And then Imélie realizes that she will need to fork over an entire semester of tuition to both accept the offer and resign from her current job. However, she will not be required to repay any travel expenses falsely claimed for client development on quiz bowl trips for the Green Wave. Speaking of which, she wonders what would happen if she suddenly left the team. Would the Green Wave quiz bowl program fall apart without me? Will Bethany, Patricia and so on play next year if I am not here? I really hope any of Alyssa, Derek and Xavier could step up to the plate if I left. Or even Bethany or Patricia. However, I think they don't approach quiz bowl the same as I. I realize that it's a huge gamble and not even a winning season could help cement a program that, historically, always seemed fragile. I've grown much more attached to the female players myself, probably because there aren't that many of these. That's why I seemed unable to form a bond with the players I played with as an undergraduate: for all four years I was the only female on the team. Also, everyone else was mostly transient because of mismanagement. Now I have two more years left on my quiz bowl tenure at Tulane, this year we accomplished more than we ever did while I was an undergraduate.
But then she is reminded of how deeply rooted she is in Louisiana and how Russia in general, and Moscow in particular, would be like a freezer to her. In winter anyway. And also about what would await her if she doesn't deliver on what the Kremlin, or the general staff, had planned for the national quiz bowl team. If she was lucky, she would be extradited to the US. If she was unlucky, then she would spend the rest of her life as an inmate teaching English in a Russian maximum-security prison. As if her idea of the Red Army as a quiz bowl national team was very similar to how it would have operated in Soviet times.
Yet the Russian general staff believed that five years was enough to build a collegiate circuit and be able to contend for ACF Nationals or D1 ICT, or, if they switch gears and the Kremlin believes that the HSNCT would carry greater political weight than ACF Nationals or D1 ICT, the HSNCT. Even though I must do the hosting myself, unless the Chinese or South Korean national quiz bowl governing bodies host, I will make the tripartite tournament happen, and, if necessary, to be held in a Russian military base! the chairman of the RUQB muses while formulating the high school portion of the five-year plan for Russian quiz bowl. And then his idea of a tripartite international quiz bowl tournament would be like a dress rehearsal of either the MSNCT, HSNCT or the ACF Nationals, held in the Russian Far East.
"You always seemed to be loyal to Tulane, to Louisiana, of how you celebrate everything that students from this state could accomplish in quiz bowl or mathletics! Especially females" Sun then talks about Imélie's past interests.
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"The difference is that mathletics has a much shorter shelf life. That's why I didn't make much of a deal out of mathletics even when I was seemingly living in my past glories. That's why I didn't make much of a deal of Trillian beyond her being a victim of abusive hothousing. Her winning a medal at the IMO is nice, though" Imélie then talks about the difference between mathletics and quiz bowl.
"Something tells me that you were a mathlete, too. Sure, you might have talked about how your high school friends were mathletes, or quiz bowlers, but..."
"It's just that I owe the foundations of what made me the quiz bowler, the person I am today, to this state. I'm not about to throw away my heritage just so that I can coach another country's national quiz bowl team whose circuit must be built practically from scratch... as much as lasting fame in the quiz bowl world might be achievable, I feel like it's a big gamble at best, both for me and for Russia"
"What do you mean, it's a big gamble for Russia and not just for you on a personal level?" Sun asks her.
"As far as I can make out, the risk I am talking about is more on what happens if they can't grow the circuit. Quiz bowl would then be exposed as a vanity project of the military, and the military, which already comes under fire among the Russian public, would then be accused of making attempts to encroach on civilian life, leading to political backlash"
"That's... unexpected! Did any of your players somehow pick some course on Eastern European history or geopolitics as a distribution requirement? Sun asks, implying that players discuss coursework at practices"
"I'd say Derek might have. But I butted heads with him regarding that topic earlier this season. After all, he is our history/RPMSS player so naturally he is going to have an interest in those areas. I have seen these players grow before my eyes, like Alyssa pushing me to play better in literature and fine arts, and, in turn I pushed her to play better in science, but that's mostly because of our preparation for the WNCC. I can't just decide to leave these people hang out to dry, and also considering that I rebuilt the Green Wave quiz bowl program..."
"That's why the Russian general staff is interested in you coaching their national team. Who else could coach the team if not you?"
"Sadie or Violet, coaching Princeton and NYU respectively"
Speaking of Violet, she is offered an interview with the RUQB as well, but unlike Sadie, Violet is about to defend her dissertation. Anything is better than academia as far as my field is concerned, so I guess I can always give this a shot... Violet starts thinking before she responds to the Russian offer.
Hopefully we have enough backup plans to proceed with this project, but there can only be one coach: too many cooks can spoil the Red Army's soup, the staff linguist attached to the RUQB's chairman starts thinking as he starts formulating a pitch for the interviews his commander plans on conducting.