The moderator reads out the tossups with tactful speed as the players wrack their brains, searching for clues, balancing risk and certainty.
Finally, a moment of clarity. The team member slams his finger down on the buzzer, composes himself, and calmly, despite the stress, says his answer.
The St. Mark’s Quiz Bowl team has been able to win the Small School National Championship Tournament (SSNCT) title for four of the past five years, a feat attributed to the team’s sense of generational responsibility.
“We’ve had really well rounded teams since we won our first championship in 2017, and those 2017 guys pushed the guys coming up that won the 2021 national championship,” head quiz bowl coach Paul Mlakar said. “Then those guys pushed the guys that won the 2022 national championship, and then those guys pushed the four seniors last year to win it, who then pushed Surya and our team this year. I think success has bred success for us and the current guys see what the guys before them have had to do to reach that level of success, and how much hard work it really is.”
The team’s initial push to achieve good results stemmed from the students, who, after many years of playing as a middle-of-the-road team, shifted to going after wins and titles. This decision quickly yielded promising results with the school’s first SSNCT title coming in 2017.
“Our Quiz Bowl program started in the ‘08 – ‘09 school year,” Mlakar said. “That’s when we got it going at St Mark’s. And we were always a decent team, because we always have a pool of really smart guys to pull from. But it was the guys in the Class of ‘16, I think, that really said ‘we’re kind of tired of being a middle of the road team, we want to take the next step. What can we do to get better and really be more competitive?”
Now, with a precedent of excellence set before them, the quiz bowl team has continued to strive for high-placing championship results. In order to achieve these coveted placements, the members of the team have had to put in the work. At the same time, however, the studying process has changed, and the goal has shifted into finding enjoyment in the process in order to induce a deeper understanding of the subject.
“I’m trying to take much more of a real interest in what I’m doing,” senior captain Surya Dinesh said. “When I was studying biology this year, instead of just looking at past questions and trying to remember what was being asked about, I actually read a textbook. “I enjoyed the experience a lot more and I think having that particular sort of experience and that deeper, real knowledge makes the learning process a lot more fun and it gives you a lot more confidence when you’re playing.”
Implementing a mentality of hard work and dedicated study has long been combined with the program’s senior involvement and motivation as incentive to be chosen to go to the quiz bowl SSNCT. Even as recently as this year’s championship team, the impact of the previous year’s winners has served as fuel to fire that is the team’s competitive drive.
“I’m doing my best to do my part for the team, and what really inspires us is the people who have already graduated and especially last year’s seniors, who were one of the top 2-3 teams in the country and who won the same exact tournament last year,” Dinesh said. Those guys really inspired us to do as well as they did. It’s not something that I consciously think about, but honestly, we’re all looking toward the model of the people who have already come before us.”
The quiz bowl team will continue to strive for championship wins and titles, and by investing in the future, the program is secured.
“I think when you see the seniors and juniors winning a national championship, that’s motivating, and if you get that ‘I want to do that too’ factor and those younger guys go, how did they get here? … they can mentor them and show them,” Mlakar said.
