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-crazed kid was devastated that he couldn’t be on a field somewhere and had to find a way to scratch his competitive itch. While he was fighting to recover, Romano, who eventually became an All-American college lacrosse player at Syracuse University, turned to the Pokémon video game on the Nintendo Game Boy.
“I beat my friends all the time—they even stopped playing with me; they told me I needed to compete in tournaments,” Romano says. So, he gave it a shot. In 2006, Pokémon hosted a 10th Anniversary Journey Across America tour that saw video game tournaments pop up across the country. It culminated with a national championship in New York City.
Romano was too sick to go when the tour came to NorthPark Center in Dallas. However, the next closest city it stopped in was Oklahoma City. Romano recovered just in time, and his mom drove him north to compete. “Sure enough, I started winning,” he says with a laugh. “I ended up playing a 23-year-old from Oklahoma, and here I am, nine years old—everybody’s cheering for me—and I beat him. Winning that tournament got me an invite to New York City to compete in the national championships.”
The two-day event in Bryant Park was an all-expenses-paid journey for Romano. Hulk Hogan commentated on the matches. Romano was eliminated in the quarterfinals, but to him, the tournament was everything he needed. He soon recovered from his ailment and got back into sports. He no longer plays Pokémon but is still proud of his rare, first edition Pokémon card collection—25 cards that include those signed by Mitsuhiro Arita, an artist for Pokémon since its inception, and some that are valued as high as $1,000.
Today, Romano runs Romano Enterprises, a family office that invests in movie production, the restaurant industry, hemp, and more. “That season of life, although I was sick, taught me a lot about being competitive,” he says. “And training a Pokémon is a lot like business. You train your Pokémon behind the scenes, and nobody sees your work until it’s time for battle.”
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