<p>So! Next year I will be taking over as captain of the JV Academic team. The issue though, is that with our old captain moving up, the source of a great bulk of our scoring is gone now. Though I have no problem being the dominant scorer next year, I don’t want us to be lost sheep that can’t do anything w/o their captain. I’ve already told everyone that we’ll need to step it up as a whole next season (I’ve even made it a point to meet the 8th grade Quizbowlers). I’m however, having problems with one member on the team…
He’s extremely smart, and one of the highest ranked kids in our class, but he knows nothing when it comes to anything that he hasn’t been tought in school. To put it simply, he’s great at school, but stinks at trivia.</p>
<p>This past season, he answered 1 tossup, and helped us with maybe 2 bonuses.
I tried to talk to him about his output this season, and how he’ll need to contribute a lot more, and he instantly came up with a laundry list of excuses: (I just can’t buzz in that fast, y’all already knew the answer, I didn’t hear the question, I was subbed out for all the ones I knew). And on top of that, he says that he doesn’t care about being competitive, he does this for fun, but when I ask him what’s fun about sitting for 3+ hours, not knowing what’s going on. And he has no response.</p>
<p>I’m honestly stressed out cause he doesn’t care about team performance at all, and I feel like he’s a waste of a team spot. Suggestions?</p>
<p>Answering questions correctly is fun. </p>
<p>Being chewed out by your team captain is not. </p>
<p>If you want to make him quit, I’m sure you’re halfway there.</p>
<p>Do Captain things and cut him from the team.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how serious your school is at quiz bowl, but I’m the captain at my school and we usually focus on varsity and just let the people rotate through JV. In that case I would just let it be. But if your school is a lot more competitive, then you might consider benching him for the tougher matches.</p>
<p>It honestly fluctuates every year
We’ve (JV) been in the top 3 in the state, to not making states some years.
Technically we compete in the Academic Bowl, not the Quiz Bowl, but
It’s the same question format and most people are familiar with Quiz Bowl.</p>
<p>Our JV and V teams are also not consistent with each other. They never have an amazing season at the same time. But both have topped/been near the top before.</p>
<p>which high school?</p>
<p>My cousins live in suburban Atlanta (Hotlanta).</p>
<p>You could ask him if there is any area he wants to study more deeply for QB purposes (every team has weaknesses, he might be willing to work on one if you let him pick). If you have control over who is in vs. out during matches, only play him in matches you expect to do well in, and sub him out at the half if it is close. (Or sub him in at the half if you are way ahead).</p>
<p>Can you work on buzzer speed as a team? My kid’s team plays easy packets (middle school packets) to practice buzzing in when they know the question right away. And a lot of players develop better buzzer speed as they get older (my kid was a slow buzzer in 9th grade, but finished as one of the top players in our state as she gained speed).</p>
<p>My kid was the top player on her team, and there are lots of players on her team she could have considered “dead weight”. She chose to treat them as teammates who had as much right as she did to play even if they weren’t as serious about it. Kids who weren’t very good as freshman and sophomores sometimes blossomed as juniors and seniors, too. Also… as you get older, what you have learned in class DOES help you answer a lot of questions – when you are freshman/sophomores, there are subjects like Physics and Econ that you haven’t had yet – so this guy may be a little better next year just based on that.</p>
<p>That is (those are) a very good suggestion.
Our team hasn’t been specializing, and that was something I planned on bringing up next year.
I’ll try to give him a chance, and hopefully we can all put things together and we see improvement next year. So if he makes it next year, we’ll just play it by year as far as playing time and other things are concerned.</p>
<p>It’s just frustrating when I’m trying to make our semi-rebuild as successful as possible, and he doesn’t seem to want to put in effort.</p>
<p>I was JV team captain last year- moving up to varsity in the fall. I know exactly what you are talking about. Trust me on this one: the dead weight will drop itself. Does your school have a club fair? If so, take on a few new players from your high school who haven’t done Quizbowl before. Having the middle school players is nice, but too often just enlisting them causes even more problems, because a lot of them really are not that good, despite the years of practice. The first month or so is going to be incredibly frustrating no matter what. You are going to have even more ‘deadweight’, people who don’t understand the rules, lots of negs, having to break middle school habits, etc. But this is the time when you realize who is good and who isn’t… and trust me, the players make the connection too. Just sitting for hours and hours and not answering any questions really sucks- most of these players will quit on their own. If the kid you are talking about stays past this stage, he will get surpassed by kids younger than he is, and that is really quite embarrassing. But some people are just stubborn like that. If he stays, just deal with it- don’t play him as much in matches. He might actually just like the game for what it is. If you really can’t stand it and he keeps damaging your team’s chances, exercise the powers that come with being captain and cut him.</p>
<p>Also, if your team isn’t already doing speed drills and specializing, you absolutely need to start. Speed drills are an important exercise, and make even the best players better. Specializing will always increase individual knowledge, and if you are really concerned about your team being ‘lost sheep’, this will definitely solve it- get some players to start studying your strongest areas and building up the weaker ones, so they can hold their own without you. </p>
<p>Hope this helps!</p>
<p>Not all teams allow their captains to cut (our school wouldn’t). So the OP may not have that choice. One thing you could do is see if you can get people to do some work over the summer. My D studied a lot in the summer, she didn’t have as much time during the school year. You could send out emails with a few study packets, or links to sites. Maybe give people a list of possible specialization areas via email and ask if anyone has something special they want to work on. But at least at our school, ANY studying (even if it overlapped with someone else’s preferred area) was good for the team. My D’s team had two really strong lit players, and they vacuumed up EVERY lit question between the two of them. Not always great for their individual stats, but good for the team. But maybe this kid would do something while bored this summer if presented with some links or packets to work on.</p>
<p>It is late for this summer, but my kid’s team got better when they went to an ACE camp as a team. Each family paid their own way, but it is not a super expensive camp if you are close enough to drive to one. Everyone didn’t go, but enough went to make a difference. My kid is the one who wanted to so she asked the coach to email the team to see if people wanted to sign up. They did, and the coach ended up going (car pooling them to camp).</p>
<p>My kid’s team used to get together to practice for fun sometimes at people’s houses. You just need the buzzer system and some question packets (and food… no QB practice is complete without food). If you can get your hands on the buzzer, invite the team over for a somewhat relaxed practice session.</p>
<p>intparent, those are really great ideas! </p>
<p>Does ACE camp actually make that big a difference? I’m going to one this summer.</p>
<p>It helped my kid a lot… she was able to build depth in a couple of new areas and compete against really strong players. She broke into the top room a couple of times at camp and was really excited. Didn’t last long, but she enjoyed it while it did. There are usually some top notch teams there. They can be kind of intimidating, but it also gives you something to work toward as a JV player. She liked it enough to do it for two summers. She plans to play in college bowl at college, too. :)</p>