tasked with having a crossword ready for every following print edition.
Over the course of the next two years, I dedicated much of my life to the puzzle that used to occupy only 15 minutes of my day. The Puzzles Desk was officially born in fall 2024, complete with guerilla recruiting tactics from public discussion post responses in STAT 3220, to hanging cryptic fliers around Grounds. The desk grew exponentially, along with our output and solvership. In two years we grew from a biweekly crossword, to producing 14 puzzles weekly across three puzzle genres.
Though I joined The Cavalier Daily to change the crossword for a student-body audience, much of my Cavalier Daily experience centered on changing institutional structures. Whether that be something as minor as adding a Puzzles button on our website to make our content more accessible, or as large as restructuring the paper’s constitution to ensure the Puzzles Desk lives on, each effort transformed the paper into a more innovative version of itself.
Likewise, editing crosswords at The Cavalier Daily also changed me. I see crossword clues, answers and themes everywhere. Just writing this parting shot, CHANGE (6) is a great crossword answer. It contains common letters for crossing words, various definitions spanning multiple parts of speech and a length that won’t frustrate nor be too easy. “‘Go get dressed again!’” “Metathesiophobia is the fear of it” and “Taylor Swift single featured on the AT&T Team USA soundtrack for the 2008 Olympic Games” all swirl around my head as clue opportunities. It could even be part of a theme as an anagram indicator!
The experience I’ve gained is also like no other. Building something up from nothing, learning how to effectively train puzzle creators and establishing and evolving a community have helped me grow as a person. The opportunities to come from something as simple as a passion for crosswords still feel surreal. I’ve had the chance to create and teach a credited semester-long course — INST 1550, “Crossword Deconstruction” — at U.Va. and collaborate with some puzzle greats in the “Crossworld.”
Nonetheless, it’s the people that I’ll cherish most. While I’m a firm believer that anyone can create a puzzle, it takes a really special group of people to create a puzzle desk. To the Puzzles Desk, it has truly been a pleasure getting to work with each and every one of you.
To you all, The Cavalier Daily and myself, I challenge you to continue to embrace change. Solve the crossword in pencil. Don’t be afraid to erase. Make a guess on “‘Frozen’ princess (4)”. Maybe it’s ANNA, maybe it’s ELSA … or maybe … it’s both.
Quinn Connor was a puzzles editor for the 136th term and a puzzle constructor for the 137th term of The Cavalier Daily.
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