When Dev Shah won the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2023 and Faizan Zaki took the title last year, they posed for remarkably similar photos on the confetti-strewn stage. Standing next to them, beaming, was a bespectacled man in an aloha shirt, holding up a copy of his book “Words of Wisdom.”

For Scott Remer, the champion spellers’ coach, posing for a picture was more than just a celebration. It was a business necessity.