Students who like learning and competition have an opportunity to test their knowledge outside the classroom with an activity that has boomed in popularity in Yutan: quiz bowl.

“Quiz bowl is an academic competition where you have teams of four to five and you buzz in to answer questions about academic topics like history, geography, math, English, that sort of thing, sometimes pop culture,” quiz bowl coach Nealy Freeman said.

This is Freeman’s third year coaching the team.

“I thought it would be an opportunity to take on an activity that wasn’t very active at the time. I took it over, and I thought it would be fun,”  Freeman said.

Since taking over the program, the number of students involved has increased, with a total of 31 students in quiz bowl this year. These students join for a variety of reasons.

“My parents really wanted me to do it, and the people that did it were really fun to be around,” junior Lincoln Hoffart said.

Freeman has these students practice every Friday, before school with the high school students and at lunch with the middle school.

“I get kids to participate in quiz bowl, make sure they come to practice. I often keep track of how many questions they answer and then their percentage of correctness, so that I can put together some good teams,” Freeman said.

Quiz bowl isn’t just something students practice and do for fun. These practices help the students in competitions. 

“You have many different schools, from Class A all the way down to Class D, and your opponents can have one team member up to four or five team members, and it’s typically a tournament in the morning or three matches in the morning against another school and then that will seed the tournament in the afternoon,” Freeman said.

This year, Freeman took seven teams to the Ralston meet on Nov. 8: four middle school teams, two JV teams and one varsity team. They ended up doing pretty well, which is good for their first meet of the year. Even for the teams that didn’t win their matches, the students had moments to celebrate.

“I like to see kids get excited about answering questions correctly and doing well for their team, and they get really jazzed about it,” Freeman said.

To improve performance for future meets, Freeman teaches the students specific strategies.

“There are a few different strategies regarding timing, and I’ve talked to them about an app called the Quiz Bowl Trainer so they can get used to the types of questions,” Freeman said.

Quiz bowl gives students the chance to explore something they’re good at.

“I would tell them to do it, even if you don’t have the best grades or whatnot. Everyone has a role on the team,” Hoffart said.