David Poston, one of the directors here at biblequizzer.net, is filling in for Bob Hamar this week.
To the best of my memory, this is the first time I have ever written anything for Biblequizzer. First I need to mention that Bob’s mother is not doing well right now. She has not fully recovered from surgery yet and now she has pneumonia. Mr. Hamar is spending alot of time with her now and wanted me to mention that he misses writing for Biblequizzer.net and will be back soon. He has asked me to fill in for him this week. Hopefully this will be the only article I will write, because I know that just as I am you are longing to hear from Bob soon.
As you know from my bio, I quizzed on the national champion Athens Bible quiz team. I quizzed all four of my high school years. Two things consistently happened each year. First, the competition as a whole progressively strengthened. Second, more and more teams from the northeast and from the west were coming and winning many of the tournaments in the southeast. I remember the days when the only powerhouses I knew of were from Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, and just a couple from the northeast.
I remember watching the finals of any given tournament (during the two rebuilding years at Athens when we just couldn’t break 7th place) and seeing Faith(SC),Hampton Park(SC),Calvary(SC), Master’s(FL), and Hobe Sound(FL) fight it ought time and time again. Then things started changing. Teams from Colorado, Texas, California, and many states up north started contending for all those tournaments. Then other states like Nebraska and Virginia got in on the action. Don’t get me wrong, I do understand that many teams from those areas have had great national caliber teams for years now. I also believe that coaches of those teams started deciding to bring their teams across the country for these southeastern tournaments. Then our coaches followed suit by taking some of our teams to tournaments far away from home.(I personally want to thank Mr. Bamford for loading up 5 or 6 of us on that plane and taking us to Denver) Now, last year, the first and fifth teams at Nationals were from Georgia and Florida. The second, third and fourth were from New York, Texas, and New Jersey respectively. I really believe I can credit our national championship at Athens to two things. First, Brant Callaway was the best quizzer in the Nation(that might sound biased but I have heard that from many non athens people also). Second, we saw those four other teams two or three times before nationals. Bible Quiz is expanding–everyday actually. I don’t believe it has gotten the recognition it deserves as an awesome competitive activity, but I can tell you that at my school (which was sports emphasized) when students heard that teams from California, Co, Tx, and many other states were coming to our New Year’s Classic, two things happened. First, students came to the tournament and realized for the first time how competitive, fun, and challenging Bible Quiz is. Second, more students started joining the Bible Quiz team each year. To all the coaches out there who have debated doing all those fundraisers and working toward taking your team to tournaments across the country, I say DO IT! Bible Quiz changed my life for good and the only person who kept me in Bible Quiz during those tough years was my coach. We weren’t good enough for him to take us to Denver that year, but experiencing those tournaments through those years drove us to trying harder. Alot harder! Hard enough to bring home that national championship last year. Biblequizzer.net salutes all the coaches out there! Keep at it!