Meet Zaila Avant-garde, 14, world-record dribbler and now America’s top young speller. In July, she won the Scripps National Spelling Bee by spelling a series of obscure words, including fidibus, ancistroid, depreter, and, finally, murraya, the name of a genus of tropical trees. She’s the first Black American to win the coveted title, a distinction she says is important to her. Zaila had competed in bees for two years before her triumph, but spelling is actually more of a side interest, she emphasizes. Her longtime passion is basketball. She holds three Guinness world records for dribbling, bouncing, and juggling basketballs, and in 2018, she showed off her skills in a sneaker commercial featuring N.B.A. star Stephen Curry. Zaila would like to play professionally someday, but for now, she wants her win at the bee to inspire other kids to try competitive spelling. Zaila told Good Morning America: “I’m hoping that in a few years, I’ll see a whole lot more African American females—and males too—doing well in the Scripps Spelling Bee.”