The guy who won the French Scrabble World Championships as a non-french speaker was not an American. His name is Nigel Richards and he's a New Zealander who now calls Malaysia his home.
Entirely true that the Scrabble word list is just like a collection of valid trading cards, Nigel Richards just collected them all.
True enough, they include what they do for good game play, but according to various definitions of 'word' I looked up, onomatopoeia like hmm and shh are words. Yeah there are champions in African countries that don't speak any English but win comps in English as well, it impresses me what memory can do.