In this sport, kids exercise their brains

By ROWENA PLETT

Staff writer

“Our sport has a ball without even having a ball.”

That’s how longtime Centre coach Angela Basore describes scholars bowl.

It doesn’t get the attention that basketball and football get, but the extracurricular activity attracts the brightest and best students.

Basore spends time during the summer writing questions. They are selected from an archive of questions from past meets.

At Centre, scholar’s bowl is open to all high school students. Students practice during September and October. Practices serve as a tryout, in which scores are tallied to designate varsity team starters.

Meets officially open the second week of October and increase in January, before regional meets at the beginning of February.

State competitions are annually on the second Saturday of February.

Centre hosted a meet in January. Many volunteers were needed as each competition room had an adult moderator, two judges, and student scorekeepers and timers.

Teams compete in pool play, and then move on to championship rounds. Each round consists of 16 standard questions from content taught in common high school subjects like history, language, mathematics, science, and fine arts and miscellaneous categories such as sports, foreign language, or a specific theme.

Basore enjoys coaching scholars’ bowl because it gives her a chance to get to know students and celebrate with them when they have correct responses.

“The meets are always exciting and filled with interesting questions,” she said.

Centre participated in regional competition Thursday at Beloit. The team advanced to the championship round by placing first against St. John’s, Hanover, Hope, Wakefield, and Wetmore.

Centre placed fourth in championship play, ending its season. The top three advanced to state competition.

Junior high quiz bowl competition began Monday.

Basore is assisted by Tana Riffel.