It is a standard classroom, except for
two things. First, it’s Saturday, and second, teenagers in
the room don’t look bored or blank: they look elated or
dismayed.
They’re clustered in groups of four, each
holding contraptions that look like bomb detonators. An adult at
the front reads from a sheet of paper: “The category is: subatomic
particles.” Noise fills the room. Three lights appear on the box of
a college student holding a time-keeping device, each light an
instant after the other.
“Team B was first,” the
college-age timekeeper says, looking at the adolescents in the
middle group. They in turn look searchingly at each other since,
after all, the question wasn’t even completed.
“Electron,” says a disheveled-looking boy on the end. “That is
incorrect,” the announcer-reader replies.
“Next was team
A,” the timekeeper says.
“Quark, says a small girl with
enormous glasses.
“No,” says the reader.
“Team
C?” asks the watch-woman. A tall boy with long curly hair looks at
his team. One holds up five fingers, one holds up two; the last one
looks like she’s in a trance. Nothing happens for 10 seconds.
Then the timekeeper says, “Five seconds.” “Alejandro,” the captain
says, pointing to the one who’d held up five
fingers.
“Charm quark?” he says.
“Yes!” the
announcer says with disbelief, amazed again at the quick reflexes
and smart guesses of the team.
This is a Knowledge Bowl,
and I have been competing in these nerdy athletics since the fifth
grade. I’m now 16, and I’m going to keep at it through
high school, college and afterward, if I can. But my choice now
creates a few problems: I’m nearly 6’4″, probably
tallest in the school, and that makes me a magnet for the
basketball coach. He knows I love the game, having played
basketball since the third grade.
But this year I gave up
the sporting life, which is not the most popular choice in a small
town in the mountains of western Colorado. “You’re crazy to
quit,” was a common reaction. Here’s what drove me:
I’ve noticed that some people get stuck at age 18. I even
know some graduates who return to their palace, the high school gym
in this town of 1,000, wishing they could play again. That’s
not for me. I want out. I’ve had senioritis for several years
now.
But mainly, I love knowledge bowl for the challenge.
I bet it’s better than Las Vegas for random possibilities. It
is impossible to have read every book, but I hope to have read the
one that might be the subject of the next question. The payoff is a
feeling that I don’t find duplicated anywhere else. All the
right chemicals are secreted to the brain when the judge accepts an
answer. I’d even bet that competitions are more addictive
than a slot machine.
It’s also socially addictive.
The students involved are, to say the least, different, at least
from the perspective of non-participants. I love the difference.
The winners of last year’s state competition were from
Durango, in southwestern Colorado. One member wore green surgical
scrubs and rabbit ears. A competitor from Aspen wore a top hat;
another wore green, camouflage Ché Guevara fatigues.
Last year, the team from my high school in Delta County was one of
the most successful. We won second place at the state competition
at Adams State College in Alamosa after a long and tense, double
overtime. Each member of a second place team wins $750 scholarship
to college, so the team even got paid to answer questions.
The starting four were Joe Spalenka, Brandon Coble, Jamie Bacon and
Joel Anderson. They played chess endlessly — in the vans on the
trips, before and after meets, and sometimes even during
competition. Some said at home that they’d lean out of bed
and paw around for their small-scale, magnetic chess
board.
All four graduated last year. So we are now a young
team in the “rebuilding” stage. It is hard to recruit new members,
since high schoolers get so mired in the swamp of peer pressure
that they don’t think to escape. But those who do join us
never look back. They learn the extreme pleasures of being a nerd
— a swift nerd with buzzer and brain — and the teamwork that
makes it click.
Nate Adkisson is a contributor
to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News in Paonia,
Colorado (hcn.org). He is a sophomore at Cedaredge High
School.
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