For the first time in school history, Scholars Bowl is heading to State on Feb. 15 in Hutchinson, Kansas. They achieved this by placing third at Regionals among other schools in eastern Kansas.
Scholars Bowl coach Andrew Berding said the team qualifying for State is impressive because of how new the team is.
“This is our third year [having a team] so qualifying for State is a big deal for us because we are going up against other schools that have run programs for decades,” Berding said.
Senior Luke Haskins has been a part of the team for two years. He said the experience at Regionals was less pressure than most may assume.
“The competitions all start at like 4 p.m. so they’re all after school,” Haskins said. “You just show up, you play seven rounds in the prelims and then, depending on how you place, you go to finals and then depending on where you place from there, you go to State.”
Berding said he gives students an opportunity to prepare for competition by supplying practice materials.
“We have nearly every round of State and Regional questions that’s been asked since 1996, so we do rounds together,” Berding said. “We do students versus students and then we have digital flash cards and stuff that we’ve created, so we have thousands of questions that people can practice on their own.”
Scholars Bowl competitions include questions in all subjects. Berding said a common misconception students make is they are not smart enough to compete.
“We’re pretty low-stress,” Berding said. “It’s open to everybody. You do not have to be amazing at every single subject that’s ever existed in school. We have people who are just really good at social studies questions or really good at science and health questions or world language questions.”
Haskins said going to school and practice helps prepare him for success in Scholars Bowl. He said the community is good and everyone is really nice.
“Competition is big, but there’s no mean spirit or anything,” Haskins said. “There aren’t real rivalries or anything.”
Berding said the team is small so it’s hard to get recognition. The team being new also contributes to the lack of acknowledgement.
“We don’t have a lot of people, we don’t bring in a lot of money, we’re not really a spectator sport that much,” Berding said. “So sometimes, it’s hard for us to get ourselves out there and just let people know that we exist. But we do, and it turns out we’re actually pretty good, so anybody could join us if they wanted to.”
