Inside Sam Romano’s Path to the Pokémon Video Game National Championship

In 2005, when Sam Romano was nine years old, he was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, an autoimmune disease that attacks the digestive system. His battle with the disease was up and down, sometimes forcing Romano to spend weeks in the hospital. The sports-loving boy was devastated that he couldn’t be on a field somewhere and had to find a way to satisfy his competitive hunger. As he fought to recover, Romano, who eventually became an All-American college lacrosse player at Syracuse University, turned to playing the Pokémon video game on the Nintendo Game Boy.

“I hit my friends all the time – they even stopped playing with me; They told me I had to compete in tournaments,” Romano says. So he tried. In 2006, Pokémon held a 10th anniversary “Journey Across America” ​​tour, which featured video game tournaments across the country. The highlight was a national championship in New York City.

Romano was too sick to go when the tour came to NorthPark Center in Dallas. However, the closest city it stopped in was Oklahoma City. Romano recovered just in time and his mother drove him north to compete. “Of course I started winning,” he says with a laugh. “I ended up playing against a 23-year-old from Oklahoma, and here I am, nine years old – everyone is cheering for me – and I beat him. Winning that tournament earned me an invitation to New York City to compete in the national championships.”

The two-day event at Bryant Park was an all-expenses paid trip for Romano. Hulk Hogan commented on the matches. Romano was eliminated in the quarterfinals, but for him the tournament was all he needed. He soon recovered from his illness and returned to sports. He no longer plays Pokémon, but is still proud of his rare first edition Pokémon card collection – 25 cards, including those signed by Mitsuhiro Arita, an artist for Pokémon since its inception, and some that are worth up to 1,000 have US dollars.

Today, Romano runs Romano Enterprises, a family office that invests in film production, restaurants, hemp and more. “Even though I was sick, I learned a lot about being competitive during that period of my life,” he says. “And training a Pokemon is like a business. You train your Pokémon behind the scenes and no one sees your work until it’s time to battle.”