A leg wound from jousting made which king obese? Seniors Alex Luta, Basil Smitham and Jeremy Steinberg can all say they know the answer — King Henry VIII — thanks to Quizbowl.
Luta, Steinberg and Smitham competed Sept. 24 on NBC’s “It’s Academic,” which airs today at 11 a.m. They beat Virginia high schools Osborne and Robinson, advancing to the next round in March. The Giant Food store in downtown Bethesda is also offering a special Whitman HS Salad Nov. 10 to 13 to honor the team.
Steinberg, Quizbowl team captain, represented Whitman on the show for his third year in a row, and Luta competed his second time, while Smitham was a first-timer. Smitham said he looks forward to seeing himself on TV, but he had some trouble understanding the hosts’ instructions during his 30 minutes of fame.
“When she said, ‘How are you doing?’ and I was supposed to answer and talk about my name, I think I just said ‘I’m fine,’” Smitham said. “It’s a little bit nerve-racking to know that this is something that other people are going to be seeing.”
Quizbowl is the universal name for the competitions the club participates in and typically has tougher questions than the “It’s Academic” TV show. Although “It’s Academic” only lasts 30 minutes, typical Quizbowl events can take up to eight hours.
Anyone can join the club, although there are tryouts to appear on “It’s Academic.” The team is dominated by seniors, with only one junior and two freshmen consistently participating during practices every Tuesday and Thursday after school. The team competes against schools from the Maryland area, and its local rivals are Blair and Richard Montgomery, Luta said. Last year, it finished second in the state history bowl and recently beat two of the top teams in the country. Whitman is currently ranked 28th in the country.
First-year coach Laurie Safran took over the coaching duties at the beginning of the year after long-term coach Jan Danis retired.
“I’ve always liked trivia and quiz kinds of games,” Safran said. “I’m amazed at how brilliant these guys are.”
Quizbowl members have to know about disparate topics, ranging from science to art history to pop culture.
“I like geography questions, mostly because not many other people do and I’m pretty good at geography,” Steinberg said. “If you ask Basil or Alex, they’d say that nobody else on the team can get the geography questions; they just leave them for me.”
To prepare for events, the team researches topics, looks at past questions from different tournaments and watches other televised quiz shows.
Smitham has been a member of the club since the end of his sophomore year and likes the competitiveness and knowledge it takes to be in the club.
“It’s an interesting activity that allows you to channel a lot of your knowledge into a fun, competitive sitting,” he said. “It’s also something that really broadens your horizons and makes you aware of lots of important cultural developments.”
People outside of the Quizbowl club have mixed views of the sport, though Steinberg disagrees with the critics who think that the trivia isn’t valuable outside of competition.
“Some people might say that trivia is useless, but it really isn’t,” Steinberg said. “I think we are hands down the best club at Whitman. We’re just as good as a sports team is in our specific field of endeavor.”
Luta said he plans to possibly use his trivia knowledge outside of his high school career.
“I could win some good Jeopardy money right there, be the champion” he said. “If I wanted to be the next millionaire, where am I going to have that basis? Quizbowl.”
