UNO graduate Terry Stickels makes his living making others think — while having fun doing so
By Kent Walton
For most of his life now, Terry Stickels has been creating problems for others.
And getting paid for it.
Stickels, a 1976 UNO graduate, is among the country’s foremost enigmatologists — those who devise mathematical, word or logic-oriented puzzles. He does so from his home in Fort Worth, Texas, spending most of his days dreaming up brain teasers, word puzzles, mathematical equations and more. His work has challenged, perplexed and amused countless people, ranging from junior high students to mathematicians and physicists.
But don’t take his creations too seriously, he insists.
“They’re fun challenges. Period. End of story,” the 71-year-old Stickels says. “My whole purpose in creating a puzzle is to make a puzzle for what it is. There is no stepladder to significance in any area.
“They’re like candy: Eat them and go about your business. That’s my philosophy. Here’s a puzzle. You solved it. Your reward is you get another puzzle.”
Since 1991, Stickels’ brain teasers have run in syndication in numerous newspapers and magazines (Stickels doesn’t know the exact number; he says that’s “bad juju” for an author.) They appeared for 15 years in the now-defunct USA Weekend magazine, and he’s published more than 45 books filled with his creations (He doesn’t know the exact number. That’s bad juju, too). His puzzles have been featured on Kellogg’s cereal boxes and on the Universal Studios website for the movie, “A Beautiful Mind.” They’ve appeared in UNO Magazine for 10 years. He also publishes the website terrystickels.com.
In the 1990s, his work was seemingly everywhere.
“We used to do bookmarks, card decks, posters, wall calendars and T-shirts when puzzles were really hot,” he says “You couldn’t put them on enough things. For whatever reason, it was a time in American history when puzzles were very big. People loved them.”
His work, though, still is enjoyed by enthusiasts around the world. His creations range from common Sudoku puzzles and word searches to complex mathematical and spatial-visual brain teasers. He’s published a book of crossword puzzles, too. But don’t look for another one of those from him.
“I’ll never do that again ever as long as I live,” he says. “I admire people who create those crosswords more than you’ll ever know.”
Today, his puzzles, which are designed with the assistance of a New York-based graphic artist, appear in a syndicated column called Sticklers that appears in many American and Canadian newspapers.
“People in Canada go crazy over any puzzle far more than people in the United States,” Stickels says. “I get incredibly neat emails from people in and around Toronto wanting to know more, and if I can refer them to a website where a particular discussion is going on. Sometimes they come up with their own solutions that are elegant, simplistic and beautiful.”
UNO games
Not too bad for a guy who during his time at UNO solved problems on the gridiron. He was Omaha-born but came to UNO from Council Bluffs Abraham Lincoln High School, where he was an all-state quarterback. He walked-on for then-Coach Al Caniglia and later earned a full scholarship. He also earned a degree in geography while tutoring fellow students in math and physics, using puzzles to help them understand concepts.
Stickels had been collecting and creating puzzles since he was a child. The interest was sparked by a gift —a book of puzzles published in the 1800s. Stickles and a friend worked their way through the book then spent hours dreaming up their own puzzles and bouncing them off each other. He can still recall the first puzzle he created at age 11.
“It was a hard one,” he says.
He compares the process of creating a puzzle to a Matisse painting, putting down what he sees.
“That’s how my brain thinks,” he says. “I see this vision out in front of me, this three-dimensional screen out there that extends forever. It’s just full of fun challenges. Sometimes silliness.”
And those tend to be his most popular works.
“A perfect example is one of the first ones I came up with: ‘Write the word LOVE in all caps and use a stop sign for the letter O,’” he says. “Of course, it’s Diana Ross’ famous song, ‘Stop in the Name of Love.’”
Stickels grew his collection over the years, but not for professional purposes. After graduating from UNO he first worked for Union Pacific as a switchman, in the labor relations department, then back to the trains as a conductor. Later, he moved with his second wife to Rochester, New York, and became a salesman for Rand McNally.
In 1991, Stickels finally did something with his puzzle collection, bringing some to a newspaper office in Rochester with the proposal of writing a puzzle column. They bit. A couple of years later, Sterling Publishing signed him to a contract for his first puzzle book.
Thousands of puzzles later, Stickels is still at it. The ideas keep coming.
“I could do this for 100 years and never scratch the surface,” Stickels says. “I haven’t even begun this journey yet. I’m just warming up. I mean that sincerely. The almost infinite varieties are like a beautiful picture spread out in front of you.”
PUZZLES, AGING AND THE BRAIN
Terry Stickels loves to challenge people’s brains with his puzzles. But he refuses to go as far as saying they’ll boost your IQ or prevent the onset of a degenerative illness such as Alzheimer’s or dementia. He’s even turned down book offers from publishers who wanted to make such claims about the power of puzzles.
“There are a lot of anecdotal pointers pointing toward that being true,” Stickels says. “But I don’t know of any scientific studies. It would be in my interest to say otherwise, but I believe in being truthful about it.”
Julie Blaskewicz Boron, associate professor and doctoral program chair for UNO’s Department of Gerontology, agrees there haven’t been any conclusive studies to show working puzzles staves off mental degeneration. But that doesn’t mean there are no benefits to challenging yourself with brain games such as those created by Stickels.
“There’s plenty of evidence to suggest learning new things and challenging yourself to learn new things is beneficial in the long run,” Blaskewicz Boron says.
Just as variety is the spice of life, it’s also a key to improving cognitive ability.
“If we’re always doing the same things day in and day out and we don’t challenge ourselves in a positive way, things can get rusty,” she says. “If you always do crosswords, and that’s your primary go-to, and they’re easy for you, that’s great. But it might not be helping as much as one that’s more challenging and takes you longer to figure out,” she says.
Because each person’s brain is a one-of-a-kind machine, no two respond and develop exactly the same way. While solving puzzles might have a positive effect for some, others may benefit from different forms of learning, such as attending a class or participating in a group activity.
Improving cognitive ability doesn’t guarantee a person will avoid the degenerative effects of aging or contracting dementia or Alzheimer’s. But Blaskewicz Boron says she believes it could play a role in slowing their onset.
“This might be able to provide a little bit of a boost so that the symptoms show up later,” she says. “So the amount of time that they experience non-normative change is reduced. That’s what most people are trying to aim for – ‘What can I do to increase quality years?’”