The 2002 Golden Bear quiz bowl team on the campus of Loyola University, New Orleans.
It has been a few years since our quiz bowl team traveled to the National Academic Championships. The first trip we made, back in the mid-'90s, the team had a 3 - 1 win/loss record and ended up #17 in the country. We returned for three years after that, but even though those teams had done well in local competition, they failed to win at nationals. This year we had one of the strongest teams we had fielded in years, and it seemed that we might once again have a chance to be competitive. So we made arrangements to travel to the national tournament in New Orleans.
Our team included seniors Bob Brandenburg, Mandy Rahm, Chris Kohlhaas, and Rebecca McGuire; juniors Steven Kellner and David Murphy; sophomores John Kohlhaas and Rebecca McGuire; and freshman Matt Courtney. In the interest of their privacy, I'll generally be avoiding their names in the body of this travelogue. In addition to me, my fellow math teacher Daryl Kohlhaas (John's dad and Chris' uncle) and his daughter Angie (a 2001 graduate who used to be our top player, and I wish was able to play at this tournament) accompanied the group on this trip. As we had on other trips, we took the school suburbans-the only way such a trip could possibly be affordable for a school like ours.
We were scheduled to leave Garrigan at 7:30am. It was not a good omen when I showed up at the gym door around 7:20 and no one was there. People started to trickle in, but well after our scheduled departure time one of the students had still not arrived. He lived in Bancroft, which is nearly a half hour drive from Algona, and he had a bit of a reputation for being late. Had this just been a regular tournament, I would have just left him and set off. However, he (or more properly his father) had paid good money for this trip, and he certainly had a right to get his money's worth.
One of the students had brought a cell phone, and we used that to try to reach our tardy teammate. Unfortunately the line was busy, so we couldn't get through. The student essentially lives alone (like more and more students today, his is a "non-traditional" family situation), so it was unlikely anyone else was on the line. Eventually another of the students was able to contact his grandmother in Bancroft and persuade her to knock on the missing kid's door. She cooperated and woke him. He rushed down to Algona, and we were finally able to leave at 8:45am.
We stopped briefly in Wesley to pick up one of the girls in the group. Together with her luggage, she brought a television set. I suppose I'm showing my age, but really I'm glad I grew up before the era where people needed a TV to be entertained as they travel. I shouldn't complain, though. The kids certainly kept quiet as they watched movies on videotape, so they were no problem at all.
We drove east to Mason City and then south on a county road to avoid the construction on the last leg of Avenue of the Saints. It was a cold, late spring this year, and the crops were just starting to push up through the ground. As we drove along I pondered how the entire countryside looked like a giant "Chia pet".
As we drove along I pondered a play I had just seen with Margaret at the Commonweal Theatre in the town of Lanesboro, Minnesota, near where she lives. The play was called How I Learned to Drive. The Pulitzer prize-winning play is a dark drama about child abuse, but on the surface it really is about learning to drive. They make transitions in the show by quoting lines from an old driver's manual about the proper way to execute various maneuvers on the road. While I certainly know all the "rules", I don't always strictly follow them. For instance, I rarely drive with both hands locked at specific hours on the clock. I pondered every "mistake" I made as I headed down the road.
I had scheduled a brief toilet break at the Kwik Star convenience store in Parkersburg. This turned out to be anything but quick. Not only did it take time for the kids to go in and out of the bathroom one at a time, but most of them also spent time selecting and buying various snacks. We ended up spending nearly half an hour in Parkersburg.
We switched drivers, and Angie drove in place of me through eastern Iowa. We made it to Cedar Rapids when Daryl came on the CB radio asking when we would be making another stop. We had been traveling barely an hour, but apparently one of the students in his suburbans passed on the bathroom opportunity in Parkersburg. We stopped at the rest area on I-380 south of C.R., killing another fifteen minutes in the process.
I took over driving again at the rest area. We passed Iowa City and then continued south on the new four-lane to Mt. Pleasant. They've got Avenue of the Saints open all the way there now, though at the moment they're doing work on the exits, which makes it awkward to reach the strip on what is now old 218. We exited onto highway 34 and backtracked up to the strip, where we stopped at a combination KFC/Taco Bell for lunch. This, too, took longer than the forty-five minutes I had tentatively scheduled. All day long we just seemed to get further and further behind schedule.
We continued southward on 218, past massive construction where they're building the southernmost Iowa section of Avenue of the Saints. Having spent most of my life traveling through this area on bad two-lane roads, it's hard to imagine an expressway leading all the way from the Twin Cities to St. Louis. Supposedly the whole thing will be done by 2004, though.
We stopped for gas in Hannibal and then drove southward to St. Louis. I had hoped to arrive in the city at mid afternoon, but with all the delays it was right at rush hour when we got there. Driving was easy as we headed toward the city through the western suburbs. Once we got past the beltway, though, things were bumper-to-bumper and barely moving. We fought a combination of heavy traffic and construction all the way through the southern suburbs, and it was after six by the time we were finally out of the metro area. We stopped at the first rest area south of St. Louis to take a bathroom break and calm our nerves a bit.
Whenever I head south it amazes me how abruptly the cropland dies. St. Louis is pretty much the boundary between north and south. You see fields along US 63 north of the city, but south of there on I-55, it's all forest. While there are stretches of crops again (notably in Arkansas), it's mostly forest all the way from here to the Gulf of Mexico. The same thing happens at Chicago heading eastward, where there's an abrupt change from farms to trees as you drive along.
We drove about a hundred miles south to Cape Girardeau, where we stopped at a mall for supper. While there were numerous food choices available, virtually everyone chose to eat at Chick Fil A, a fast food chicken place that is big in the South. This was a problem almost every time we stopped for meals. I tried to pick places where there were a variety of different choices, assuming the kids would split up to eat. They almost always all ended up eating at the same place, and that really slowed things down.
Two members of our group chose to skip dinner and go shopping instead. If we hadn't already been so far behind schedule, I probably wouldn't care, but this just slowed things down more. We all waited by the door for them to finish their shopping spree-checking out the exact same stores they could find in Fort Dodge or Mankato.
It was dark by the time we left Cape Girardeau. Soon after it started to rain, and the last stretch of the drive was far from pleasant. It went quickly, though, and before long we were at the Arkansas border. We drove about five miles further on to Blytheville, one of those places that has no reason to be important but thrives as the only thing between here and there on the interstate. We spotted our hotel (a Days Inn) from the exit, but it took quite a bit of doing to figure out how to get here. It's one of those places that has no access of its own; we had to enter through a nearby fast food place, and it was really difficult to spot where to go at night.
We finally arrived about 9:45pm, got checked in, and settled into adequate if hardly luxurious motel rooms. I had been feeling horrible all day, fighting a bad sinus infection. I certainly didn't want to take antihistamines while driving, though, so it was good to settle into the motel and take something to dry up all the draining fluid. I don't think we even turned on the TV; we just settled into bed after a long, long day.
We were up seven-ish and enjoyed a rather nice breakfast in the motel lobby. Unfortunately, I also spent breakfast listening to one of the girls complain about the hotel. She really didn't have any specific complaints; she just didn't like the fact that it was old, and she imagined all sorts of potential problems it could have. (She didn't want to sleep on the bed, because she imagined the bodily fluids of thousands of motel patrons over the decades-as if they didn't launder the sheets daily.) While I tried to be more polite, my basic reaction was "tough for you". We were traveling on a budget, and I had spent a great deal of time finding motels that would not price the trip out of reach of many of the students. While this place was hardly the Waldorf Astoria, it was perfectly clean. Then again, she might not have liked the Waldorf Astoria either; it's an old hotel.
We drove south past the absolutely flat delta region of Arkansas. There was lots of construction on I-55. About every 10 miles we'd get a sign saying there was construction for the next 10 miles. I wondered why they didn't just put a "CONSTRUCTION-NEXT 80 MILES" sign at the border and leave it at that.
We crossed the Mississippi at Memphis. The river was very high, and the bridge there is obsolete. I was a bit worried after hearing about a horrible bridge accident in Oklahoma last week, and I was certainly relieved to arrive on the Tennessee side of the river. It was rush hour in Memphis, and they had a lot of construction there too. Fortunately they timed things so that in the morning all the construction was in the outbound lanes of the interstate. I assume they shift things around in the afternoon so there's inbound construction at evening rush. That method certainly worked better than closing up everything like they did in St. Louis.
We stopped at a rest area near Batesville, Mississippi. The kids noticed the forest and had the same reaction I did the first time I came south. Everyone expects to see cotton fields all over the place in Dixie. We did see a few of them in Arkansas, but from Memphis to New Orleans, it's pretty much trees the whole way.
We drove on south to Jackson, past more construction in the rapidly growing suburban area of Madison, Mississippi. We went around Jackson on the beltway and then joined a heavy stream of traffic south of the city on I-55. We exited at the far south end of greater Jackson (the town of Byram) where we bought gas and had lunch at a Wendy's.
It's a fairly short drive from Jackson down to the Louisiana border, though one of the duller "forest tunnels" I've seen anywhere in the country. We stopped at the state welcome center just inside Louisiana. The southern states go all out with their rest areas-especially their welcome centers-and the kids were certainly impressed with this one. Among other things, the rest area had its own little lake, with a fish cleaning station. While we just used the restroom, the kids were certainly intrigued by the idea of fishing at a rest area.
We drove abut half an hour southward to Ponchatula. The world's longest bridge runs through the Manchac Swamp for thirty-eight miles from here to New Orleans. The kids didn't really believe me when I told them we would be crossing the world's longest bridge, but as we made our way along it for over half and hour, they were definitely impressed. I'm always amazed at what a work of engineering it is-especially when I go through the massive interchange of I-55 and I-10, right in the middle of the swamp.
The interstate hits ground level right at the edge of suburban New Orleans. That's also where we hit some of the heaviest traffic I've ever seen. I've not normally found New Orleans a particularly difficult city to drive in. Traffic is never light, but it usually moves right along. Today, though, it reminded me of St. Louis. Eventually, though, we made it to the Carrollton Avenue exit and drove past the streetcar line to Loyola University.
I was amazed at how easy it was to park at Loyola. When we had been here about five years ago, parking spaces were definitely at a premium. This time we were able to pull into a lot right next to the dorm where we would be staying. We checked in (a very inefficient, time-consuming process, where each kid got individually lectured about the various fines that would be imposed for damaging property or losing their key) and made our way up to our rooms.
The dorms at Loyola all look like big city housing projects, cheaply built skyscrapers surrounding a trampled grass courtyard. We were on an upper floor, with a lovely view of a parking ramp that was probably five feet from our building. All of our group were on one side of the same floor, and things were set up so two rooms (four people) shared a common bath. I really don't care much for that set-up; I prefer the big common bath down the hall. I also didn't care for the fact that all the furniture at Loyola was built in. I can't imagine spending a year here, though it was certainly no problem to be in for a couple of days.
Our first game was at 5:30 in the Claiborne Room. All the competition rooms were in a student union building at the center of Loyola's compact campus. There were lots of signs for the Claiborne Room, but try as we might, we couldn't find the actual room. It turned out that the room was a private dining room, hidden inside the main cafeteria. Having not ordered a meal plan, we had to coax our way past the clerk at the entrance, but we got into the room with no real problem.
The match was against Kinkaid High School, an enormous private school from Houston, Texas. While I don't know, it wouldn't surprise me if this was where the Bush girls went to school. Texas is probably the most competitive state there is in quiz bowl, and the overdressed boys from Kinkaid had won their state championship. It was no surprise that we lost a lopsided game. I was at least able to use the game to do some actual coaching. I was able to point out things Kinkaid had done right and things we had done wrong, that we should adjust in future games. I also pointed out that the kids had held their own in the first round of the game (they actually led at one point), and there was no reason they should feel bad about things.
By contrast the coach from Kinkaid seemed disappointed with his team. He was criticizing them and pointing out every little thing that he felt was wrong with the game. (Again, they won-and won big.) I've seen a lot of quiz bowl coaches that over-react to things, but that's certainly not my philosophy. I've always had the attitude that it's a good thing quiz bowl is a "minor" activity. If we do well, we brag about things; if we lose, no one really cares. It's not like a quiz bowl coach has parents second-guessing him like sports coaches do ... and even in "major" activities like football, it's not like anyone really cares about the outcome two weeks after the season's over.
One of our students had an uncle who lived on the Mississippi coast. He had contacted his uncle, who had said he would be showing up to see our match against Kinkaid. Unfortunately he never showed. I wondered if perhaps he had even more trouble finding the road than we did, but he never contacted the kid or left a message to explain his absence.
After the game we took the St. Charles streetcar downtown (about a 35-minute trip) to have dinner. While there are numerous fast food places on Canal Street at the end of the streetcar line, this time virtually everybody chose to go to Popeye's, a Cajun chicken place based in New Orleans that caters mostly to black people. (Aside from the Gulf Coast, the only other place I've seen them is in inner-city areas of Chicago and Los Angeles.) I had never eaten dinner at a Popeye's before. I had breakfast there once and was disgusted by it, so I was pleasantly surprised that the dinner was really quite tasty.
On our streetcar ride back to Loyola we were "entertained"-and I use that term very loosely-by a black man of questionable sobriety who was crooning love songs from the '70s to no one in particular. Periodically he would forget the words and have to look at a lyric sheet in his lap. On those occasions he bellowed the music even louder. At one point the driver stopped the car and came back to tell the man to shut up. He scolded the man in no uncertain terms, and the man did quiet down for a couple minutes. Before long he started in again, though, and he continued his concert for most of the journey.
It was not exactly a surprise to find that the kid who had hurried down from Bancroft had forgotten to bring some things with him. One other student had also forgotten to bring shampoo, and I agreed to take the two of them to a Rite Aid drugstore (like a small Walgreen's) I knew was a few stops down from Loyola. We waited and waited and waited for an inbound car. Eventually we started walking, and we had made it about two stops by the time one finally showed. The kids found their stuff and got checked out quickly, and fortunately we almost immediately caught a car for a quick ride back to Loyola. Everybody settled in, and before long we were off to sleep.
I was up fairly early and went for a long morning walk. I crossed campus and walked along St. Charles Avenue, following the streetcar line out to Carrollton. Just around the corner at St. Charles and Carrollton is a Burger King, and I paused there to catch a bite of breakfast. I wandered back on side streets, past "shotgun" bungalows with jungle-like yards.
Our second game was at 10:45 this morning. We played Holland High Upper School, an elite private school from Tulsa, Oklahoma that is vaguely affiliated with the Episcopal Church. I know people (mostly members of my church) who think that Garrigan is an elite school, simply because it is private. They've obviously never been acquainted with private schools in the South. Holland Hall charges about $12,000 a year in tuition. Garrigan charges about a tenth of that amount, and many of our families receive special assistance and essentially pay what they can afford. We never turn people away from Garrigan; indeed many times we have been the school of last resort when students were kicked out of area public schools. I don't picture that happening at Holland Hall. While I'm sure it's a good school, I don't think I'd be very comfortable working there.
It was surprising that the team from Holland Hall really wasn't that good. Three of their four members answered almost no questions, and the fourth (who could only be described as a classic nerd) had glaring areas of weakness in his knowledge. We were really the better team, and we led through the first two-thirds of the game. At one point, in fact, we were ahead by over 100 points.
That was when the Holland Hall nerd complained that he didn't think his buzzer was working correctly. My personal bet is that he wasn't pressing it correctly, but the moderator immediately stopped the game until things could be fixed. A repair woman came in, tore apart the game show set, installed a new buzzer system, and then re-constructed the set.
The whole process took over half an hour, and that break was all it took to shift the momentum of the game. Our team proceeded to buzz in too quickly on a couple of questions. The opponents got those questions, together with their associated bonuses, and they quickly came within striking distance. It all came down to the lightning round, where teams answer ten questions on related topics. The "easy" category would have been "Christmas Anagrams", but apparently no one from Garrigan knew that "anagram" meant scrambled letters. Our team instead chose the "Mystery Category", which proved next to impossible. Holland Hall went with the anagrams, and they got eight of ten-enough to win the game. Our captain, who had buzzed in early and chosen the lightning round, blamed himself for the loss. Really, though, I feel it was the delay that broke the momentum and shifted the outcome of the game.
I had planned to treat the group to lunch at the Royal Café, a historic restaurant in the French Quarter where I had enjoyed many pleasant meals. We took the streetcar downtown and made our way past Jackson Square and to the restaurant. Unlike my previous experiences, though, this meal was really rather disappointing. We had asked to be seated on their balcony, but even though space was available there we ended up at a crowded indoor table next to the bathrooms. It was set with paper napkins, unlike the cloth I had seen before at the Royal Café. The service was indifferent, and the food didn't seem up to their usual standards. I don't know if they've changed management or what, but I was less than impressed with the place this time.
We had the afternoon off, so the kids divided into small groups and spent the free time sightseeing. Two of the boys joined Daryl and me. We walked through Jackson Square. I remember that when I was first here they had locked the place up because of a series of dangerous crimes. It's open again, now, and it really is quite a lovely little park. We then had coffee and beignets (fried dough with powdered sugar-like the Indian fry bread they serve at Old Threshers) at the Café du Monde and strolled down the Moon Walk next to the Mississippi. The boys wanted to go to the Aquarium of the Americas, but thought better of it when they saw the double-digit entrance fee. In front of the aquarium there was a display set up by the Louisiana dairy industry. They passed out free milk (most of it in unusual flavors), together with dairy-related souvenirs. The boys picked up headgear similar to those crowns they give away at Burger King, but in the design of cow ears. They were designed for small children, but the woman in charge of the place was delighted to see people of "role model" age wearing them.
We made our way back to Jackson Square, where we went to the Louisiana State Museum. I remember going here when I was a student in Mississippi. My friend Sandra and I were amused to see a banner advertising "The Social Life of the American Alligator", so we succumbed and went in. It was one of the worst museums I had ever seen. Indeed Sandra and I spent most of that afternoon laughing at how awful the place was. Well, it hasn't changed much in a decade. They've gotten rid of the alligators, but they still have hallway after hallway full of badly painted portraits of people you've never heard of.
The most interesting part of the museum was its second floor balcony. We relaxed there and spent quite a bit of time just watching the people in Jackson Square below us. Most interesting was a woman who told fortunes in front of the cathedral. I don't know if her hair was her own or a wig, but it was teased and then covered with a silver metallic spray that made her head look like a giant Brillo pad. Almost no one stopped by her to have their fortune told, so she spent most of her time smoking. I kept wondering if there was anything flammable in the silver hairspray that the cigarette could ignite.
There was also a gospel band that was playing for tips in the plaza. They were really quite good, and people left lots of money in their guitar case. I'd imagine people could earn an actual living as street performers, though I prefer the security of a fixed salary myself.
We made our way up to Bourbon Street and then back down to the French Market. We had dinner at a Subway sandwich shop. I pondered getting a cone from the TCBY yogurt stand that was in the same building, but they wanted $3.69 for their smallest size. We then met the group back by the cathedral and took the streetcar back to Loyola.
I had another long morning walk, taking a different set of streets to that same Burger King on Carrollton. I'm not really much of a fan of Burger King's breakfasts, but it was what was available in the neighborhood-and beggars can't be choosers.
Our first game today brought controversy. In the end it also brought us a win, but it took two weeks for that to happen. We were playing Waverly High School, a public school from a small town near Elmira in upstate New York. Waverly was 0 - 3 coming into this game, and it appeared they had fared worse in their three games than we had done in the two games we played. I was pretty confident we could win this game, and I encouraged the kids to do their best. This was a close game from beginning to end. We led all the way to the lightning round, but the final scoreboard showed Waverly winning by a five-point margin.
That was not the end of things, though. Throughout the game the Waverly coach, a woman I can only describe as "bitchy" complained about the wording of various questions and answers, and points were reversed based on her protests that led to Waverly's win. After returning home I sent a lengthy, but polite e-mail to Chip Beall, the tournament director, explaining the situation to him. It's probably most efficient to just use that letter to explain what happened in this game:
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