The Quizbowl Resource Center

I thought I would get the discussion started on the state of Tennessee quizbowl this year. I thought I would start this thread off by talking about the teams in my area, Middle Tennessee.
First off my team, Battle Ground. The A team this year will be composed of junior Cameron Clark, a science specialist who I think has really stepped up his game this summer, and me a lockdown player on all things FIFA (also, I try to cover history and the humanities). The other two spots on the A team are up for grabs. However, as far as I can tell, there are four people competing for the remaining two slots. They are freshman Dominick Nesbitt, an excellent world geo specialist, senior Matthew Lewis, a history player who also has a bible specialty, bible/chem specialist Benjamin Ball (senior), and current events player Zach Helberg (senior). We are looking forward to hosting a tournament November 5th although we do not know exactly what question set we will be using.

Hume Fogg should be one of the elite teams in the southern region this year. They are lead by one of the South's best players in senior captain Aditya Srivasta, an excellent all-around generalist who has extreme specialties such as myth. He will be backed up this year by junior music/geo specialist Christopher Hill as well as senior Zach Taylor. I do not know what Zach's specialties are, although I do know he is capable of pulling very good science buzzes. The most likely candidate for the final chair on this team is senior Joachim Kennedy, a strong lit specialist who provides excellent coverage behind Aditya.

Merrol Hyde returns with most of their firepower from last year's 7-3 finish in the prelims of HSNCT and is poised to become one of the state's very best teams this year. Their fearsome 1-2 punch consists of junior history/lit specialist Jonathan Caldwell as well as senior history specialist Michael Ponce, who is also a very good generalist. The Hawks' third scorer will be senior science specialist Kanaan Dopp. Their fourth scorer seems up in the air, however a good candidate to potentially fill that role at some tournaments playing up would be MSNCT rising star Owen Flanagan, who averaged over 58 ppg at the event.

I personally think that the University School of Nashville could be a school that a lot of top teams might seriously underestimate due to the fact that they lost three quarters of their A team. But, based on senior Alex Morgan's scoring throughout last year and especially at PACE, that would be a grave mistake. In addition to solid finishes at pace as well as at many of the regional tournaments they also seem to be eighth in rankings http://www.qunlimited.com/321/result/HS ... Top100.pdf I don't really know what to think about that. But anyway, in addition to Alex's deep knowledge in history, lit, and current events, they also return some youngsters who posted strong numbers at regional tournaments throughout last year in Elliot Clark and Margaret Luffman (scored three powers against us at WKU) as well as possibly fine arts specialist Tom Shaw, although I have no idea whether he is a senior or has graduated. I think they have the potential if they can hit their questions to beat potentially anyone in the state.

With senior captain/ strong science specialist David Hammett graduating, Ezell Harding lose all of their scoring from their team that finished t-13 at the 2015 hsnct. With a full rebuild now underway, they have some players who could rise up and help bring Ezell back to the forefront of Tennessee quizbowl in junior lit specialist Natalie Schultz, another lit specialist in Mark Davis, junior Marcus de Bose (I am not exactly sure what areas he is strong in), and history specialist Joe Morris. Overall, it will be interesting to see how this team grows as the year progresses.

In addition to these teams, there are also some some historically strong teams in the middle tennessee area, the team composition of which I am uncertain. This includes MLK Magnet, Gallatin, Cookeville, Columbia Central, Portland and the Webb School.

That is my wrap up of the quizbowl scene in Middle Tennessee. I would like to hear what other people think about middle Tennessee. Also, it would be really helpful if other people could post about the west and east parts of Tennessee!

jdpasspawn wrote:they also seem to be eighth in rankings http://www.qunlimited.com/321/result/HS ... Top100.pdf I don't really know what to think about that.

I think the evidence of Alex Morgan's scoring numbers at PACE are good evidence not to underestimate University School of Nashville, as opposed to the nAC rankings. The nAC rankings don't actually rate teams based on people's skill at quizbowl, as what Chip Beall presents to teams is not quizbowl. This 3-2-1 scoring only tests how fast people can answer the questions-not the depth and breadth of a team's knowledge.

I don't presume to have enough knowledge of the East TN circuit to start the a very in depth conversation. However, East TN has been largely devoid of many teams and tournaments. In the efforts to stimulate some activity in the region, my school is hosting a tournament (The L&N Train Bowl). This is definitely only a start to getting good quiz bowl established in the area, but if all goes well we hope to continue hosting tournaments annually. Along with that, I'll go ahead and take this time to invite everyone on here We'd love to see teams from all over the area, especially middle and east TN.

As a side note, if anyone has a contact list for middle Tennessee teams that they would be willing to share, we at the L&N would greatly appreciate having that to help with advertising our tournament.

NHBB will be hosting the Tennessee State Championships at Westmoreland Middle School on February 4th; this event will have Varsity, JV, and Middle School divisions for the Bowl team event. Online registration can be done at this link. We're also planning events in Memphis and Knoxville this season; more information on those will be posted when finalized.

Here's to a great season!

I can give a quick overview on the state of East TN at the moment. We unfortunately do not have too many teams so I'll be basing this off of attendance from surrounding regional tournaments and recent visits to national tournaments like HSNCT or PACE. Rosters are also based off of my memory and NAQT profile pages for other teams in East TN besides Farragut, so I apologize for any mistakes and feel free to add on to the list if there are any East Tennesseans.

Farragut: After much restructuring and a new sponsor, Farragut has come back into world of competitive quizbowl. A team consists of Viktoria Ohstrom, Nalin Varma, Wyatt Smith, and me. Viktoria is a senior who is our lit and mythology specialist; Nalin is also a senior and is our geography and one of our science specialists, Wyatt is a junior and the other part of our science specialists who is also our math specialist; I am the history and visual arts specialist for our team. Other mentions include junior Sam Calvert who is quite adept at Christianity and auditory arts and Elliot Fang, a sophomore who is a math and literature specialist.

Oak Ridge: A team presumably consists of junior Adi Sujithkumar, an all around specialist with a penchant for history, geography, and math; junior Candice Pang, who from my past matches seems to be the fine arts and literature person; and junior Wilder Dodson, who appears to be the humanities and general knowledge specialist. Unfortunately I couldn't remember or find any other players (https://www.naqt.com/stats/school-playe ... g_id=63021) who hadn't already graduated so if there are any Oak Ridgers who could help me out I would appreciate it.

Stem Academy: I have not faced L&N in quite some time so I will gather the information I have from their NAQT page (https://www.naqt.com/stats/school-playe ... g_id=74530) on their presumed players. I would also like to thank L&N for holding an east TN tournament to help out our local scene (http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... =1&t=18891): again, edits would be much appreciated. From what I can gather the players for L&N will include top scorer Jacob Samar, as well as players Caitlin Hutchinson, Kishan Tailor, and Isaiah Talford.

mysticallama wrote: Stem Academy: I have not faced L&N in quite some time so I will gather the information I have from their NAQT page (https://www.naqt.com/stats/school-playe ... g_id=74530) on their presumed players. I would also like to thank L&N for holding an east TN tournament to help out our local scene (http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... =1&t=18891): again, edits would be much appreciated. From what I can gather the players for L&N will include top scorer Jacob Samar, as well as players Caitlin Hutchinson, Kishan Tailor, and Isaiah Talford.

Our team definitely won't be as competitive as last year, as we lost our top scorer. Currently, I stand as the Lit and myth expert, but I am quite useless elsewhere. Also, as much as I would like to, I don't see myself having enough time to study in depth so my scoring won't increase significantly. Elsewhere, our current event and general trash player stands as Chase Compton, also a senior. Kishan (Senior) is a work in progress fine arts player. Beyond that we're looking for someone to step up and take up history and fill in other gaps in knowledge.

Looking to the future, our club has a healthy amount of juniors and freshmen(including one very promising player). I hope this means it will continue to survive on after me, as it only started in my freshmen year. Beyond just surviving, I plan on strongly suggesting to my successors to make our tournament an annual occurrence. Our Sponsor is very supportive and involved, so I believe its possible.

NHBB will be hosting a West Tennessee event at Lausanne Collegiate on December 10th, as well as a Chattanooga-area tournament on March 4th at Heritage HS just across the border in Ringgold. Both sites will use C Set, as will our southern Kentucky tournament at Glasgow HS on January 21st, so you've hopefully got an option near you that doesn't require driving entirely across the state. :)

Again, online registration can be done at this link. If you have any questions, please let me know!

I'm not the best at analyzing teams and such, but I suppose I could do my best to describe the state of West TN's quizbowl circuit.

As of right now, there has only been one NAQT-formatted tournament within 3 hours of Memphis, that being ours (White Station's). All the rest have been mostly formatted similarly to Knowledge Bowl, with minor variations between them. Also, all tournaments that have been announced for the future (except for a History Bowl Tournament at Lausanne) will be KB-formatted as well. There has also been a decrease in both the number of tournaments compared to last season and in non-local schools attending, but there is a new QB team (at least, I believe that they're new) from Northpoint that has been at most tournaments in the immediate area.

Houston has been relatively dominant throughout all of the tournaments we've attended this season, though we, CBHS, and MUS have been doing well, often coming in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th (in no particular order). Except for us, most schools seem to have strong A teams but much weaker B and (if they have them) C teams, which has been the usual for most of the time I've been in QB; our B team has been in quarterfinals at least once this year (maybe twice, but I'm terrible at remembering).

As for our members, we lost several of our strong seniors last year, like Francesca, Mary-Katherine, Asa, and Alicia, who usually made up our A team, and as such we have an overall much younger team. John and Edward, our two only seniors, have done pretty well so far this season, but others have done great too, including Grace, Levi, and I (all juniors), Tara (our lone sophomore), and Gideon, Ashley, and Dominic (all freshmen).

Hofeditz wrote:As of right now, there has only been one NAQT-formatted tournament within 3 hours of Memphis, that being ours (White Station's).

There have been several others, but they're off the radar of most Memphis-area teams: Poplar Bluff in MO (2.5 hours away) hosted their yearly tournament on NAQT and Itawamba in Fulton, MS (2 hrs) ran one in September. Also, the Ole Miss tournaments have now switched to NAQT questions, so that's another 1.5 hr drive option now.

I'd highly recommend for my alma mater (and any other Memphis-area school reading this) to make the quick drive down I-22 to Fulton for Itawamba's Mid-South Championships on Jan. 21st in particular--Coach Johnson and the Itawamba folks know how to do a good tournament.

Of course, more Memphis schools should also host more pyramidal tournaments too and as always I am happy to help from afar in any way that I can.

NHBB has a Knoxville-area regional lined up -- it'll be at Oak Ridge HS on March 25th. You can register for it (and any regional tournament) at this link. Thanks!

Did the Westfield Quizbusters show in Nashville get cancelled? I can't find links to it on the CW 58 site and it's not on the NAQT listing. I assume the PBS show in Knoxville is still going?

Knowledge Bowl on WREG in Memphis of course is still going strong at 30 years. Gotta say--other TV stations need to figure out how to emulate its sponsorship success (my coach used to make us write thank-you letters each year to all the sponsors--not a bad idea, actually, in general).

The Westfield Insurance Group pulled sponsership to 5 or 6 differing quiz bowl shows across America. The oldest in Indianapolis (50 years) is in hiatus this year. I have talked with the manager of the show at CW58 and going to continue the possibility of the show being in the fall 2017 season.

Thank you,

Looking for some more participation in the Greater Chattanooga History Bee and Bowl on March 4 at Heritage High in Ringgold, GA, just across the border from Chattanooga. We've got Farragut and Oak Ridge coming down from Knoxville and McCallie from Chattanooga. Red Bank is planning on registering, as is North Murray. The more the merrier!

I will be directing and coordinating this tournament. Trying to get some juice going here in East Tennessee!

Register Here.

Since early December, I've realized that I've needed to update everyone on the status of the West TN Quizbowl scene, so here we go!

First off, I forgot to mention Collierville and Arlington as a top-tier school for the region, which is a pity, because they've done well this year, with one of them often snagging a trophy at a tournament. However, neither of them has been able to take first at any of the tournaments that I've attended this school year (if my memory serves me well), with Arlington often being a heavily morale-based team (when they do well early on, they can often capitalize on their success and steamroll a team, but when they have a bad first few questions, they quickly fall apart).

There have also been a lot more tournaments that I anticipated since my last post. There have been usually one or two local tournaments a month here, but I fear that the regular season for QB might be over in a few weeks (if not already). The afternoon matches have become much more varied in participation, with many mid-tier schools often able to snag a spot in the quarter- or even semi-finals, but I don't think any of them have been able to compete in the finals. Houston's not been as dominant recently as they were earlier on, and it's honestly a guessing game as to who will place what now with the six top schools.

In other news, both CBHS's and our B teams have actually beaten the A teams of the same school in very close matches at the Houston tournament held the day after my last post. That's not terribly huge, but still impressive, nonetheless (and it made me very proud, too!).

We also plan to time our rounds at our next tournament (which will be held next autumn) to hopefully increase the popularity of NAQT tournaments in the area (and to speed it up a little). It should likely be better for everyone involved too, as since we now have some experience under our belts, we can run our tournaments much smoother and make it a lot more fun.

P.S. Oh, Chiego, we took your advice and went to this Saturday's tournament in Ole Miss, which was well worth it, so thank you for that! We won our 16-team bracket undefeated (narrowly), but St. Andrews just swept everyone in the final rounds, so we weren't able to actually place in the tournament. Also, we (Edward, Grace, Tara, and I) qualified for Nationals this year through said tournament, so we're going to try to attend that this year, too.

Knowledge Bowl ended with a posthumously cancelled final after they realized that multiple questions read in the final had been read verbatim earlier in previous matches. Who on earth could have forseen this happening???

Of course, this happened after White Station lost in the semis despite getting more correct answers than MUS because of the gimmicky "Extra Credit" round.

I sincerely hope that this is the impetus to finally get rid of the Academic Hallmarks crap and adopt fair, non-repeated NAQT questions for Knowledge Bowl. Not holding my breath though.