Last night, 14-year-old Zaila Avant-Garde warmed the hearts of everyone, after winning the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee. She also became the first Black contestant to win this, and also the first Louisiana native to do so. The word that got her the victory was “murraya,” which is a tree.
“It felt really good to win because I have been working on it for like two years. So to actually win the whole thing was like a dream come true,” said Avant-Garde on CNN’s “New Day” on Friday. “I felt like in the moment I snapped out of a surreal dream.”
Avant-Garde ended up winning $50,000, as she scored this epic win at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. Even First Lady Jill Biden was in attendance to witness history being made.
This 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee isn’t the only huge goal on Avant-Garde’s mind. She says that she wants to play basketball at Harvard then either pursue a career at NASA, or become a coach in the NBA. Her options are definitely open, as plans of neuroscience or gene editing are also on the table.
Zaila Avant-Garde’s smile and energy at her spelling bee competition was definitely a beautiful thing to see, as her hard work paid off. This win helped her bounce back in a major way, after finishing tied for 370th place, back in 2019.
Flip the pages to check out Avant-Garde winning the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee, her appearance on CNN, and her basketball highlights.