Why I want my children to play quizbowl

[Joshua Rutsky]

I was thinking about this last night, and one of the things I'm really grateful for in my life is having found quizbowl.

It's odd, perhaps, given that I actually wasn't good enough to make my school's team back in high school, but even then I really loved the idea of quizbowl. I love the idea that all the classes that you take over the course of your life, even the ones that officially have nothing whatsoever to do with your future career in any visible way, are valued when you play quizbowl. I love the way that the books you read, the words you remember, the characters or events you internalize over a lifetime can suddenly become jewels of the moment.

I love that I was reading a Danish mystery novel last night, and that a character was coming from Yaounde, and I immediately knew he had been in Cameroon. Thanks, quizbowl.

I love the people I have met while coaching quizbowl. There are the people who stopped to compliment our team on our bowling shirts the first year we came to HSNCT, and there are the teams that laughed with us at tournaments all over the Southeast when we answered, "yes, we're that team from the school on Two-A-Days, but none of us have gotten arrested yet." There are the folks I have taught at ACE camp, the teams we have encouraged and been encouraged by over the years, and the random coaches who stop me and say, "Hey, Rutsky! How's it going?" when I'm walking through the hotel. I love meeting the people I've posted with on this forum over the years, some of whom I have had really explosive arguments with, and thinking, "wow, totally not who I expected was on the other end of that post."

I love the level of genuine sportsmanship in quizbowl. Yes, we get competitive. Yes, there have been some really bad apples in the barrel over the last couple of years. Whatever. The vast majority of players and coaches I've met are respectful, thoughtful, and play with honor and pride, knowing that they are part of a really cool club that the rest of the world probably will never see as a really cool club. I especially love the coaches and players who have done the right thing in matches, acknowledging missed questions or errors that a moderator made when they didn't have to, because winning a quiz bowl match unfairly completely defeats the whole purpose of playing quizbowl matches, and that's one place where our game is still better than just about anything else--we still haven't gotten to the "results trump everything else" place that school activities go to tarnish.

I love that quizbowl has made me close to some of the best kids I have ever taught, and has made me get to know some of the best kids anyone else taught. It restores a lot of my faith in why we teach.

I love that the things I tell my kids at night will matter in ten years, and that someday, my son will power a question because he and I sat up late reading David Macaulay's book Castle, and he will know exactly what a garderobe is when it gets tossed up.

I can't wait to laugh about it with him.

Thanks, quizbowl. And thanks to each of you who play it.

[ValenciaQBowl]

This is a great post, Joshua; thanks for writing it! I hope you (and the quiz bowl umma) have a great winter holiday.