When people think of a sports team, soccer, basketball, volleyball comes to mind… But there is one unlike the rest: Scholastic Bowl. Scholastic Bowl is a non-athletic team at Parker. It’s considered an official team as members were recognized at the 2023 Winter Athletics Banquet for winning the IHSA Sectional. Together the team has won many awards and championships. They recently beat Latin and have been developing more healthy rivalries, such as with Walter Payton.
Scholastic Bowl is a team knowledge competition. Two teams are ready with buzzers, and once the question is asked, they have to be the fastest person to hit the buzzer and answer the question correctly. They can collaborate with the team to answer the bonus questions. The questions are about things you would most likely learn in school, focusing on four main subjects: math, English/literature, history, and science, with the occasional pop culture and sports questions.
Scholastic Bowl at Parker was first started in the 2017-2018 school year by science teacher Xiao Zhang and learning resources teacher Bridget Walsh. After working at Beacon Academy before coming to Parker, math teacher Ethan Levine recalls, “I always had the idea that we would eventually start a team here, but when I heard they were doing it I just kind of joined in.” In the 2018-2019 school year the Scholastic Bowl began practicing. “We’ve [Scholastic Bowl] been kind of going strong since then, sort of gradually ramping up the amount of competitions that we go to each year,” Levine said. This year, Scholastic Bowl’s schedule is pretty packed with competitions, especially in the winter season.
As the team at Parker has progressed, they have grown bigger and more successful. They won Regionals for the past three years and last year advanced to the State Finals. Scholastic Bowl has also qualified and participated in the National Academic Quiz Tournament High School National Championship Tournament in Atlanta. The tournament is open to all schools, public and private, as long as they qualify. Scholastic Bowl has more name recognition in the Upper School which makes more people want to join. Students also like the success that comes with winning and answering questions correctly. Senior Grant Koh thinks, “It’s a nice way to celebrate what you know and also to become aware of more things to learn.”
The team holds two practices weekly to gear up and get ready for competitions. At practices the team will read old questions from past competitions. There are thousands and thousands of questions that may be asked at a tournament which may seem daunting, but over many tournaments, questions begin to repeat. Grant understands that the team is not going to get every question right. But he reminds himself to “focus on what you can get and as much as possible… stay focused.” Some kids also like to specialize in one topic like fine arts or history. Levine likes to describe the Scholastic Bowl practices as a “casual relaxed atmosphere where people can just come hang out, practice, and answer some questions.”
At Scholastic Bowl tournaments, competitors are there for almost a full day and participate in the matches. Levine likes to call it an “endurance sport” because participants have so many games in one day. An active player might hear around 180 questions and 180 bonus questions on that day of tournament play. At one tournament Levine attended “there were 70 teams and …five games of play in the morning, a lunch break and then four more playoff rounds in the afternoon based on how we do in the morning.” Different tournaments have different question subjects, so some tournaments will have more questions that relate to sports and pop culture while others are more academic focused.
The Scholastic Bowl holds MX’s every year. Two teams compete against each other, with some questions posed to the audience. Audience members enjoy answering a question correctly, and this is a good way of advertising for Scholastic Bowl. When Koh was a freshman, he watched the Scholastic Bowl MX and it excited him. “It seemed like a fun thing to do,” Koh said.
Once students go to competitions, they want more, which motivates them to come to practice and work on their game. Levine sees this determination and drive in many of the Scholastic Bowl players, and said, “[Scholastic Bowl] can be a Varsity Sport for a kid if that’s what they’re looking for and can also be a place where someone can just come to hang out once in a while if they just want to have fun. The only requirement in Scholastic Bowl is that you have fun.”
