New Schools & Teams
Are you a student who is eager to compete in quiz bowl but not sure how to set up a team? Does your school participate in the National History, Geography, and/or Science Bees but does not yet have a quiz bowl team? Are you a parent or teacher who are interested in establishing a team at your school? Do you live in the Tri-State Area and enjoy trivia nights / watching Jeopardy! / supporting excellence in education? If any of these apply to you, then TSQBA is here to help!
Please email Joe and David with any questions you may have. They and their LIQBA and IAC staff members can help assist you with obtaining buzzer systems to practice with, giving advice on how best to prepare, navigating school bureaucracy, conducting team practices, recruiting team members from your school, and all of the other aspects of the game.
Please note that official school support is rarely (and never at IAC or LIQBA events) needed to compete at quiz bowl tournaments, but for team events, with few exceptions (most notably the National Academic Bowl, as well as the Tri-State History Bowl tournament) all students on a team must attend the same school or homeschool association. This rule exists to prevent quiz bowl tournaments from becoming a recruiting contest, with students aiming to assemble to best all-star teams, rather than focusing on improving their studying and teamwork. Note, however, that middle school students may sometimes play on the teams of the high schools they feed into, but this isn’t always the case; check with each tournament’s director to be sure.
New Students & Families
If your family is new to quiz bowl, and in particular, if your school does not have an established quiz bowl team – not to worry! Unlike certain other activities, quiz bowl tournaments (with the exception of leagues) almost never require official school involvement. Parents very often take the lead in organizing participation at and transportation to tournaments. That said, there are a few general pieces of advice to offer to new students and teams:
1. Ask your school’s administration what the process is for founding a new club or academic team. Many schools have an official process for this, and if you can get school support, it can often unlock funding for tournaments, as well as a coach who can help lead practices in the school building, accompany students to tournaments, and handle administrative duties. Note that teams who have a coach who is a faculty member at the school tend to have greater continuity once a particularly active group of students graduates. This helps teams to endure over time and benefit more students. So, if it’s possible, getting school support is very helpful.
2. If not, don’t worry though. There may even be other students / parents in your school, district, or nearby district who are interested in quiz bowl, who would be eager to find teammates, other students to practice playing questions with, or at least get rides to tournaments. Contact david@iacompetitions.com (both high school and middle school) and joe@liqba.com (high school only) to see if there may be families near where you live who would be interested in reaching out to you.
3. Parents can be coaches too! Or at a minimum, help read questions to students, and perhaps take the lead in helping assign different subjects to different students on the team to study. Many parents have lots of fun attending tournaments with their children, and have found that it’s a great way for students to make friends, as much as to learn about new subjects and compete.
4. Don’t forget that while quiz bowl is often thought of as a team activity, solo student teams are very common at tournaments. There are also numerous single-player competitions; a list of these (and all competitions) that are organized by International Academic Competitions is maintained here.
5. This article from NAQT, the provider of questions at Long Island Quiz Bowl Alliance tournaments, and many other tournaments in the area, about setting up a new team may be helpful for students and parents too. Most of this article also applies to middle school teams as well.
6. If at all possible, acquire a buzzer system to practice with as soon as you can. Having a buzzer makes quiz bowl practices much more like tournaments (and much more fun), and you can usually obtain a small discount at each tournament to which you bring your buzzers (which over time can then allow the system to pay for itself). IAC and LIQBA both exclusively buy their buzzers from Anderson Buzzer Systems; their 10-person Tabletop Model is the gold standard for buzzers: it’s one of the cheapest, as well as the most reliable and easy to set up buzzer system on the market.
Press & Commendations
TSQBA believes that quiz bowl’s value as an activity stands markedly in inverse proportion to the recognition that it receives throughout the region, the country, and the world. To remedy this, at least to the extent we are able, TSQBA is eager to spread news of accomplishments by area teams and students. This includes to press outlets and via social media channels, but also through letters to teachers, principals, superintendents, Boards of Education, elected officials and community organizations. We also, where appropriate, will seek corporate, NGO, and government support for quiz bowl tournaments and teams. Parents, teachers, and students who have connections to people who may be interested in working with TSQBA on these efforts are encouraged to contact David and Joe to discuss matters further.
Leagues
TSQBA is looking to maintain a full list of quiz bowl leagues in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Many schools and students only know of quiz bowl through a local or regional league that their school competes in, and we are eager to reach out to these schools to encourage them to take part in other tournaments as well.
If you are aware of other leagues, please let us know. If you would like to compete in a league, please contact joe@liqba.com (for high school leagues) or david@iacompetitions.com (for middle school leagues) for information on how to reach out to the league’s director.
High School – New York
Masterminds (Upstate NY)
Regional Quiz Bowl (Long Island)
Metropolitan Academic Challenge Conference (Westchester County, NY)
Rockland County Academic League (Rockland County, NY)
Orange County Academic League (Orange County, NY)
Post Star Academic Bowl (Warren, Washington, Saratoga Counties, NY)
Twin Tiers Quiz League (Southern Tier, NY)
High School – New Jersey
DuPont Academic League (Salem County, NJ)
Sussex County Academic Bowl (Sussex County, NJ)
Warren-Hunterdon Academic Meet (Warren and Hunterdon Counties, NJ)
Somerset County Academic League (Somerset County, NJ)
High School – Connecticut
Shoreline League (Connecticut)
Middle School
Bergen Brain Busters (Bergen County, NJ)