'These are brilliant kids': Uni High team heading to national scholastic bowl championship

May 23—URBANA — Manganese nodules in deep sea vents, railroads built in colonial-era Congo, the letters carved in the keystone above Michaelangelo's "Last Judgment."

Students from University Laboratory High School's scholastic bowl team have answered so many questions correctly on those types of obscure subjects that they are now heading to Atlanta this weekend to compete in the Academic Quiz Tournaments' High School National Championship Tournament.

The three-day competition starting on Friday will pit the Urbana teens against 319 other teams, all tasked with buzzing in first to trivia based in every discipline from science to math, history, literature, fine art, geography, sports, current events and popular culture.

It will be the eighth time Uni High's standout scholastic bowl program has made it into the final ladder. They most recently finished in 21st place in last year's national championship.

By its members' telling, the team won the 2022 and 2021 state tournaments so handily that it was bumped up another tier and still ranked fourth during this year's state tournament in March.

While Uni High will undoubtedly face strong contenders and an array of arcane topics in Georgia, those on its varsity squad said they're excited to enter the contest because of their unique advantage that sets them apart from most other teams: They don't just rely on one brainiac to answer all the questions — every member of their team knows how to hold their own.

"I think we have a good shot," said junior Jonathan Ouyang, the team's STEM specialist. "This type of balance in a team, again, is so rare, especially in a high-performing team."

Scholastic bowls generally involve two teams of five players facing off through "toss-up questions" that start off vague and gradually get more obvious.

Whichever team nails a toss-up question first gets bonus points if they answer it before too much context is given away. That team then has an opportunity to answer a bonus question tied to the same subject.

Senior and team captain Shawn Syed said he already had a passion for the social sciences when he decided to join, but he became hooked after he participated in a match and was quizzed on the history of how certain dynasties and states have transitioned power — something he had just been researching for fun.

"Immediately, I remember, that there's this bonus on the Spanish empire, like, a bunch of the kings of Spain, and I just answered every part of it, so I felt like it was sort of my true calling," Syed said. "Because in middle school I was trying to lecture my friends on random central Asian states, and they didn't find that interesting. But with scholastic bowl, I can get like 30 points off that."

Similarly, Ouyang's upbringing preceded his involvement with scholastic bowl. His background in conducting enzymology research with the University of Illinois' biochemistry department helps him land any questions related to lab techniques.

Junior David Black, the team's fine-arts specialist, said he decided to join scholastic bowl after seeing his brother compete. He initially wanted to focus on the sciences but started studying painting and music compositions after noticing a hole in the team's coverage.

Now, he said, the work he's done as part of the team has altered his perception of the world.

"It gave me just a new way to look at things," Black said. "I look at things very black-and-white a lot, and looking at art has taught me to make my own interpretations of things, like not to take things at face value or as they seem, but drawing more abstract conclusions out of what I see or hear."

Junior Ben Newman, the team's literature specialist, said he joined in order to spend more time with his friend, who was one of the school's best players. While he also runs track, he said he's come to spend much of his time reading poems, short stories and novels and watching live recordings of plays.

The four meet every week to go over packets of information sourced from an online database of subjects from previous scholastic bowl tournaments, but they predominantly prepare by making flash cards and running through them in their free time.

Still, they emphasized that the key to answering toss-up questions within even a few words of a given prompt is becoming familiar with the concepts at the heart of their studies.

"The thing about scholastic bowl is that people think it's just a memorization challenge, but the truth is knowledge is applicable everywhere and you can never have too much," Ouyang said. "It will help you excel at everything."

What distinguishes Uni High from many other schools, the varsity team members said, is that while many of the most competitive teams succeed by primarily relying on just one extremely knowledgeable "generalist," their squad has both the sciences and humanities covered, and they've learned how to communicate through body language and trust who is the right person to answer.

That being said, the students still have overlapping expertise. Syed said he became obsessed with crocodiles before he moved on to history, so can answer nearly any question related to the animals. The teammates also learn a lot in others' wheelhouses through constant exposure and "osmosis."

Given their self-driven dedication, Kaila Simpson, one of the team's two coaches, said she focuses on being what they call the "Minister of Transportation," while the other coach is the "Minister of Paperwork."

Notably, Uni's scholastic bowl team carries home far more trophies than any of the school's athletic programs.

Whether the students will bring home a national title this weekend remains to be seen, but the volumes of knowledge they've already gained is an award they may carry long after they graduate.

"These are brilliant kids," Simpson said. "I'm really excited to see where they go in the future."