Late September. So while, as usual, the town is divided between the "brawn" and the "brain", and this means the audiences drawn will differ a lot. In demographics anyhow.
So the VAs could somehow sell out a show on a Wednesday with a LD round between Stella and DCC's debate captain, and then a Math Madness game against University High (Irvine, California) despite the latter being faceless to the eyes of the VA fanbase. The money from the show is split evenly between the math and debate teams, so the debate team could pay for both Holy Cross and the online tournaments. Or at least Duke.
Would the VAs sell out the auditorium for an hour and a half of quiz bowl against Hathaway on a Thursday, at the same price? If they do, the show will pay for the entire VAs quiz bowl regular season at both levels, up to quiz bowl-State, and there would be some cash left to dent the MSNCT bill.
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At Hathaway, however, a board meeting is held, and quiz bowl is the order of the day. A board member is concerned that Marianne's quiz bowl national ambitions will end up draining the school's budget, especially if the Hornets make it to both the MSNCT and the HSNCT. Their costs raise some eyebrows on Hathaway's board.
"The HSNCT is already expensive enough as it is, now you think we should plan to raise funds year-round so that we can attend the MSNCT as well?" a concerned board member asks.
"Do you have any idea how much the MSNCT costs?" another Hathaway board member asks the principal about the expenses of the MSNCT. "Would you rather have quiz bowl or a school? Our budget is already very tight!"
"It's not an either-or, but and! There can't be quiz bowl without a school to compete for! We must beg for sponsors!" Marianne shouts.
So while the quiz bowl regular season is relatively inexpensive, the expensive part is the postseason. And whether this quiz bowl show on their homecoming should be supplemented by extra trivia nights later in the season. Also, some of the most fervent supporters of Hornets quiz bowl are in families with players in either middle school or high school.
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But on Thursday afternoon, after class, all twelve quiz bowlers are assembled in the room in use for AP French, which is also in use for quiz bowl practices.
"Tonight is our informal season opener against Hathaway. Don't kid yourselves, it's going to be rough at the high school level without Sonny, and hopefully either Cindy or Oleg will be able to fill his shoes this season, but we know nothing of Hathaway at the middle school level. However, knowing the Hornets' coach, this is going to mean hours on end studying on the same question sets as the high school quiz bowlers, so we should be ready for anything" Flo harangues her players before proceeding with some last-minute quiz bowl drills.
"Yeah, let's crush these Hornets; they rubbed their state title in our face for months after quiz bowl-State!" Cindy deadpans the team on the quiz bowl rivalry's virulence.
"Is it always like this?" Oleg asks Flo, not sure of whether holding grudges over quiz bowl games is something commonly done.
"No. Most quiz bowl teams fly under the radar even in their hometowns, and Hathaway doesn't have a football team, so they will hang on to whatever their best team of the day is" Flo explains the dynamic between high schools in rural towns. "And cross-country or swimming doesn't create the same fervor there, nor here"
"It might be a foreign concept to you, Oleg, but here, schools are placed into size classes for sports. We play in class three-A, and Hathaway plays in class B" the soccer player on the quiz bowl team explains an additional detail about high school sports that he feels is important to understand.
"One more thing: tonight you will all be playing to a crowd size that you may never again play to, except maybe MSNCT or HSNCT playoff rounds" Flo warns her players about the nature of tonight's experience to them.
Rumor is that, for next season, we could move up to class 4A, which would make our existing athletic rivalries much harder to sustain. Our main athletic rivals, Church Point, Lake Charles Prep and St. Louis Catholic, are all in 3A, Kinder and Iowa straddled the 2A and 4A lines in the past respectively, Flo tries to keep quiet about division realignment. Crisse! I hope Norman doesn't push for VA to compete in 4A next season; we will be eaten alive, given our shoestring sports budgets.
After the practice ends, they remain on-campus to do what homework they had for the day. Obviously, the A-team players, most of whom are upperclassmen, had more homework than the B-team players, who, in turn, had more homework than the middle schoolers.
Once the time arrives for the show to begin, the designated moderator is forwarded a set of three packets, one for middle school and two for high school, hastily bought from Krasnaya Armiya (a.k.a. the Red Army) for as little as 250 rubles (ca. US$3) as part of a discount for buying separate packets from soon-to-expire sets. The designated moderator comes to Flo with questions about these packets.
"Can anyone tell me if these question packets are even real?" the designated mod asks Flo. "Is it normal that these things have Cyrillic script at the bottom of the page?" The designated mod points at a disclaimer, written first in Russian and then in English, as well as at the KA logo, which are the words Krasnaya Armiya (in Cyrillic) arrayed in a circle around a red star.
"Yes, if you look at other publicly available Krasnaya Armiya question packets, they will have all the same markings" Flo then shows the other Krasnaya Armiya sets on the quiz bowl packet library they use to practice.
Ena, the maître de cérémonie as well as scorekeeper of this show, then has the middle school Hornets team step right up and take up positions on stage before the VAs' middle schoolers do.
"Welcome to the first homecoming quiz bowl intra-parish duel between the Hathaway Hornets and the Venomous Agendas. Our first game will pit the middle school teams. For those in the audience, please don't blurt or signal answers to the players"
In attendance is Marianne, in her capacity as the Hornets' quiz bowl coach, for whom this game is seen as a trial of fire for the Hornets' middle school quiz bowl team. Of whether it's realistic for the Hornets to aim for a MSNCT berth. That, even though two VA players on last year's MSNCT squad are now playing on the high school team. And they are playing to a crowd that rivals the largest crowd sizes at the MSNCT or the HSNCT.
Even then, while spectator etiquette in quiz bowl is followed, even a middle school quiz bowl game is enough to keep the few Hornets fans in the crowd on their toes. And try their best to avoid creating tensions, if inadvertently. They could always cheer on the Hornets if they wanted to, but neither side's supporters could afford to cause trouble during the game.
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Going into the final tossup, both coaches seem on edge, but not for the same reason. Marianne feels like getting the middle school team up to speed is not going to be done in a day, especially when the experience difference between the two teams is as clear as day.
"And the winner is... Venomous Agendas, three hundred seventy to two hundred!" Ena announces before the high school teams get into position.
"Don't forget, this is a warmup for Tal Atkins this Saturday" Flo warns the two VA high school teams, before turning to the B-team. "And don't be intimidated by the opposing team having played at the HSNCT"
Only, this game is a lot tighter than the game between the middle schoolers. And, while it may appear that Hathaway has the edge, by the twentieth and final tossup, Hathaway's lead is only forty points.
"Final tossup: The failure of a seventeenth century Scottish attempt to colonize this region led Scotland to financial ruin" the designated mod reads the question. Arkady then buzzes in, believing he has the answer to it.
"Yucatan!" Arkady answers by yelling.
"Neg five" the moderator rules, and the Hornets fans in the auditorium voice their disappointment. "During the Venezuelan Refugee Crisis, thousands of migrants crossed this once-thought impassable region in an attempt to reach the US border" Oleg then buzzes in.
"Darien Gap"
"Fifteen" The moderator then starts reading the bonus associated with that tossup.
With Hathaway's lead over VA B having diminished to twenty points, the onus is on them to convert all three bonus parts. After answering the first two correctly...
"Inductance!" Oleg then answers the final question.
"Thirty points for the bonus, and that's the game. Score?" the designated moderator asks Ena.
"Venomous Agendas B three hundred ten, Hathaway three hundred" Ena delivers news that seems to send Marianne in a fit of rage, yelling at her players.
"How are we supposed to get to the HSNCT if we can't defeat even the Venomous Agendas' B-team? Wait until quiz bowl-State and pray we can clinch a small-school state title again?" Marianne screams at her players.
"No!" Donalia screams, prompting the VA supporters to boo her.
"Then we WILL be facing the VAs again on our road to the HSNCT, A or B team!" Marianne keeps screaming in full view of the crowd, which starts filming the resulting clip.
The final game is played on an even harder packet than the last one because the Red Army's clearance discount required buying packets from at least three levels of sets to be in effect. If the B-team's game was played on a "regular" packet, the A-team's game, on the other hand, is instead played on a near-HSNCT packet. That will give the public an idea of what a game between VA and Hathaway would look like if they played each other at the HSNCT.
However, unlike the previous game, this game doesn't seem to be a game Hathaway can still hope to win, yet isn't a blowout either.
"Oleg, one game is not enough to assess properly whether you should be going up to the A-team. Everything will depend on how you play at Tal Atkins. I can't any promise to you until then" Flo debriefs Oleg on what this all means for his future in the quiz bowl program.
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The following night, at the homecoming football game, the schedule pits the VAs against the Rayne Mighty Wolves. Which is a potential future rival of the VAs if, for next season, VA moves up to 4A. This game is part of the "brawn" part of the festivities, the other being a cross-country meet on Saturday. As Norman makes the announcement for the game, and Flo's entire family is seated:
"Welcome to the 2039 homecoming football game, pitting the Rayne Mighty Wolves against the Venomous Agendas" he announces as the Mighty Wolves enter the field from the visitors' gate.
Then, as the VAs, clad in purple and green, take to the field and they stand ready for the coin toss of whether they will start the game on the offense or defense. Here it seems like the VAs are going for the rush game on the first down. Under the applause of the crowd, the running back makes a run for the end zone, after the offensive line tries to clear a path for said running back to pass through it.
"Whew! A thirty-seven-yard gain! But don't go around thinking that the Mighty Wolves' defense today is going to be as poor as our own defense was last year!" Flo comments to Ben.
"Speaking of defense, our real problem last year was the secondary, not the defensive line" Flo's dad points out. "I sure hope we haven't paid too high a rent for us to get Oleg to play here, since Oleg is clearly a rental free safety"
"Dad, I know him more for his quiz bowl prowess than for his football skill; I know he plays free safety but no more than that" Flo explains to him, worried that Norman had him come to VA specifically for football reasons and hence would violate LHSAA regulations.
To throw off the Mighty Wolves' defense, who might have been expected to try resisting the rush, the VAs try, after two downs from the new position, to pass the ball to the side they deem have the weaker cornerback coverage.
Once the left wide receiver catches the ball, he only has ten yards to run. During those ten yards, an opposing cornerback and the free safety both attempt to tackle him but narrowly miss him, leading to a touchdown. The crowd goes crazy as the VAs take a 6-0 lead early into the game.
"TOUCHDOWN!" Norman screams into the stadium's PA system. "Venomous Agendas lead six-nothing!"
As the VAs make a conversion for one extra point, Flo checks on Rayne's standings and, going into this game, Rayne sports a 1-3 record to the VAs' 2-2.
By the end of the game, however, VA only has a four-point lead over Rayne, and Rayne is on the offense, close to the goal line. Which makes it impractical for the Mighty Wolves to just attempt a field goal. Everyone Frank then calls the play, with a few seconds on the clock:
"I want Seth on the weak side, Oleg down the center, to protect against the pass" Frank then wants the strong safety blitzing, because he believes that, with such a short distance, the Mighty Wolves would be more likely to attempt to rush.
But instead of that, the opposing QB could tell a blitz was coming, and hastily tries to pass the ball to the wide receiver on the side he deemed to be the weakest. Seth and Oleg both dash to where they believe they can intercept the pass before it lands in the opposing wide receiver's hands.
And, since Seth is closer to it, Oleg repositions himself for if Seth fails to make the interception. Yet, the opposing wide receiver gets a little too close to Oleg for some reason. Then Oleg tackles the Mighty Wolf WR by the goal line, making him fall flat. Just at Seth leaps to intercept the ball, right over the goal line.
"Venomous Agendas win, thirty-four to thirty!" Norman announces under the cheers of the crowd.
"Remember that, in four-A, the competition will be tougher, and we beat one of the most terrible four-A teams in this region" Flo's dad points out.
"Currently we might play two-A and four-A teams, maybe once or twice each per season. However, four-A will be more expensive than three-A" Flo adds.
Such as a bigger weight room, and upkeep of additional equipment. And, obviously, more coaches for baseball and football.
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So while the VAs are ecstatic about winning a football game against a 4A team for homecoming, at the same time, Marianne is in a phone call with Lacassine's principal a few days before the LHSAA preliminary district realignment for next season is released.
"Right now, Elton is poised to remain in one-A, and we're both in class B. However, since we're non-football schools, let me make that clear: we'll move up to one-A together, or we stay in B together!" Marianne warns Lacassine's principal.
"You said it so yourself that we work for non-football schools; I hope you understand the consequences of moving up to one-A for baseball, basketball and track!" Lacassine's principal gives Marianne pause.
At VA, there was relatively little school funds spent on sports; the single largest item of school funds spent on sports was substitute teachers. Thus it was in VA's best interest to stay in 3A, Marianne reflects on her past dealings with the redistricting process. Wattpad High, on the other hand, was going to remain in its athletic division no matter what, despite it being the most underfunded school in its athletic district.
"Our spending profiles are very similar to one-A schools, so I assume it's not a cost issue. However, we need to think about the other sports we field that are going to be affected, tennis and XC, even though their districts aren't necessarily the same" Marianne adds.
Whereas there are 7 divisions for schools in baseball, basketball, football, softball and track, which is the division most administrators care about most, other sports have their own districts and divisions. For instance, in cross-country, a five-division sport, VA plays in division II, while both Hathaway and Lacassine play in division IV.
"We must be ready to appeal for tennis and XC if necessary! But would moving up from B to one-A really bring in more revenue, even if we concerned ourselves only with baseball and basketball?" Lacassine's principal asks.
If so, it will take some financial pressure off athletics and, from there, quiz bowl, but I still expect sports to be subsidized by the school to some degree, Marianne keeps quiet about the state of Hornets' quiz bowl finances.