The roaring cheer of Academic League members broke through the library as Eileen Terral (11) calmly named all five correct answers for math trivia questions, Feb. 5. The team crushed their opponents, Poway High School, with each question, pressing the buzzer with more and more confidence each time. The final score of the game was 65-29, the varsity game being the third and final win of the night.
Terral is the captain of the varsity team and is the student coach for the novice and JV team of Academic League. She is in charge of answering the questions during the games with the help of her teammates. They said that the game at Poway initially started out rough.
”The game didn’t feel amazing,” Terral said. “We were a little psyched out and missed some easy buzzes. I think that people were a little afraid to buzz at first. After a timeout we refreshed and locked in, and it started to get a lot better. I felt a lot better, I also felt satisfied because I ended up pulling off that one bonus question where everyone was passing their answers to me.”
Academic League is a club in which students compete in trivia games centered around subjects covered in school. It is very similar to Quizbowl, but in contrast, Academic League does not usually require additional studying outside of required school subjects. Terral said the club made her notice things she didn’t pay attention to before.
“I’ve been doing it since freshman year and I just love it because it motivates me to learn things,” Terral said. “I read something and that information catalogs my brain rather than just going into one ear and out the other ear. It prompts me to gain more knowledge. I love learning and being in this competitive atmosphere with my teammates and our community. It doesn’t put a pressure on you to study or know everything. I just come with my knowledge and know that I’m valuable to play in the game with whatever I have.”
Kristi Le (10), a JV player in Academic League, joined by being a part of Quizbowl first. She said that since the questions for Academic League are a lot shorter than the ones for Quizbowl, she found the speedy nature of Academic League fun.
“The questions are shorter and are easier to know the answer to, so it’s more [about] how fast you buzz,” Le said. “Everyone likes pressing buttons. There’s something about pressing a button and getting the right answer. It makes you feel really excited. It’s also fun being there with your friends playing a game where you press a button, and it makes a noise, and you feel nice when you get the right answer. The people you meet through Academic League make a community where you can share the love for pressing buttons.”
Le has been on the team since her freshman year, and hopes to continue until her senior year. She said the memories they make as a team motivate her to keep playing for Academic League.
“I think besides actually playing, having the people that also love doing the same thing with you is great,” Le said. “Sometimes, if you don’t know as much and you can’t answer as many questions, you can still be there and try your best. Your friends are there with you during that time, and they help you learn and just have fun. I don’t really think it’s just an academics-focused club. It’s more about being there with your friends and playing a fun game.”
While hanging out with friends is fun, Le said the competitive side of Academic League also makes the experience more exciting.
“Having fun with people is one [aspect], and competition is another,” Le said. “We actually do really well except against Del Norte. They’re the only team that we can’t consistently beat. We won against Rancho Bernardo recently, we just beat Mt. Carmel the other day, and we won the game at Poway. It’s a little bit about coming together and trying to work to defeat our worst enemy, Del Norte. It brings us all together.”
The shared goal of reaching the top of the league bonds the members tightly into a community that supports one another. However, Le said that not a lot of people are able to experience this. She said recruitment is a big challenge that Academic League is currently facing.
“Right now our biggest goal is to expand our team because a lot of members are the current sophomores and juniors,” Le said. “We only have a few seniors and a few freshmen, so it’s scary how maybe next year there might not even be Academic League anymore if no new freshmen join or the current freshmen lose interest for some reason. The sophomore class is the one that makes up the majority of the club, and once we graduate, this just might be done. It’s our goal to bring in as many people as we can, get them as interested in the club as we are, so then they can continue it forever.”
One component of the problem is the marketing and exposure to the students. Le expressed that being a part of the club is an invaluable experience as a student and as a person.
“Academic League sounds nerdy,” Le said. “Nobody wants to do it because it literally says academic in the name, but it’s really not our entire identity. I think the name and the stigma of it being only for people who know everything discourage people from joining. But really, it’s more about hanging out and having fun. You literally just press buttons. I guess some people would assume that you would need to study to perform well, but that’s not even the case. You learn all the things you need as long as you exist in school.”
