On Saturday, the 16 teams engaged in this tournament they call the LQBA Fall invitational South are pooled in two subsets of 8 for the preliminary rounds, with the end result that Tulane quiz bowl provides the majority of the mods. Especially since, for some reason, the TD trusted college quiz bowlers to mod games over the other inexperienced staffers the teams provided, and then several of the team-provided staffers simply keep scores.

While the moderators had a relatively uneventful morning in their game rooms, the time comes for Imélie to make her announcement in front of the teams' waiting area in the cafeteria:

"I am Imélie, the coach of the Tulane Green Wave quiz bowl team. For the next season, we have three openings. One for literature and fine arts, one for history and RPMSS, and the third slot is designated at-large. Also, while early decision is not a decision to be made lightly, if so you wish, there isn't much time left for an early decision application! Hurry up while supplies last! If you want more information on what it's like to study at Tulane, or play quiz bowl for the Green Wave, you can ask the moderators that currently play"

"Tulane has a quiz bowl team?" some players ask, surprised to even hear about Green Wave quiz bowl in the first place, let alone that it's looking for new players for next year.

"Now, more than ever, Tulane is committed to make sure that the state's quiz bowl talent remains in-state" Xavier then tells the tournament's participants.

That is not to say that we should ignore out-of-state talent, but in-state students have a trump card that out-of-state students don't, as it relates to early decision. That's why I prioritize in-state at this point in the quiz bowl recruitment process. In fact, no one starts recruiting specifically for quiz bowl before they are admitted, unless you're Erskine or a school with some auto-admission policy that's independent from quiz bowl. It's not like college athletic recruiting at all. And honestly, thank goodness it's not. I just wouldn't have the right to make any contact with the prospects in person at tournaments... while I know all too well how important it is to personalize one's interactions with prospective recruits. Like this one: the girl who won the LQBA's female rookie of the year award last year, Imélie muses while that girl and her parent in attendance, who is also the Majors' chaperone at this tournament, starts digesting the announcement, and what that implies for the program.

"That sounds a little premature, but why is it that we never heard about Tulane quiz bowl before? I'm Bethany"

"Tulane made no outreach attempts whatsoever in previous years. You also realize that often players capable of playing quiz bowl in college will harbor ambitious academic goals and dreams, and are also, most of the time, honor students. Therefore it makes no sense for most colleges with a quiz bowl team to recruit players that may end up not being able to play for the college. The regular recruiting season starts in April" Imélie answers Bethany's question.

"But why would Tulane proceed months in advance then?" Bethany's father asks.

"The auto-admission under early decision. Even though everything I have seen from your daughter is in a quiz bowl game, and I know she plays well enough to play in college, before I can extend an offer to her for next season, we need to review her academics"

What Tulane does not want to see is students that are too one-dimensional academically to fail their way out because of failing distribution requirements. This means successful auto-admits will have at least a 3.8 core unweighted GPA. (In this context, core GPA means English, math, lab science, social studies and foreign languages) It would mean that it makes no sense for me to ask about how she'd feel about attending Tulane if she doesn't hit these two targets, especially if she's way off the mark. Out-of-state potential prospects will meet them anyway, because it's approximately as competitive as Vanderbilt or Duke otherwise, Imélie ponders while questioning if she isn't too brutal with the prospect.

"I see my daughter earn As virtually everywhere in language arts and social studies, but she needs to work a lot harder to do math" Bethany's father then tells the Green Wave's coach.

"I want everyone on the team to succeed in class, especially since quiz bowl is supposed to supplement learning. Given how academically challenging Tulane is, I will not sugar-coat it and a solid foundation is required to succeed. But I don't think it's time to continue this conversation" Imélie then tells Bethany, calmly, while not trying to irritate her.

Bethany seems, to her, to be more of a history and RPMSS girl. Then comes the other interested prospects in this rarefied world of the southern Louisiana quiz bowl circuit, with the emphasis placed on literature and history, that the other team members have identified, and that they got questions from seniors as they relate to the experience of studying in undergrad at Tulane, regardless of their viability as Green Wave prospects.

With that said, Xavier probably already has their social media information on hand, that he promptly relays to Imélie. He has that info because even though they may attend rival schools on the quiz bowl stage, outside of quiz bowl proper, for several of them, they share a common ground they may not find anywhere else around them. Especially if someone attends a school like South Lafourche.

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Speaking of South Lafourche, they are somehow able to defeat Jesuit and Catholic in the playoff rounds, and the new player this year is clearly good enough to raise its quiz bowl profile, to propel the Fighting Tarpons from a middle of the pack team to a team that could be in medal contention in March at State. But that player is not a senior so maybe in a future year could that player be of interest to them. Just not for now.

Fingers crossed that 1) Bethany sports a 32+ on the ACT, 2) a 3.8+ unweighted core GPA and 3) she applies to Tulane ED, in which case Bethany would be a great backup to Derek, and Tulane will have an additional female player on hand by then. Three females out of 8 players total will be a very good gender balance compared to the rest of the college quiz bowl circuits. In my mind Tulane must set the example of gender balance in quiz bowl, ideally, I would love a total of 4 male and 4 female players for next year, myself included, Imélie reflects on why her preference would go to Bethany out of the prospects she and her teammates have identified. Bethany seemed evasive about her GPA and ACT, though.

In a sense, I'm lucky that, at Tulane, despite what Derek could say about Imélie, having another female player around that understands the game makes me more comfortable to keep playing, Alyssa starts thinking when she looks at other teams' female players, the courage they need to even keep playing in high school, let alone college. For her, the real heroines of quiz bowl are those who keep playing and improve as players.

After the tournament ends, at which South Lafourche somehow won its ticket to the HSNCT by finishing second only to the Majors, and qualifying for it for the first time, the Fighting Tarpon players start realizing what they accomplished, after the tournament director announces the standings, the teams that qualify for the HSNCT based on its results and distribute book prizes to top players.

"Congratulations South Lafourche on your first HSNCT qualification!" the Jesuit coach announces, as the LQBA Fall Invitational South's TD, as a special moment for this school.

"Finally, we can amount to something" the Fighting Tarpons coach comments, while Imélie retrieves the University's buzzer system from the game room it was in.

Once Imélie retrieves the buzzer system so that she can have Alyssa maintain custody over the buzzer system, she continues this conversation with Bethany that she cut short because she felt that it was inappropriate to discuss grades and test scores at lunch time, while the tournament is still underway, by fear of making other players insecure and thus inappropriately influencing the course of this tournament.

"Can we please talk privately, your father, you, and me?" Imélie then asks Bethany.

"Yes" Bethany then continues after moving into the game room Tulane's buzzer was. "You have nothing to apologize for. Thank you for believing that I can play quiz bowl in college"

"Where were we at lunch? Ah yes, I academics. I don't want to dash these hopes I harbor in your potential as a quiz bowler, but if you think Tulane is the team for you, I must warn you immediately, the quiz bowl team has its academic standards for freshman players"

"What are they?"

"Since you're a Louisiana resident, they closely mirror the auto-admission standards to meet, and even though I don't think the ACT or SAT translates very well from and to quiz bowl, it's about ensuring you can attend Tulane in the first place. The GPA requirement is three point eight unweighted, and the better of thirty-two on the ACT or fourteen eighty on the SAT" Imélie then runs down the numerical auto-admission criteria.

And they must also maintain 3.0 for every term they enroll in while on the team, but everyone on the team is on track for GPAs well above that, so I feel it is unnecessary to announce it to them until someone is falling short, Imélie thinks about what it takes to stay on the team in terms of classroom performance. But it appears that people don't seem to think much of even playing quiz bowl in college. Especially the senioritis-ridden players, which may or may not include dairy queenies or buzzer rocks whom she knows would be liabilities on the Green Wave.

She then proceeds to email Xavier: "Is there anyone else you could identify, outside of Bethany, among the seniors you know, that meets the 3.8/32 or 3.8/1480 thresholds and appears to be both good enough to hit the ground running from day 1 as a Green Wave and willing to attend Tulane on early decision? If so, please tell me their names and quiz bowl specialties"

Might be a little specific, but I have my own standards, and if the prospects can't meet them, then they are wasting everyone's time! I want this turnaround to be complete, and I want to avoid resorting to this kind of cheap tricks in the future, but, if it means I must use my teammates for intensive scouting come April 1, so be it! But by then the better between 3.8/32 and 3.8/1480 will no longer be in effect since these numbers form the bottom third and 25th quartile respectively of the last freshman class at Tulane. However I know that using this fast-closing window of scouting would mean that I am more likely to find a good in-state quiz bowler that does not meet the academic standards I set for the team, and the April window would mean the reverse, irrespective of their state or country of residence, which would make me not bother with either kind of prospect, Imélie reflects on what her requirements are of prospects that could fill the 3 slots open for next year, believing that failure to meet any of the first two requirements (academics and quiz bowl track record) would reflect poorly on how she intends the Green Wave to be run.

Xavier then responds in that the other players capable of meeting both criteria don't seem to be willing to ED at Tulane, and presumably they already knew where they wanted to attend.

But already the seeds are planted for 2-3 years down the road, and what Imélie needs to do for the period is clear: present the Green Wave as a winning team, and get the word out as such, and what better way to do so in her eyes than winning awards or tournaments such as the ACF Fall, or if possible ACF Winter or Regionals? Yet she knows that, to achieve that, the absolute best bet is to recruit from entering freshmen.