Question: What’s an awesome club at South High?
Answer: The Scholar Bowl!
Teacher Scott Degitz-Fries is one of the sponsors of the Scholar Bowl team at South High. Degitz-Fries highlighted something that’s often overlooked.
“I think a lot of people think ‘oh I gotta be in an honors class if I want to get into Scholar Bowl’ but everybody can join because we need people who know everything, even if it’s just random facts,” he said.
Degitz-Fries also clarified what the Scholar Bowl team actually is.
“Scholar Bowl is, what I would say, is the high school version of Jeopardy, but we play in teams, not individually,” he said
But how do competitions actually work? It turns out that there are a lot of components that make these competitions fun!
“We play in teams of 4, and we play in competitions against other schools on Saturdays, typically,” he said. “Basically how it works is they ask a toss-up question and teams buzz in like in Jeopardy and whoever gets the toss-up question gets to answer the bonus question and then that’s how you score.”
Degitz-Fries also explained what happens if there’s a tie during competition.
“If there’s a tie, it goes to Sudden Death,” Degitz-Fries said. “Basically, they ask another question as a toss-up and the team that gets that toss-up question right wins.”
Junior Connor Farnsworth is the Vice President of the Scholar Bowl team and he talked about his experiences with Scholar Bowl.
“I think Scholar Bowl is really interesting because of the people. It’s a bunch of people coming together to see who knows the most random stuff, because the stuff isn’t really academic,” he said.
The questions come from a variety of categories, so everyone has their preferences. Junior Kevin Werts is partial toward History and Geography questions, while Farnsworth is a fan of Pop Culture.
Something noticeable is that a large portion of the team is on the upperclassmen side of the students at South High. This is a big issue according to senior Seda Murphy.
“This is a bit of a problem, because at this rate, we won’t have enough members to play! We’re looking for more freshmen and sophomores to join!” she said.
Werts has an idea about why there’s such a shortage in underclassmen in the program.
“… we have more people now. But it’s usually upperclassmen. I think probably because freshmen think they’re not smart enough, that’s my main theory,” he said.
However, this just isn’t true. Everyone had a similar message about this dilemma.
“We’re always looking for new members! Anyone interested in trivia or looking to make new friends, visit Mr. Degitz’ room (1710) after school every Monday until 3:30,” Murphy said.
While Farnsworth said, “Join Scholar Bowl, we are always looking for new members.”
And finally, Werts stated, “I encourage anyone who this interview applies to to join cause, you know, it never hurts to have more people.”
