For many students all around the world, being a part of a team is an important aspect of a successful high school experience. But when people think of these teams, the first things that come to mind are usually sports or fine arts. For some of the students at Yutan, however, this team looks a little more like being in the classroom, and that team is quiz bowl.
Quiz bowl is a battle of the brains, bringing together rapid-fire questions and quick thinking in a competition setting. Though this may not sound that interesting, for many people, including senior Bryce Kolc, there are many different aspects of quiz bowl that have kept him coming back each year.
“You get to learn a bunch of trivia and different facts,” said Kolc. “And you just get to hang out. You get to spend time with teammates and have a good time.”
Along with gaining new knowledge and spending time with peers, head coach Nealy Freeman believes that participating in quiz bowl offers students lots of opportunities to develop important life skills as well.
“Quiz bowl gives students a great boost in confidence because you absolutely have to be able to press the buzzer if you think you have a correct answer, and not everybody can put themselves on the line like that,” said Freeman.
Using all of the knowledge and character-building qualities they gain, the quiz bowl students put their skills to the test at competitions. The number of teams and questions can vary from place to place, but for the Yutan team, there were three competitions this season, one of which was the district competition, where the team placed third and narrowly missed qualifying for state.
“Only the top two teams get to go to state, but that’s the best we’ve finished in my entire career,” said senior Jack Edwards. “So I’m pretty happy about that despite not being able to compete at state.”
This success meant even more since the quiz bowl team didn’t compete last year.
“I think the team in general was excited to compete again because nobody got to do anything last year,” said Freeman. “So the fact that we were able to take kids to actual events and let them compete I think was exciting for them and for me.”
Even after this year’s successes, the current members want to continue to build the program so other students can have the same opportunities they had.
“One of my biggest goals is definitely recruiting people because one of the biggest problems that we faced this year was the fact that we had pretty much just barely enough people to do quiz bowl meets,” Kolc said. “With three of those people graduating, the quiz bowl team will definitely need to recruit some new people to keep going.”
Despite the upcoming challenges that may present themselves, all the quiz bowl members, from the first-year coach to graduating seniors are excited to see what the upcoming years will bring.
“Being that it’s my first year coaching quiz bowl, I’m excited for what’s to come,” said Freeman. “I can’t wait to build the program, and I’m excited to see what quiz bowl can become.”
