Warren explained to Cora what the core differences were between regular-season tournaments and the HSNCT before they check in at the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta by 11 AM.
“Whatever you do, come back here by two PM!” Warren warns his players.
“We went to the College Football Hall of Fame last year; I think we can go somewhere else this year” Pablo suggests Audrey.
“The Centennial Olympic Park! However, we won’t have much time to visit anything from the inside” Audrey suggests him.
All three athletes go to their respective bathrooms to change their jerseys to the purple-and-green ones. However, Cora doesn’t seem too keen on the idea of sightseeing on day one of the HSNCT, while Gerard, on the other hand, begins his trip by eating ice cream at the closest Dairy Queen.
Of course, the couple walks due west from the hotel to get to the Centennial Olympic Park, of which they saw a portion last year on their way to the College Football Hall of Fame.
Once they arrive there, the first landmark they see around the Park is the World of Coca-Cola, which is right next to the Georgia Aquarium.
“Be lucky that we don’t drink a whole lot of Coca-Cola, unlike a few of the kids, especially Savannah!” Pablo points out to her.
“Savannah? All I knew was that she played baritone on band, went to perform at all the boys’ basketball home games, and took AP US Government with Malcolm and Bart! I didn’t know she drank Coca-Cola systematically!”
“I know this only because Bart dragged me to help both with that course, and she emptied a bottle of Coke Zero! Also, please stop talking about coursework!”
If only it was like last year… maybe we could have visited one of the following: Georgia Aquarium, National Center for Civil and Human Rights and, the World of Coca-Cola, as well as take the time deemed necessary to visit whichever we pick! Pablo muses while they pass in front of the Georgia Aquarium. And a sign near the Aquarium tells him that the National Center for Civil and Human Rights is on his right. Which reminds him of AP US Government. Also, how could Gerard crash and burn so spectacularly in AP US Government? As of halfway through the semester, he was doing just fine; it just feels so… sudden.
So they go to the next stop along the way, and then the couple sees a pizzeria on their right. Max’s Coal Oven Pizzeria.
“Might not be candle-lit, but here’s our chance to eat a good meal before the prelims!” Pablo suggests to her.
“No need, really. Just keep the receipt and give it to the coach when we return! Also, it doesn’t seem to be rush hour, so we might be able to choose where to be seated” Audrey comments on his choice of restaurant.
“Let’s sit on an outside table; I feel that’s more romantic when we have a romantic meal by day, in broad daylight!”
Which the waiter gets them without trouble. And they are also given menus so they can order whatever pizzas they fancy, knowing that a 12-inch pizza might be a bit much for them to eat on their own.
“One Greek-style pizza please…” Audrey places the order for the couple.
“Is that all?”
“We’re waiting on the dessert later, so yes” Pablo tells the waiter before getting on his way. He then turns to Audrey. “I guess, that’s a meal we couldn’t have at home… and that’s a nice change from eating pelekie zirni!”
When the pizza arrives, just a few minutes later, Audrey takes the first slice…
“How cute of sharing this pizza with me!” Pablo tells her, while taking his first slice.
“Do you have any news of Northwestern? Or really, any other of your targets?”
“They have hundreds of prospects to go through. I’m sure they aren’t really interested in me as a football player, and just for me to keep their team GPA afloat!”
“Pablo, you have been at this for months now! You kept talking about how Power-Four teams would not offer you enough academic bang for the buck, and the same would have held for me!”
“If I’m going to play football in Division I, FCS is the way to go. And honestly, several of our best opposing players will play in FCS, too, with the best of them playing for, like, LSU, Kentucky or KU, but few of them complain about lacking academic bang for the buck!”
Pablo knows better than anyone else outside of the basketball or quiz bowl teams what I’m capable of intellectually. After all, it was known for decades that, especially in football and men’s basketball, P4 colleges coddled players academically, to the point of having the coursework essentially done for them, as well as take steep academic discounts to play, and sometimes even force them to declare very easy majors, Audrey reflects on the lack of academic bang for the buck at P4 football programs (or P6 ones in basketball).
“So Georgetown, Richmond, Lehigh, W&M and Villanova were your other FCS targets outside of the Ivy League… and we’re both hoping at least one of these will offer to both of us or, if you’re lucky, Tulane!”
“Speaking of Tulane, my dad made me sign up for that camp, along with LSU’s. However, I am crossing my fingers and hope for either I get an offer from Dartmouth or Tulane, or you to get an offer from Cornell”
“Or crazier still, Northwestern…”
“You got an offer from Northwestern? Are you kidding me?” Pablo gasps upon the implications of what he just heard from her.
“Yes, but at least we’re much more serious about the student aspect of student-athlete life. And yet for you, NWU is a long shot, and probably, along with Duke or Vanderbilt, the highest you can probably go in college football. Then again, Duke is going to be a long shot for me, even with basketball, and I’m sure my betters on the court at Duke all have relatively good grades, and even APs, too. Maybe not as many as I do, though”
“In which case I’m praying that I get an offer from Northwestern, but I know P-fours are a long shot for me, and even if I did, I might not get much playing time. Then again, all four of us, that is, Cora, Heather, you and me, all acted like this because education is what remains with us after we have played our last college game”
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They keep discussing their future in college sports, knowing that NWU, Duke and Vanderbilt aren’t that elite in the college football world, over their respective halves of a pizza. And, after eating chocolate chip cannoli, they resume their tour of the area.
Of course, they swiftly get past the College Football Hall of Fame because they already visited it last year, so the next stop on their tour is going to be the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. And then to the State Farm Arena, with them having briefly set foot in each venue.
“These are light-years from the Simmons Stadium and the VAs’ home court respectively, or even the UC in Hammond. I can only imagine how the gameday experience is going to be for Falcons or Hawks games, it just can’t compare to high school games” Pablo comments on the feel of these sports venues as compared to those he attended events, or played, in.
“High school games have a much more intimate gameday experience, which is perhaps why you feel they can’t compare. First-row seats at any of these venues just won’t feel like first-row seats at, say, Mercedes-Benz Stadium or State Farm Arena”
But then they realize that they cannot visit any further locations and still hope to make it back to the hotel lobby in time for the players and coaches’ meeting for the afternoon session teams.
“Pablo! Audrey! Where have you been? You seem to have taken your sweet time!” Nadine’s tone leaves no doubt as to her displeasure towards the couple.
“We did have a romantic meal near Centennial Park” Audrey explains herself.
Both squads are herded into the Marquis ballroom, along with hundreds of players and coaches, for the meeting, at the end of which both teams collect their opening cards.
“Don’t forget, Cora: the more you guys win, the stronger the opponents get, and you get mostly fresh opponents on day one. If you’re lucky, you might fall on an opponent you played against in the regular season” Warren tells her as she picks up VA B’s card.
“All right, coach…”
VA A’s card is card number 225. Thomas, as last year, will liveblog VA’s games, the A-squad’s odd-numbered games and the B-squad’s even-numbered games.
As the A-squad takes an elevator to the tenth floor, to play their first game of the day, Pablo and Audrey kiss each other in the elevator cabin. However, the kiss is brief since the elevator trip is rather quick.
When they arrive in a game room, which is a nondescript hotel room, the space feels a little cramped, as both teams take up positions around a table taking up almost all the space of a king bed.
“This is round one of the afternoon prelims of the 2031 NAQT High School National Championship Tournament. This game pits the one hundred fifty-nine card against the two hundred twenty-five card. From Louisiana, we have Venomous Agendas A, from New York, we have Bishop Ludden. Best of luck to both teams, and here’s tossup one: Disruptions in this organ’s electric signals can result in diseases known as arrythmias” the moderator reads the first question.
Audrey buzzes in. “Heart”
“Fifteen”
Here it seems like VA, as often happens during the early stages of the prelims, blows out the first opponent they get to play, which was assigned to them at random. Both VA A and B, but VA A seems to be in for a much bigger blowout than VA B.
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Especially when Cora has to essentially act as both a science specialist and a special topics player because Gerard seemed to be mostly dead weight. Yet, somehow, near the end of VA B’s game against Grand Junction, Gerard appears locked in a buzzer race.
“Tossup twenty: A ninth century BC Assyrian bas-relief depicts this weapon fighting around a city’s walls” the moderator working VA B’s game reads to both teams.
To that, both teams draw a blank. Maybe another clue would help them as it is read to both teams.
“In the Return of the King, ordinary examples of this weapon are unsuccessfully deployed…”
Here Cora and Gerard are engaged in a buzzer race, but Gerard appears to let his nerves get the better of him as his hand is shaking. However, Cora appears to be less nervous. Yes! The siege of Gondor! The only “ordinary” weapon the Orcs were unable to deploy were battering rams! A stream of thoughts cross Cora’s mind before she buzzes in.
“Battering ram!”
“Fifteen”
Ouch! Why is it that I can’t seem to win any kind of buzzer race this year? Last year, the questions were supposedly the same difficulty, I was able to win a few buzzer races, Gerard starts sweating, but doesn’t seem anxious enough to feel at risk of vomiting.
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Back to the VA A game, the final score is released:
“And that’s the game. Score?”
“VA five hundred ninety, Bishop Ludden one hundred” the scorekeeper announces.
“Yes! Our love makes us better as a quiz bowl team!” Pablo hugs her before going to the next game, with card 159 in hand.
As per usual, the people over at home can only follow what’s happening during the games via the liveblog. However, since most people at home only seem interested in the results of the games, as opposed to watching the games themselves, the liveblog contains the results of both games.
But why is it that the last tossup of that game makes me think of Carrie? I mean, I hope Carrie doesn’t get rammed academically in college, Audrey seems to have a heavy heart because of the last tossup.
As the games go on, both VA A and B rack up the wins, with VA A going 5-1 as game 7 is about to start.
“We have a chance to go into the playoffs here and now! All we have to do is win this game, and tomorrow, we’re playing for keeps, and possibly for the winners’ bracket!” Nadine attempts to motivate the players before they step into the game room.
“And maybe even a bye in the winners’ bracket!” Audrey adds, even though she’s the only one on this year’s squad who actually earned it last year.
This time around, they play in a conference room that can more comfortably house two teams as they are about to play each other for a chance to get the team into the playoffs immediately.
“This is round seven of the afternoon prelims of the 2031 NAQT High School National Championship Tournament. This game pits the number twelve card against the twenty-six card. From Louisiana, we have Venomous Agendas A, from Ohio, we have Solon A. Best of luck to both teams…”
That game proves a good back-and-forth that keeps everyone on their toes. And Thomas is the only one in the room who remembers the previous VA game against Solon. Presumably because the Comets’ chaperone is a parent of a current player.
But unlike the previous game, here they have a window left to win, going into the final tossup, the VAs are trailing by 40 points:
“Tossup twenty: this ukiyo-e artist held a position as a fire warden in Edo Castle during his early career”
Like I get that often artists, in their early careers, had day jobs; however, how did his first day job influence his art? Nadine starts questioning the rationale behind the clue.
“Like others in the Utagawa school…”
It’s then that everyone on the VAs start sweating. Nadine appears locked in a buzzer race against her own teammates… We must power this question, or we’re toast! the arts and literature specialist starts shaking and presses the buzzer like a syringe.
“Hiroshige”
“Fifteen. For ten points each, answer these questions about inventory management”
If we don’t get all 3 parts correctly, we’re done! Inventory management never came into play in the quiz bowl packets we used in practices! Pablo braces himself.
“This model of inventory management is widely used when significant fluctuations exist in both supply and demand over time”
Nadine signals that she doesn’t know the answer, but they know they can’t afford to miss a question on this bonus. Which leaves the other three scrambling to find an answer. Uncertainty in both supply and demand will lead you to stock up when you can do so, Pablo ruminates on this aspect.
“Just in case” Pablo answers after buzzing in.
“Unlike just-in-case inventory management, users of this model purchase stock only after an order is actually placed for a product” the moderator reads the second bonus part.
“Just in time!” Audrey answers much faster than Pablo did the previous bonus.
“Just-in-time inventory management limits the ability of vendors to offer this attribute”
The foursome have five seconds to answer the final bonus part. Because just-in-time tends to yield fixed costs per unit when you make it work, you set prices accordingly, Audrey feels the clock ticking in on her as the whole game boils down to this one bonus part. Also, she lived through this sort of scenario several times, and that’s only this season. Just before the five-second signal:
“Price flexibility!”
“Thirty for the bonus, and that’s the game. Score?”
“Solon three hundred fifty, VA three hundred fifty-five”
“Woohoo! Playoff time!” Nadine exclaims when the team leaves the game room.
And it turns out that VA B finishes day 1 at the HSNCT with a 5-2 record. With 3 players performing roughly at the same levels, but Gerard is by far the worst player.