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Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Discussion of quizbowl topics not related to specific tournaments
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wca
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Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by wca »

Why does it seem that eastern missouri is not as competitive in scholar bowl as the west, particularly the south west? Off all the teams who got to the state finals last year, only 3 would be considered from the east (Montgomery County, Bernie, and Parkway Central). It just seems that all the really good competition is in the west. Why is this? Even more striking is the almost absence of Scholar Bowl in St. Louis. I can only think of two competitive teams within the past few years, Parkway Central and Priory (recently joined by Westminster and Eureka). Outside of that, the St. Louis area is pretty dead. Does anyone know if there is a reason for these disparities in talent?

East Buc & UMR
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Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by East Buc & UMR »

SW, the only SW team that comes off the top of my head is TJ, I think more KC area and central MO. But I do not know why, my guess is the quality of school districts. I know most of the UMR team is from KC or mid mo (even though the student pop. is roughly 70% from STL)

JimmyL
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Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by JimmyL »

I wouldn't say it is a lack of high quality school districts, because I know that oftentimes, great St. Louis Schools, i.e. Ladue, Parkway District, Rockwood, and Clayton are filled with great teachers (for the most part) that breed students that often win statewide math contests other such academic competitions. And of course, they consistenly send numerous students to different high quality colleges around the country.

Mainly, I blame the disparity on a lack of commitment to quiz bowl in the east. It simply isn't taken as seriously. No team that I can think in St. Louis has their own "academic team" shirt, while a good number in the west blazon their school mascot/name on one. Also, practices are more frequent and more intense in the west. I was looking at Lexington's website...and they practice around 1.5 hours a week, at least 3 times a week. Here at PCH, we just have one practice (most of the time) each for JV and Varsity for an hour every week. Sometimes, we'll also screw around during academic lab too though.

Also, the teams in the west have a huge reputation and legacy to live up too. St. Louis teams have only begun to flourish in recent years.

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Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by East Buc & UMR »

Savannah goes for 2-3 hours a day. Also nothing says awesome team like Blue sweaters(man those things were itchy) haha. Plus I got message 100 for the board

JimmyL
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Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by JimmyL »

2-3 hours a day???
That's freaking insane....as much, if not more than a team sport.....

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Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by East Buc & UMR »

And how many tournaments have they won(they won nationals for christ sake). maybe that is STL's problem they do not feel academic bowl is a team sport. My last years of HS (along with are captain) we took classes based on how they would help us in the season. And "team" sports are limited by MSHSAA by the amount of tme they can practice

JimmyL
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Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by JimmyL »

sorry when i say team sports, i mean basketball, football, etc.
I don't really consider quiz bowl a sport, it's more of a competitive activity. I think the definition of "sport" requires a certain extent physical activity...but I definitely am not saying sports are better than quiz bowl, for sure. And it should be taken just as seriously, if not more.

Yea, we sometimes wish we could take classes, i.e. Geography, but we really don't have much room in our schedules, and even if we did, it wouldn't work out for most of us due to class conflicts. We'll just have to prep up on Geography and Mythology on our own time.

Savannah won nationals? Which one? I can't see them winning one where Thomas Jefferson in VA, New Trier, or DCC attended.

East Buc & UMR
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Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by East Buc & UMR »

I knew what you meant by team sports. But the college bowl motto is "the varisty sport of the mind" http://www.collegebowl.com , also http://www.hsquizbowl.org/ and here is the national champiship website http://www.hsquizbowl.org/champions.html

Francesco Borromini
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Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by Francesco Borromini »

Jimmy - we (Westminster) actually have our own t-shirt, but I would agree with the crux of your argument...though we'll be wearing it to districts this weekend.







B)

East Buc & UMR
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Post by East Buc & UMR »

the best shirts I have ever seen was last year at state. The adrian team wore there state football champships because most of there players were on that team(including there star football player)

missouriacademic
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Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by missouriacademic »

That's good to hear about athletes participating actively in quiz bowl, when my daughter was in quiz bowl in high school the athletes there had no part of it.

TruePirate

Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by TruePirate »

Jimmy... remember the shirts we were going to get?







B)

uhh...East Buc & UMR, i dunno what exactly you mean by quality of districts. But, the districts in St. Louis have had huge success. A wide range of people come to mind when i think of the "crummy" districts here in STL.

Nick Semenkovich (Ladue) - 1st in ISEF in his division
Anant Vinjamoori (Pkwy) - 3rd in ISEF in his division; 1st in State in Economics Challenge
Mikiko Fujiwara (Pwky) - had trouble deciding between a scholarship to Juliard and Harvard (went with Harvard)
Jerry Schultz (DeSmet (technically Pkwy)) - 1st in the nation in his event at NFLs
Chris Ottolino (Pkwy) - 'nuff said
Evan Sadler (Clayton) - can't do academic team sadly, he is too bust taking 3rd year math courses at WashU. Also placed at the USAMO
Alex Song (Ladue) - 2nd year math courses at WashU
Sharon Traiberman (Pkwy) - 1st in state in Economics Challenge
Jimmy Li (Pkwy) - the man
Rachel Dennison (Pkwy) - 240 on the PSAT; set curve in Organic Chemistry at Yale University


uhh..this list could go on and on, and aside from individuals, parkway at least has a higher average SAT score than the nation. I am 100% positive Ladue and Clayton have even higher than we do. And the private schools in STL are also pretty good.

I agree with JImmy - some kids like to goof off during practices and maybe don't take the event 100% seriously. It has NOTHING to do with the highly acclaimed school districts in MO. And i dunno what your intention was but if it was supposed to be insulting - you are just dead on wrong.

TruePirate

Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by TruePirate »

Most members of our academic team participate in some sort of varsity sport (Jimmy Li is #1 Varsity on our raquetball team)


1a. Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively. b. A particular form of this activity.
2. An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.

those are the first 2 definitions of sport listed. The next one is recreational activity. I think it depends how you define it. But i think those top two are the common man's idea of a sport. And in that case i don't think academic team is a sport. If you define sport as excercise i guess it's excercise of the mind. But i think calling it the Varsity Sport of the Mind is meant to be more of a joke than a serious statement.


*edit - I'm not George Thampy but my team mates still bitch at me for petty spelling mistakes*

East Buc & UMR
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Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by East Buc & UMR »

What school has a Raquetball? And having smart poeple does not make a district good. It takes a good coach and good school district to build a team that will stand time.

TruePirate

Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by TruePirate »

okay, i misinterpreted you. See, when you talked abotu taking classes especially for ac team. Then talked about our district. I thought you meant in general, our district is of poor quality.
In terms of academic team, i won't speak out against my coach because she's pretty dedicated but we have no where near the organization or team dedication that would allow us to have 2 hour practices daily. I can think of maybe 4 kids on our team who would show up.

East Buc & UMR
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Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by East Buc & UMR »

Maybe you should try and keep the other interested somehow. Of the 8 varisty members my senior year. 2 of us(myself and Seth who is on the team here) answer all but 3 questions. but the other kids had fun going to tournament and practice. We would crack jokes, play cards etc. Moral of the story we needed them for the 3 questions and boni, it would of been nice to have someone else get some questions but hey

TruePirate

Eastern Missouir Scholar Bowl

Post by TruePirate »

i agree abotu the fun thing. SOME PEOPLE on our team don't think that's what practice is about. We have some powerful members who think the best way to retain members is criticism, orders and a strict practice sans laughs/jokes/comments/talking

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