The Venomous Agendas' 2023-2024 debate season was overshadowed by mathletics. The Venomous Agendas never won anything even in public forum all season, let alone the other events the coach leaves to the other two he views as lesser players.
Yet Florence seems locked, after one of the practice debates, into a fight with her teammates and coach over the district qualifiers (in Louisiana, the entire state is a single district for the purposes of Nationals qualification), as well as the state championship one week later. Because of the team's strength and size, the Venomous Agendas are allotted four entries total at the district qualifiers, and same went of several other schools.
And then Florence receives a text message from Curtis regarding quiz bowl of all things. "We lost a player for state championship, you're the first person that came to my mind for playing quiz bowl. Do you want to play quiz bowl this Saturday?"
"Guys, the quiz bowl team needs to replace a sick player for the state championship next Saturday. They started by asking the other academic extracurricular teams for help" Florence announces to the other debaters.
"Why ask... us?" Dwight, Florence's debate partner, asks, not believing the request made.
"You didn't forget about Marcia as a mathlete, did you? She feels they can't go to the quiz bowl state championship with multiple mathletes no more than we can qualify for the nationals with our current roster. So that leaves us as their first choice as a source of reinforcements they could use that has a decent chance of having the intellectual inclination and capabilities. Plus, it does not conflict with district qualifiers or our own state championship" Florence answers Dwight's question.
What Florence does not realize is the quiz bowl coach already asked for an additional mathlete, despite knowing the quiz bowl team won't have either of the star mathletes for the state quiz bowl championship.
Oh boy, as much as I'd love to believe that, even if the Venomous Agendas, as a debate team, are mostly a one-person show, namely, me, I gave a fighting chance to break, i.e., advancing to playoff rounds. But I need to have a high-level overview of quiz bowl before I can decide whether to step forward, Florence thinks, while Marcia provides her with said overview. From what I can make out, the Venomous Agendas, in quiz bowl, mostly amount to Marcia, the star player, William as a literature sideshow, and one person who lacks consistency in when he buzzes in.
"Go play quiz bowl, Flo; hopefully you will be less bitter about our debate misfortunes" another debater sarcastically suggested.
"What makes you think playing another game will make me less bitter about our debate season?" Florence asks.
"I already committed the team to these two tournaments. What case do you have for quiz bowl to be similar enough to what any of us are doing as a debater?" the coach asks Florence.
"Quiz bowl requires several skills in common with debate, just used differently. Oral comprehension skills, quick thinking, teamwork being the main ones, and the quiz bowl team deemed the knowledge base required to succeed in debate useful in quiz bowl as well"
Even though there are only a handful of schools in Louisiana that do both debate and quiz bowl, approximately a half-dozen, in virtually every school that does both debate and quiz bowl, these two teams draw, and compete for, high-achieving students, usually 3.75+ for both. Often quiz bowl is a better fit if someone has a better memory and is more trivia-inclined, and debate if someone is more comfortable in public speaking, but both are for quick-witted students.
"Florence, I have my concerns about anyone here playing quiz bowl. Even if it takes only a week of prep away from district or debate-State, my concern is that, going into district or debate-State you could get confused as to which set of conventions to use, and the same in reverse at quiz bowl-State and think like a debater in quiz bowl games" the debate coach attempts to rebut Florence "You have a good idea of what translates from debate to quiz bowl and what doesn't, do you not?"
"Yet what makes Florence good at debating is more than simply about the stuff that does not appear to translate well to quiz bowl, such as critical thinking, discerning people's thought patterns, or speechcraft" Dwight comments on the coach's rebuttal, having played all season with her in public forum. "If there's anyone on this team that might be able to play quiz bowl at an appropriate level for a championship push, it's Florence"
"Yes, she seems to have accumulated a lot of knowledge over the years here" a non-PF player comments on that point.
By now the debate coach only sees in me the F in "Venomous Agendas FR", which is the codename for us on the team's depth chart. On Tabroom, and therefore to the NSDA, or National Speech and Debate Association, we're known by our real school name, but with the same suffix FR because of our last names. Florence Finney and Dwight Robinson. All things considered, if Marcia and her gang considers some debate teamer the missing piece they need for a championship push... Florence thinks, before texting Marcia: "I accept, here's my chance to redeem myself from a lackluster debate season"
"I will fulfill the quiz bowl team's request! But I am aware that I will be a rental quiz bowl player" Florence announces to the team.
"I will let you play at quiz bowl-State. As your rent, you will not be allowed to switch to extemp debate for district or debate-State" The coach then turns to the rest of the team. "But you must all realize that quiz bowl has a luxury we don't have. They can ask for reinforcements at any time prior to a tournament whereas it would be useless for us to place the same request for the district qualifiers"
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"Why is it that we can't place that kind of request for the district qualifiers, even with the understanding that they would need to enter State as well?" a non-PF player asks.
"There is no one else here at school that has any honor points with NSDA. To enter district, and therefore qualify for Nationals, we need twenty-five honor points. If you wanted a new partner, Flo, that person would need to enter tournaments with you beforehand" the other non-PF player points out.
"On top of that, public forum debating is not like quiz bowl, for which, from what I can make out, you can prepare mostly on your own, and concurrently with your regular courses, here we need to do our research jointly, prepare our speeches and counter-speeches together, and make sure we work well, for crystallization of issues and in crossfires. The last point is critical since most of our losses were due to the first crossfire and I am forced to fix my partner's mistakes on the next two crossfires" Flo adds her own observations.
Dwight is right. And even if it was possible for us to ask for reinforcements the way quiz bowl did, on such short notice, the only person I could think of is that isn't already on some academic team and that I could work with in a debate tournament is Sadie. Her academic ambitions will likely lead her to an academic team at some point, debate or quiz bowl, but even then I feel her inexperience of tournaments will lead me to act mostly the same as I did all season with Dwight: he always makes the speech for the prepared case or counter-case, we use our prep time after the second crossfire so that I can then feed my partner with what crystallizes the issues, but the real deal-breaker is how Sadie handles crossfires, Florence ponders how would a debate tournament, such as district qualifiers or debate-State, happen with Sadie rather than Dwight. And she mustn't discount the nerve factor, which is all too real in a debate.
The following Monday night, Marcia, Imélie, Florence et al train, and the last two familiarize with the rules and answering technique. After some preliminary lecture on quiz bowl rules delivered to Imélie and Florence, they then proceed to some basic buzzer technique. At the end of that drill...
"Florence, you're a little slow, and you need to develop your answering speed this week. As for you, Imélie, you should be shorter in your answer, but you're fast enough for Saturday" Warren provides his feedback to the 2 new players.
In debates I need to be deliberate when asking questions and answering them. Here it seems that, in quiz bowl, speed is of the essence, even more so than in a debate, Florence reflects on her experience as a new quiz bowl player, and how it was different from her debating mindset.
"For you Florence: The sinking of this ship in 1915 helped push the United States into World War One. For ten points each, name this ship..." Warren asks Florence.
"Lusitania" Florence answers the question.
"Lusitania was a Roman province covering the territory of this modern-day country..."
"Portugal"
"We're getting closer..."
Imélie then gets some practice on speed-check bonuses, and her answers become short and sweet. And then comes a drill where the two are pitted against the veteran players so they get closer to the feel of an actual quiz bowl game. Once that drill ends, Warren, the quiz bowl coach, makes a rundown of who to expect going into quiz bowl-State:
"The state's quiz bowl powerhouses aren't the same as in mathletics. To watch out for this year: the Caddo and Bâton-Rouge magnet schools, Benjamin-Franklin, Jesuit and Catholic. The medals will be played between these institutions, us included. Some of these schools, having already qualified for the national championship, will be tempted to slack off on Saturday, while we are hungry. They won't know until the start of the tournament, that we replaced a player. Nevertheless, we must stay vigilant, and at half-time I will tell you who to substitute" the coach harangues his players.
And not the same as in debate either, but I don't think it's a good idea to mention it. Caddo Magnet is the strongest of these schools Warren mentioned in a debate context, Bâton-Rouge Magnet I believe we beat them two or three times in debates this season, and Benjamin-Franklin is more of an extemp debate or Lincoln-Douglas school for debating. That said, Isidore Newman and Teurlings Catholic, while debate powerhouses, just aren't quiz bowl or mathletics schools at all, Florence reflects on the names Warren mentioned, and on how little overlap there is in schools doing debate and quiz bowl.
Florence seems to spend the rest of the week mixing in practice activities for both debate and quiz bowl, with priority given to quiz bowl and some research she feels benefits in both. While they are on the road to New Orleans, on Friday night, the players keep asking questions to each other:
"Good. Imélie, the next question is for you. A coalition can be dissolved by a parliamentary vote declaring that there is "no" amount of this concept held in the current leaders" William asks Imélie.
"Confidence" Florence answers.
"The question wasn't for you, Florence. Your turn will come shortly, but Imélie must answer a question before that. This type of event kills Lise Bolkanskaya in War and Peace, as well as Agnes Fleming in Oliver Twist" William asks another question.
"Death in childbirth" Imélie answers.
"Now, Florence: A is a 2-by-2 matrix whose top row is (2,3) and whose bottom row is (3,5). What number appears in the upper-left corner of the matrix that is the product of A times the inverse of A?"
"Two?" Florence utters, unsure of her answer.
"That was incorrect! That was one" Imélie points out.
"Listen, we were told all week that we needed to reinforce our assigned specialties and now we are asked questions outside of our specialties?" Florence asks, more than annoyed by this question.
"Shut up, Florence, and answer this new question. In contrast to interpreted languages, C uses this type of program that converts high-level source code into machine code" William asks again.
"A... compiler?" Florence answers while having a comic in mind.
"Voilà"
The debate team always lacked depth, I was their only good player, therefore the debate team couldn't contribute to extracurricular glories, being able to contribute to those would be the best ending for high school for me. I have brains, too, quiz bowl gives me a better chance to accomplish something with it beyond grades alone. People are ambivalent about me playing quiz bowl: obviously the coach is unhappy, but some of the other debaters, especially the two not doing PF, would rather see me go to the HSNCT than endure two more weeks with me, they feel like I complain too much. This is crazy; never would I have seen people playing for more than one varsity team! And all three academic varsity teams, mathletics, quiz bowl or debate, had the same negative connotations among the student body until the second half of last year, which made people reluctant to join them, Florence reflects about how the social aspect has changed between debate and quiz bowl.