As we move into the new quizzing year, some teams are thankful that they can put their disappointing year behind them. Others wouldn’t mind basking in the memories of taking the stage at one of the prestigious tournaments to be awarded with a gleaming trophy. So that’s pretty much it, right? Some did well last year; some didn’t. Ok, so we can move on to the new year then, right? WRONG!!
I believe that while we are making our preparations for a great new year, we are forgetting something important from the last one. What happened to Bible Quizzing in the Southeast last year? Let’s take a quick look at the results from the two most respected tournaments.
At SCQANIT: a Floridian Middle School team sneaked into a second place finish while the others in the top 6 were teams that make their abode somewhere outside of the Southeast.
At Nationals: The southeastern teams stumbled over themselves and landed (at best) near the bottom of the TOP 10.
I guess the only respectable reason is that the teams from Colorado, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Texas, and New York really know how to quiz. But the fact is that they have known how to quiz for a while now.
As I grew up in the southeast around Bible Quizzing, I barely knew that there were teams from other parts of the country. Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina seldomly allowed a team out of that region to donimate on their turf.
And what about 2003? Georgia and Florida took the top two spots at the New Year’s Classic. Faith (SC) dominated the SCQANIT tournament, and Florida placed two more teams in that top 5. Athens (GA) secured another Nationals victory for the dominating southeast.
Dominating? That’s right! Those teams were dominating. The other teams were scared. Jonathan Bishop was a quizzing madman, and Faith always heard “o, no, that team from South Carolina.” Athens had one of the best quizzers ever (Brant Callaway). And the Florida teams were… Well that is saying enough–they were the Florida teams.
But last year they were far from dominating. That begs the question– Were these teams rebuilding or has Bible Quizzing regressed in the southeast? For teams like Athens and First Bap Church-Central Florida, we can tag them as rebuilding. While Athens prays that Kyler Dennis grows into a superstar, FBC-CF already has one. And this year, that superstar will be able to quiz with the rest of them (she is just now called a 9th grader, but she would like me to inform the world that her studies are much farther along than 9th grade.) If Abby Carbonell and Kyler comes through for those teams, maybe the southeast will come around. But what is South Carolina’s problem? Faith had the most dominant quizzer of the year (Tiffany Parrott) and one of the strongest all-around teams. But they flopped. Pleasant View came out strong a few year’s back but have yet to take the next step.
So entering the 2004-05 year, the question must be asked. Will anyone truly represent the southeast of old this year? I would say that if anyone does it, it will be that Florida team led by Abby Carbonell. If they flop, we southeastern folks will have to tuck our tail and hide for the second straight year.