Since the beginning of this website, I have debated with our Florida contributors (Startup, Lindsay, and Matt West) over which state has the best quizzing. As you would expect, these three all try to say that the best quizzing in the country is going on in the state of Florida. I, on the other hand, have, at different points try to say that the best quizzing was in South Carolina or New York (until Old Paths decided to move to Pennsylvania).
This year, however, I have finally given up the fight. I have finally been convinced that the state with the best quizzing this year will be Florida.
Let me tell you why. Everyone knows about what a great team FBCCF has been and will be again this year. Most everyone believes that Calvary should be one of the top contenders to Pleasant View this year. And Open Door is finally starting to get some dap for more than just having the best 8 year old quizzer in the country. These are the teams you know.
Having three of the top 10 teams in the country goes a long way to making you the state with the best quizzing in the country.
But there’s more. It’s sad to say, but it looks like the two longest streaks in Georgia have come to an end this year – the Braves aren’t going to win the division for the first time in 14 years and Athens didn’t win the Bible Quiz state championship for the first time in probably just as long. Pretty sad for an Athens alum. What’s worse, though, is that the state championship was grabbed by a team from another state – Victory Christian from Jacksonville, FL.
And these guys aren’t the best team from Florida that you’ve probably never heard of. Yesterday, I went to a quiz for the Alabama division of the FQA. There appeared a first year quiz team from Florida, Lighthouse. However, they were led by a familiar face – Keith McDougal, former quizzer for Old Paths and noted by BibleQuizzer.net a couple of years ago as a “Difference Making” quizzer. But it wasn’t a one man show either, they had a couple of sibling duos (the Maynards and the Tripps) who completed a very deep team. I’m just guessing here, but they probably averaged 320-350 points a quiz on there way to a victory for the day. All that to say, I could easily see these guys cracking the top 10 at New Year’s Classic.
Here is another interesting tidbit about Florida. In the last 10 years, they have had 5 different teams represent them at AACS where all have finished in the top 5. Furthermore, if early season favorite Calvary wins FACCS this year, it would be the 6th different ministry to represent Florida in the same time period.
For the rest of this article I am going to shift gears a bit. The main reason I wanted to point out how strong quizzing is in the state of Florida, and for that matter South Carolina, is to point out the benefits of having a quiz league.
Although Athens is not the powerhouse that it was a few years ago, I think that Bible Quizzing in the state of Georgia should improve vastly over the next couple of years. The FQA Atlanta division has grown from 2 teams a year ago to 7 at our event last month, and I hope 10 by the end of the year. Following the Florida model, our teams should improve over the next few years until they reach the levels of some of the Florida FQA teams.
PQA teams also consistently do well on a national stage. Faith and Athens are the best two examples of good PQA teams over the past few years. But Hampton Park, Pleasant View (SC), Calvary (SC), and Temple have all had teams that have been medium to good nationally in the same time period.
What’s more is that there are plenty of other teams that are getting better and more experienced by participating in monthly events in some league in the Southeast. Quiz leagues are a great way to get a Bible Quiz program started as they don’t require large travel distances and usually have teams that new programs can more easily compete with from the start.
I think that as people that are involved with Bible Quiz, we are sitting on a great opportunity to encourage Christian young people to become well-grounded in the Bible. From my personal experience, almost every school or church that I have been able to get to come to one FQA event has loved it and has been eager to come back month after month. Also from my personal experience, I would say that spending as much time in the Bible as most quizzers do really does have an impact on your life. My conclusion from all of this is that we should do as much as we can to encourage participation and growth in quizzing, and a great way to do this is to start a quiz league.
The biggest requirement to starting a quiz league is to have a team that you can count on every month – probably your own team and a person that you can count on to get behind it – a former quizzer or the coach of your team. A couple of strategies that we have used to get teams to come to FQA Atlanta is by inviting the teams that come every year to GACS, but that you can tell haven’t spent a lot of time during the year on quizzing. Also, I sent a letter to every GACS school in the state telling them what Bible Quiz is and about our quiz league. As far as I know, the FQA is willing to help start a quiz league or hold a tournament basically anywhere.
So anybody out there desiring to start a quiz league, please feel free to email me at brant@biblequizzer.net