PA Discussion 2012

[EASTstroudsburg13]

I was wondering if there is some sort of state Quiz bowl for Pennsylvania. I know we have this, but it doesn't say anything about a national tournament on it. I'd like to know if there is any Quiz Bowl set up in PA.

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[bt_green_warbler]

Welcome to the forums!

The two national tournaments you should consider qualifying for are NAQT's High School National Championship Tournament (May 26-27, Atlanta) and PACE's National Scholastics Championship (June 9-10, St. Louis).

There aren't very many qualifying tournaments in eastern Pennsylvania right now (many teams play only the format that leads to the IU-based state championship, which has a number of drawbacks). Three points to consider:

1. It is very likely that there will be a Pennsylvania state championship for NAQT in spring 2012, which your team should certainly attend

2. Wissahickon High School (suburban Philadelphia, so relatively close by) is considering hosting a high school tournament this spring

3. East Stroudsburg is very close to the New Jersey line, so you should start attending northern New Jersey tournaments as soon as you can. Bloomfield, Millburn, and Chatham High Schools in northern NJ are all hosting NAQT tournaments this spring (calendar)

[MahoningQuizBowler]

I'm surprised I beat David to posting this, but you are also welcome to register for and attend The National History Bee and Bowl's three tournaments that are closest to you. Our C set is being played at Wyoming Valley near Scranton on March 24. The B set will be used in Ridgewood, NJ on February 4. Our most challenging set, the A set, is being used at Princeton on February 25. These are all within 80 miles of you, per Google Maps. You can qualify to our National tournament in Washington, D.C. on April 28-29 at any one of these tournaments. The bowl is a 4-player team competition, similar to all-subject quizbowl, while the Bee is a tournament for individuals. All of our questions have been written by HSAPQ since last year's national tournament. If you're not familiar with their work, check them out at hsapq.com.

Whichever good tournaments you choose to play, I hope you and your team will play as often as possible...and if you need to raise money for that to happen, you can always host a tournament. I believe there are a number of people here who would be willing to help your team run a tournament if it meant getting another team plugged into the circuit for the long term, and you'll be spoiled for choice in terms of pyramidal sets to choose from. You've probably seen elsewhere on these boards calls for mirrors of housewritten tournaments. You can do that or buy a set from NAQT or HSAPQ.

Another option to consider alongside the weekend tournaments you'll find here is the possibility of organizing a mid-week league, either consisting of schools in your athletic conference or your county, running on good questions. As the former director of a 16 school, 32 team county league that switched from Ohio's state format to NAQT questions and format in 2007, I'd be happy to give advice on setting something like that up.

[Black-throated Antshrike]

Charter in Delaware is hosting a spring tournament on February 11th along with the Delaware History Bowl on January 14th, which would both be excellent tournaments to attend.

Also, the University of Delaware is hosting the Blue Hen Invitational in March, which would be another good tournament to go to.

[EASTstroudsburg13]

Okay, thanks a lot! I don't know if we'll be able to attend any tournaments this year, since we'd have to get school permission, but I'll bring up the suggestions and hopefully next year we'll be able to do some of these tournaments. So far, we've only ever competed against schools in our area, and I thought it would be cool to branch out a little bit.

[Bad Boy Bill]

1. It is very likely that there will be a Pennsylvania state championship for NAQT in spring 2012, which your team should certainly attend

Jeff -- was any progress made on this topic?

[bt_green_warbler]

Indeed it was. Manheim Township will be hosting the eastern Pennsylvania state championship on March 31st (using IS #114A).

[Bad Boy Bill]

It's not looking promising for Delaware to get off the ICT waitlist, so I'll help moderate.

[EASTstroudsburg13]

I wish I'd have been a bit more diligent in suggesting attending these tournaments to my coach, I've been quite busy lately with the musical, Science Olympiad, and a whole sort of applications, so this unfortunately regressed to the back of my mind. Ideally, I'd like to see if I could get a group of four or so to go to the Eastern PA finals, but our second performance for our musical is on March 31, so it probably wouldn't work too well. I'm hoping, in the future, my team can get more involved, even if it is without me.