Here are a few tips I've got for coaches. They are little things, but they can be a big help to you and your team.
-"Working" Binder--Each year, I have a giant binder full of questions, in addition to Word files that accumulate on my computer. It can be tough to sort through and find the sets that I want to use each week in practice. So I have taken to using a working binder, with sets related to what we are working on. For example, we are getting geared up for the Friendship Classic at the end of January, so I am pulling every possible question from Kloefkorn, as well as some sets from Marlow and myself. This will be the stuff we work on for the next several weeks.
This approach gives me the opportunity to switch things up depending on how our practice goes, while still keeping everything I want to use easily within reach. It also is easier than carrying the giant binder of doom with me to every practice, and I don't have to pull exactly what sets I want to use. It's a flexible solution. After Pittsburgh, I'll clean this binder out and start preparing for the next event.
-Notes of encouragement--Occasionally, I like to write little notes in my quizzers' Scripture Portions. Lauren, my captain, sometimes struggles to maintain focus for all 20 questions in a game. So before our next event, I'll go through on several random pages and write "Focus!" in the margin. The idea is to help her keep her head and remind her of what I want her to remember.
-Mini-marker board--This is a new idea I have started doing at major events this year. I have my substitute quizzer carry a small marker board, marker, and eraser. Their job is to write down the introductory remarks for each question. This way, we don't have to have any question about what was said. After that question is over, simply erase it and move on to the next one. I know a lot of coaches use scoresheets where they can write this information down, but that has never been my preferred approach.
These are a few of the things I like to do. They are all little, but I believe that the little things can often make a big difference in how my team does. I want to do everything I can to make them as good as they can be. Do you have any tips to suggest? Post a comment.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Berean Family Classic Reminder
The Berean Family Classic is coming up Jan. 1-2 in Iowa. I am the question writer for both A and Novice. If you want to register, contact Loren Plank as soon as possible at lorenplank@hotmail.com.
I'll have a more proper post later on in the week.
I'll have a more proper post later on in the week.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
A Few Coaching Observations
There are a few points that have stuck with me from the weekend, and I think they bear mulling over in this space. We're probably about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through our season, and my team is 22-9. Not bad at all, but that isn't good enough to be a contender, and my guys know that. Based on how we quizzed this weekend, these are the things I'll be coaching my team up on this week.
1. Accuracy. This has been our biggest problem all year, and it will ultimately be the issue we must resolve to move forward as a team. We were 69% accurate as a team this weekend, and that's not good enough. 75% is the minimum, and with the style my team quizzes, we need to be at 80% to be successful. We averaged 158 points per game this weekend, with an 8-3 record. We only gave up 100+ points 4 times, and 3 of those were losses. We can beat pretty much anyone if we minimize mistakes. The problem is that when you blow 9 questions in one game, you aren't going to win. We have to do better.
2. Mental toughness. This is an area where we improved dramatically, but we still have a ways to go. At Michiana, we faded at the end of the day. Last weekend, after starting 3-3, I told my team that, according to Bill Parcells, you are what your record says you are. I asked them if they wanted to be 8-3 or 3-8. They said 8-3, then went out and rolled off 5 wins in a row to prove it. That took some heart. We still have to avoid the lapses where we quiz badly, but we're definitely coming along.
3. Quoting. You can't fix everything at once, and in our effort to learn the writer's style, we didn't spend as much time solidifying our knowledge as I would have liked. This week, that begins in earnest, with tough schedules and a renewed focus on quoting. We'll be setting aside practice time over the next few weeks to make sure our quoting is as good as it needs to be. We were too tentative in a few spots.
So those are my main areas of focus over the next few weeks. Friendship is the next tournament on our list, but we have a league match before that, so we'll be working pretty hard. Hopefully it will pay off. You are what your record says you are, and right now we're 22-9.
1. Accuracy. This has been our biggest problem all year, and it will ultimately be the issue we must resolve to move forward as a team. We were 69% accurate as a team this weekend, and that's not good enough. 75% is the minimum, and with the style my team quizzes, we need to be at 80% to be successful. We averaged 158 points per game this weekend, with an 8-3 record. We only gave up 100+ points 4 times, and 3 of those were losses. We can beat pretty much anyone if we minimize mistakes. The problem is that when you blow 9 questions in one game, you aren't going to win. We have to do better.
2. Mental toughness. This is an area where we improved dramatically, but we still have a ways to go. At Michiana, we faded at the end of the day. Last weekend, after starting 3-3, I told my team that, according to Bill Parcells, you are what your record says you are. I asked them if they wanted to be 8-3 or 3-8. They said 8-3, then went out and rolled off 5 wins in a row to prove it. That took some heart. We still have to avoid the lapses where we quiz badly, but we're definitely coming along.
3. Quoting. You can't fix everything at once, and in our effort to learn the writer's style, we didn't spend as much time solidifying our knowledge as I would have liked. This week, that begins in earnest, with tough schedules and a renewed focus on quoting. We'll be setting aside practice time over the next few weeks to make sure our quoting is as good as it needs to be. We were too tentative in a few spots.
So those are my main areas of focus over the next few weeks. Friendship is the next tournament on our list, but we have a league match before that, so we'll be working pretty hard. Hopefully it will pay off. You are what your record says you are, and right now we're 22-9.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Missouri Classic Breakdown
We had quite a weekend at the Missouri Classic. Technology allowed us to do some pretty cool things over the Internet, and I think that will be a taste of things to come. I want to talk about the quizzing though, because it was a very competitive weekend.
Here are the highlights:
-Owasso is still the best team in the country. You don't win two National titles without having some depth, and losing Josh Wagner hasn't dealt a death blow to them. They've won their first three tournaments this year, and they were the only team to break 200 points per game in scoring this weekend. Jesse was the high point quizzer and Daniel won the Individual Quiz. The impressive thing this weekend was that they proved they could win close games in the clutch. Their only loss came after they locked up first place.
-More than half the field was comprised of teams that quizzed at Nationals last season, and, with one exception, all the top spots were occupied by those teams. When it comes to competing at a high level, the top teams in the country can be a tough group to break into. I would expect to see familiar faces at the top of the Nationals results this year.
-Briargate might be back. After an extremely disappointing last-place finish in the Championship Division last year, a retooled Briargate squad is looking pretty sharp. The Oss sisters won their first six straight, and delivered Owasso's only loss this weekend. A two-person team faces an uphill battle, but two of the top five Novice quizzers were also from Briargate, so they may have some options later in the season.
-The standings were a bit of a jumbled mess, as some of the top teams didn't square off until late in the day. The final round decided the placement of second through fourth.
-The south seems to be on a pretty good roll to start the year. Cumming, GA won both divisions at Gobblefest and the top three teams at Michiana were from the south. The top teams at Gold Cup, Missouri, and Peach were all southern teams, while the north won Empire. It'll be interesting to see how these things play out, especially at Friendship and the River Classic.
-A brief note on my team. We finished fourth, which was very good. Oddly enough, we beat our sister squad from JRA and Briargate, while our loss to Owasso was an epic, last question battle that was broadcast to the whole world. Our problem was losing games by making lots of mistakes (9 against West Plains and 5 in a 13-question game against Braeswood). We still have to work on our discipline, but there are lots of things to be encouraged about.
So, that's all I've got for now. Big thanks to Larry Mullins, Joey Bohanon, Joshua Havens, and Richard Fair for making this a great weekend and giving us some new ways to experience BQ. We are planning to do a lot more of this kind of thing in the future, so stay tuned.
Here are the highlights:
-Owasso is still the best team in the country. You don't win two National titles without having some depth, and losing Josh Wagner hasn't dealt a death blow to them. They've won their first three tournaments this year, and they were the only team to break 200 points per game in scoring this weekend. Jesse was the high point quizzer and Daniel won the Individual Quiz. The impressive thing this weekend was that they proved they could win close games in the clutch. Their only loss came after they locked up first place.
-More than half the field was comprised of teams that quizzed at Nationals last season, and, with one exception, all the top spots were occupied by those teams. When it comes to competing at a high level, the top teams in the country can be a tough group to break into. I would expect to see familiar faces at the top of the Nationals results this year.
-Briargate might be back. After an extremely disappointing last-place finish in the Championship Division last year, a retooled Briargate squad is looking pretty sharp. The Oss sisters won their first six straight, and delivered Owasso's only loss this weekend. A two-person team faces an uphill battle, but two of the top five Novice quizzers were also from Briargate, so they may have some options later in the season.
-The standings were a bit of a jumbled mess, as some of the top teams didn't square off until late in the day. The final round decided the placement of second through fourth.
-The south seems to be on a pretty good roll to start the year. Cumming, GA won both divisions at Gobblefest and the top three teams at Michiana were from the south. The top teams at Gold Cup, Missouri, and Peach were all southern teams, while the north won Empire. It'll be interesting to see how these things play out, especially at Friendship and the River Classic.
-A brief note on my team. We finished fourth, which was very good. Oddly enough, we beat our sister squad from JRA and Briargate, while our loss to Owasso was an epic, last question battle that was broadcast to the whole world. Our problem was losing games by making lots of mistakes (9 against West Plains and 5 in a 13-question game against Braeswood). We still have to work on our discipline, but there are lots of things to be encouraged about.
So, that's all I've got for now. Big thanks to Larry Mullins, Joey Bohanon, Joshua Havens, and Richard Fair for making this a great weekend and giving us some new ways to experience BQ. We are planning to do a lot more of this kind of thing in the future, so stay tuned.
A Retrospective Look at the Missouri Classic
The 2009 Missouri Classic took place this weekend. I wanted to give a brief retrospective of the tournament. Richard Fair had a last-minute conflict the morning of, so I ended up being the de-facto coordinator for the first half of the day. In spite of that, the tournament ran very smoothly, surely a testament to Richard's planning.
First off, congratulations to all of the top quizzers and teams. The quizzing in A was very even. Only 105 points separated the top 7 quizzers! I know that my questions were the quirkiest of the quirky, but I will say that the teams that finished near the top at the other recent tournaments, also finished near the top here. Learning to adapt to a "quirky" writer is an important skill to have. Richard Ely is writing the official questions this year, and I think even he would define his questions as a bit "quirky" (although, I doubt he would ever write a question about Don Quixote). I do want to apologize for the questions I wrote that had downright bizarre key words. Two coaches in particular really let me have it during contests when I wrote a bad question. No, I didn't mind, and yes, I knew it was a bad question as soon as I read it. I think in the future, the best way to guard against that is to find a quizzer who won't be at the tournament and use him (I say him, because I'm thinking of a certain someone from Georgia) to make sure quizzers don't get burned. One thing I don't apologize for are the questions that make you think. In my mind, the best questions are the ones that you haven't studied, but that you can answer once you've heard it. I hope the quizzers there learned that I like to focus on the "anomalies". One of my favorite questions from the one-on-one was the following:
Question Number 2 for 30 points. Statement and Question. Give Six Complete Answers. From First Corinthians Chapter 6.
In his questions, Paul prefaces six facts the Corinthians should know with the phrase, “Do you not know”.
What are they?
Now, I'm guessing that quizzers might have been prepared for all of the questions in that chapter, and possibly even the "do you not know" questions, but I doubt anyone thought of that exact question. However, once you hear it, you realize "I know this". It's that "aha" moment that I'm going for, not the 30 that merely asks you to give the questions in a chapter that you have to hit, complete and answer like a robot. There is a place for those, and if you're the national writer, you have to write thousands upon thousands of questions, so likely you would write it both ways simply to meet a quota.
Another type of question I wrote that was (sort of) completely new was the following:
Question Number 4 for 20 Points. Statement and Two Part Question. Give A Complete Answer. From The Section Titled, “Love.”
Someone might ask you if you the greatest virtue is faith.
Answer this question yes or no and give the one-verse teaching that proves your answer.
There used to be an introductory remark "Answer yes or no and cite Scriptural evidence." I believe 1992 might have been the last year it was used. As a potential way to deal with some of the problems we have with the Application Questions, Dan Marlow and I conspired to write questions like these. I am warning anyone reading this that these questions will reappear at the Southern Fried Classic. I wrote about 6 of these and scattered them throughout the day. One of the stated missions for Bible Quiz is to get quizzers to apply the material they have memorized. I think questions like this are perfect, specifically because the "Statement" portion is precisely a question that one of their friends might ask them. Then, within 30 seconds, they have to determine in their own minds the answer to the question AND provide a verse that supports their conclusion. In all but one instance, in my room, the quizzer who hit it was able to correctly answer the question and easily find the verse I was looking for. The one thing I will say about this is that one quizzer said it was difficult for her, after she had hit, to remember if she was supposed to answer "Yes" or "No", but she had no trouble finding the verse. Perhaps in the future, we could drop the "Yes" or "No" part and simply make the question portion, "Give the one-verse teaching that answers this question". This was just an experiment, and as far as I know, has never been discussed among the Steering Committee. Dan and I talked for a long time about this issue. We actually think that if Application Questions were replaced with these kinds of questions, people would be a lot happier about them. Moreover, you don't even have to limit them to just League matches. As a matter of fact, you could even ask questions like these at nationals, requiring quizzers to immediately come up with two or three verses from all across the portion that support a certain conclusion. The biggest difficulty of all this is writing questions that demand a certain answer without having tons of additional answers. I still think the statement and question method used above is the best way to write these. If we did happen to bring back the intro remark about "Answer yes or no..." we run into the problem of making the questions interruptable. Given the the wording for the "question that someone might ask you" probably doesn't come from Scripture, this is nearly impossible.
Now, a few comments about the quizzing. The one-on-one was very fun, and had a very interesting format. Doing one-on-ones is always a little challenging, especially if it's before the tournament. You have no clear way to rank the quizzers, so many tournaments just try to guesstimate where the quizzers will finish and rank them that way. In addition, setting up good brackets is a little difficult if you have people dropping out at the last minute. We had 25 quizzers in A and 16 in Novice and we did genuine single elimination one-on-one quizzing (ie not the four-in-a-room thing you see elsewhere). 25 is a bit of an awkward number, but the way you accomplish it is to give the top 7 ranked quizzers a bye for the first round. Further complicating matters was the fact that we didn't have enough rooms for all of the needed matches, so a few rooms had to read the same set twice to different quizzers. How to seed is the next big issue. Richard had an idea that seemed to intrigue everyone there given that I don't believe it's ever been tried. He had a basket with 25 cards labeled "A" and 16 cards labeled "N" with a number on them. The quizzers drew a number out of the box. Now, that would be a silly way to seed the quizzers as it's purely luck-based. So we did a placement round with four quizzers per room. How does that work with 25 quizzers, you ask? Simple. The lucky quizzer who drew "25" (Jed Brookbank) got to quiz all by himself. Following the match, we tallied up the scores and ranked the quizzers by points, then quiz-outs, then missed questions, etc. This seeding produced some big upsets in the first round. The quizzer who would end up #1 in the team rounds lost in his first game because he had a tough opponent. By the end, the three quizzers who placed were three that I would expect to see near the end of any one-on-one, so I think there wasn't anything incredibly anomalous about this.
The team quizzing went fairly well. I always felt bad when a good quizzer got burned because I wrote a bad question. I also chuckled when people weren't afraid to call it a bad question to my face. There were lots of close games that came down to the last question. I don't believe any of our matches got called for time.
My favorite part about this weekend was the online aspect of the tournament. Quizzers were able to call parents at home and have them watch their game in my room. I believe we had about 25 people watching the live stream. Any tournament coordinator who wants the same type of coverage only needs to ask. You will need to provide the streaming and the links to real-time stats, but we are happy to host it and to tell you how to do it.
The online quiz didn't happen, partly because we didn't have anyone available when we planned to do it. Over the coming months, we will try to get something running. The biggest difficulty is making a virtual "quiz-box" that doesn't suffer under slow internet speeds.
Finally, I wanted to say a word of thanks to Larry and Cindy Mullins for the fantastic work they do. I feel that in the last five years, Bible Quiz has started to "catch up" with the available technology, due, in a large part, to Larry. The scorekeeping program worked extremely well. We premiered it at the MO Classic last year (at least it was the first TBQ tournament to use it) and it ended up being used at nationals that year.
Thanks to everyone who made the tournament what it was.
Joey
First off, congratulations to all of the top quizzers and teams. The quizzing in A was very even. Only 105 points separated the top 7 quizzers! I know that my questions were the quirkiest of the quirky, but I will say that the teams that finished near the top at the other recent tournaments, also finished near the top here. Learning to adapt to a "quirky" writer is an important skill to have. Richard Ely is writing the official questions this year, and I think even he would define his questions as a bit "quirky" (although, I doubt he would ever write a question about Don Quixote). I do want to apologize for the questions I wrote that had downright bizarre key words. Two coaches in particular really let me have it during contests when I wrote a bad question. No, I didn't mind, and yes, I knew it was a bad question as soon as I read it. I think in the future, the best way to guard against that is to find a quizzer who won't be at the tournament and use him (I say him, because I'm thinking of a certain someone from Georgia) to make sure quizzers don't get burned. One thing I don't apologize for are the questions that make you think. In my mind, the best questions are the ones that you haven't studied, but that you can answer once you've heard it. I hope the quizzers there learned that I like to focus on the "anomalies". One of my favorite questions from the one-on-one was the following:
Question Number 2 for 30 points. Statement and Question. Give Six Complete Answers. From First Corinthians Chapter 6.
In his questions, Paul prefaces six facts the Corinthians should know with the phrase, “Do you not know”.
What are they?
Now, I'm guessing that quizzers might have been prepared for all of the questions in that chapter, and possibly even the "do you not know" questions, but I doubt anyone thought of that exact question. However, once you hear it, you realize "I know this". It's that "aha" moment that I'm going for, not the 30 that merely asks you to give the questions in a chapter that you have to hit, complete and answer like a robot. There is a place for those, and if you're the national writer, you have to write thousands upon thousands of questions, so likely you would write it both ways simply to meet a quota.
Another type of question I wrote that was (sort of) completely new was the following:
Question Number 4 for 20 Points. Statement and Two Part Question. Give A Complete Answer. From The Section Titled, “Love.”
Someone might ask you if you the greatest virtue is faith.
Answer this question yes or no and give the one-verse teaching that proves your answer.
There used to be an introductory remark "Answer yes or no and cite Scriptural evidence." I believe 1992 might have been the last year it was used. As a potential way to deal with some of the problems we have with the Application Questions, Dan Marlow and I conspired to write questions like these. I am warning anyone reading this that these questions will reappear at the Southern Fried Classic. I wrote about 6 of these and scattered them throughout the day. One of the stated missions for Bible Quiz is to get quizzers to apply the material they have memorized. I think questions like this are perfect, specifically because the "Statement" portion is precisely a question that one of their friends might ask them. Then, within 30 seconds, they have to determine in their own minds the answer to the question AND provide a verse that supports their conclusion. In all but one instance, in my room, the quizzer who hit it was able to correctly answer the question and easily find the verse I was looking for. The one thing I will say about this is that one quizzer said it was difficult for her, after she had hit, to remember if she was supposed to answer "Yes" or "No", but she had no trouble finding the verse. Perhaps in the future, we could drop the "Yes" or "No" part and simply make the question portion, "Give the one-verse teaching that answers this question". This was just an experiment, and as far as I know, has never been discussed among the Steering Committee. Dan and I talked for a long time about this issue. We actually think that if Application Questions were replaced with these kinds of questions, people would be a lot happier about them. Moreover, you don't even have to limit them to just League matches. As a matter of fact, you could even ask questions like these at nationals, requiring quizzers to immediately come up with two or three verses from all across the portion that support a certain conclusion. The biggest difficulty of all this is writing questions that demand a certain answer without having tons of additional answers. I still think the statement and question method used above is the best way to write these. If we did happen to bring back the intro remark about "Answer yes or no..." we run into the problem of making the questions interruptable. Given the the wording for the "question that someone might ask you" probably doesn't come from Scripture, this is nearly impossible.
Now, a few comments about the quizzing. The one-on-one was very fun, and had a very interesting format. Doing one-on-ones is always a little challenging, especially if it's before the tournament. You have no clear way to rank the quizzers, so many tournaments just try to guesstimate where the quizzers will finish and rank them that way. In addition, setting up good brackets is a little difficult if you have people dropping out at the last minute. We had 25 quizzers in A and 16 in Novice and we did genuine single elimination one-on-one quizzing (ie not the four-in-a-room thing you see elsewhere). 25 is a bit of an awkward number, but the way you accomplish it is to give the top 7 ranked quizzers a bye for the first round. Further complicating matters was the fact that we didn't have enough rooms for all of the needed matches, so a few rooms had to read the same set twice to different quizzers. How to seed is the next big issue. Richard had an idea that seemed to intrigue everyone there given that I don't believe it's ever been tried. He had a basket with 25 cards labeled "A" and 16 cards labeled "N" with a number on them. The quizzers drew a number out of the box. Now, that would be a silly way to seed the quizzers as it's purely luck-based. So we did a placement round with four quizzers per room. How does that work with 25 quizzers, you ask? Simple. The lucky quizzer who drew "25" (Jed Brookbank) got to quiz all by himself. Following the match, we tallied up the scores and ranked the quizzers by points, then quiz-outs, then missed questions, etc. This seeding produced some big upsets in the first round. The quizzer who would end up #1 in the team rounds lost in his first game because he had a tough opponent. By the end, the three quizzers who placed were three that I would expect to see near the end of any one-on-one, so I think there wasn't anything incredibly anomalous about this.
The team quizzing went fairly well. I always felt bad when a good quizzer got burned because I wrote a bad question. I also chuckled when people weren't afraid to call it a bad question to my face. There were lots of close games that came down to the last question. I don't believe any of our matches got called for time.
My favorite part about this weekend was the online aspect of the tournament. Quizzers were able to call parents at home and have them watch their game in my room. I believe we had about 25 people watching the live stream. Any tournament coordinator who wants the same type of coverage only needs to ask. You will need to provide the streaming and the links to real-time stats, but we are happy to host it and to tell you how to do it.
The online quiz didn't happen, partly because we didn't have anyone available when we planned to do it. Over the coming months, we will try to get something running. The biggest difficulty is making a virtual "quiz-box" that doesn't suffer under slow internet speeds.
Finally, I wanted to say a word of thanks to Larry and Cindy Mullins for the fantastic work they do. I feel that in the last five years, Bible Quiz has started to "catch up" with the available technology, due, in a large part, to Larry. The scorekeeping program worked extremely well. We premiered it at the MO Classic last year (at least it was the first TBQ tournament to use it) and it ended up being used at nationals that year.
Thanks to everyone who made the tournament what it was.
Joey
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Last two matches
In room A1, the last two matches of the day will be between Briargate and Ozark - Jars of Clay, and finally, Owasso and Briargate. Both of these matches will be live on biblequiz.com and will definitely be worth watching (especially the last one). We've had a great day so far, and the quizzing has been as good as can be expected when quizzing over Joey's unique questions.
- Josh
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