when Dev Shah won Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2023 and Faizan Zaki got the title Last year, they posed remarkably similar photos on the confetti-filled stage. Standing beside them, beaming, was a bespectacled man holding a copy of his Words of Wisdom.
For Spelling Champions coach Scott Reimer, the photo shoot was more than just a celebration. It was a business necessity.
While nearly all of the National Spelling Bee champions over the past 15 years have worked with a coach, the 32-year-old Riemer is the country’s only full-time professional for elite spellers. Most coaches are former spellers who are still in college or even high school.
When the field is 247 spellers in This year’s bee — which begins Tuesday and ends Thursday in Washington — has been whittled down to 10 or so finalists, so the group is bound to include several Remer students.
“He’s probably one of the most influential figures in spelling bees over the last 10 years,” said Shah, now 17.
Reimer has coached five national champions, and since the Bees emerged from the pandemic turmoil of 2020 and ’21, he has expanded his coaching career. He claims 34 spellers are his students this year and has worked with at least 29 during each of the past four bees.
He charges more than other trainers: up to $180 for an hour-long private lesson. If spellers finish in the top 10 and win a cash prize, he gets up to 10% of their earnings, which he calls a “performance-based bonus.”
Many translators and their families believe Rimmer is worth it – despite, or perhaps because of, the strong personality he displays during his lessons.
Always serious and sociable about any spelling-related topic, Rimmer describes coaching as a passion that stemmed from his disappointing fourth-place finish in 2008, his final year as a speller. He says he is motivated by sharing his knowledge, helping children achieve their potential and the challenge of discovering words worth spelling.
“It’s really about loving the language and loving the competition. Part of it is that once you get stung by a bee, there’s kind of no going back,” Reimer said. “I won’t deny that it pays well, because it does. But I don’t know that there’s anything wrong with that.”
The last two champions he coached say he was decisive in their victories.
“Even though his classes are more expensive, they are definitely worth it,” Faizan said. “I’ve seen the results.”
Zaki Anwar, Faizan’s father, said he negotiated a discounted rate of $120 an hour for Rimmer’s services because Faizan was already an accomplished speller. Rimmer received 7% of the $52,500 champion prize – a $3,675 bonus.
“After winning, it doesn’t really matter,” Anwar said.
Riemer teaches his students about roots, language patterns, and exceptions to those patterns. It seeks to instill a deep understanding of languages that would allow spellers to know a word even if they have never seen or heard it before, as Shah did with the word “romack” in 2023.
But Rimmer’s pricing and coaching style have led some translators to seek help elsewhere.
“I found it expensive,” he said. Navith Muralia University of Pennsylvania student who competed until 2020 and now coaches spelling beepers, charges roughly $50 for an hour-long lesson. “This was not a realistic option for me.”
Grace Walters, who coached 2022 champion Harini Logancharges $75 an hour. She and Murali take a handful of students every year.
“I’m more about quality than quantity,” said Walters, a graduate student in linguistics at the University of Kentucky. “It’s very important to me that I can get to know each speller as a whole person, not just as a speller, and design a curriculum that works for them as individuals.” “But I have to give credit where it’s due: If everyone was doing it like me, there wouldn’t be enough coaches for all the spellers out there.”
Sri Vidya Siliveri was coached by Rimmer before her 60th finish in 2024, but she did not respond well to his methods, said her father, Sridhar Silivri. I found a new coach and finished 10th in 2025.
“We were looking for alternatives and found some new high school students who could be friendlier and charge lower fees,” Sridhar Silivri said.
Even spellers and their parents who swear by Rimmer say he can be rude and demanding with his middle school-age students. Simon Kaplan, who took second place “October Heroes” for 2019He appreciated Rimmer’s tough training but said it’s not for everyone.
“Scott is a real lover of logos, and he’s a master of languages,” Kaplan said. “He pushes his students to keep up.” “This can inspire some spellers to learn and succeed, but it can also leave the student feeling like they have been let down if they don’t spell every word correctly. This is difficult for a child.”
Reimer said his goal is to be supportive while giving auditors the feedback they need to avoid repeating errors.
“I try to be strict but fair, and I also try to modify my teaching methods, based on the children’s needs and personalities,” he said. “Whether I’m always successful at that, I think that’s an open question.”
Reimer graduated from Yale in 2016 and earned a master’s degree from Cambridge a year later. His first study guide, Words of Wisdom: Keys to Success at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, was published in 2010, when he was a teenager. That was also the year he trained his first champion, Anamika Veeramani.
He has published three other books and worked at the Council on Foreign Relations and as a communications coordinator for a gay-friendly synagogue in New York. Since 2020, he has been a full-time spelling coach while also providing private lessons in Chinese, Spanish, writing, and standardized test preparation. Born and raised in the suburbs of Cleveland, he now lives in Mexico City.
Rimmer has written an editorial about the bee for The Guardian every year since 2019. He emails lists of his students’ names and sends updates on their progress, calling them “spellers” even if they have multiple teachers. (Faizan had three coaches last year.) During Bee Week, Reimer is a constant presence, teaching on-site classes and sitting with families of spellers while television cameras roll.
He knows he has to market himself, but he says he doesn’t enjoy it.
“I think I try not to be particularly cocky in general, so if the question is: Is it normal for me to do this kind of promotional and marketing work, the answer is no,” Reimer said.
Scripps, the Cincinnati-based media company that has run the bee for a century, does not endorse training, but Corey Loeffler, the bee’s executive director, called the practice inevitable, given the intensity of competition.
Loeffler gently rejected the idea that any coach should claim credit for the speller’s success.
“It’s hard work, it’s study ethic, it’s perseverance,” she said. “These kids are doing amazing things at a very high level, especially at a young age, and I want them to be able to take credit for that themselves, knowing that it’s a community and they’ve had a lot of support along the way.”
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Ben Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2012. Follow him on https://x.com/APBenNuckols