Argo Online

By Shonte Daniels

Many shudder at the thought of an extracurricular activity pertaining to academics. Along with normal people who know of the team, members in the team itself stated an article about Academic Team would be boring. But, contrary to these perceptions, this really is an interesting “sport”. For one, the team itself is pretty mysterious. Around here, no one watches the games, though it’s not necessarily allowed either. Some members, when I asked if I could observe them for this article, stated people can watch; others said no. Some just said to ask Ms. Gratzer. Finally, though, I asked, and Ms. Gratzer was more than excited to have a cheerleader for one of the games.
During the high-strung week of midterms, Rutgers Prep hosted an ultimate academic team tournament. Teams from ten different schools met at our lounges to relax and eat pizza before the tournament officially started. They devoured everything, and, once the food and drinks were gone, the games began. Because they were so many teams, different games went on inside different classrooms. The sixth game took place in Ms. Gratzer’s room: Varsity Prep vs. Montgomery.
The teams were split into two groups. Our first group included Hannah Carlisle, Ameil Kenkare, Kevin Roberts, and Mayukh Sen. They went against the first Montgomery group. A teacher from Montgomery flipped a coin and the round started. Academic Team, I observed, is like “Jeopardy” in the sense that questions are asked and people answer them; if you get the question wrong, other people have a chance to answer it. At the same time, though, it differs in many ways. Instead of pressing a button the fastest, the teams take turns to answer questions. The teams have to write down their own points to keep up with the score, and also the atmosphere is a little more loose and relaxed than “Jeopardy”’s. Question topics stretched from English to Math, politics to popular culture and anything in between. Even the members found questions – one of which involved naming one of the Kardashian kids other than Khloé, Kim or Kourtney – a bit weird and extremely funny.
During a short break, group two took the place of team one, and Ms. Gratzer and Dr. Pierce switched out the Mongtomery teacher as the proctors. Rutgers Prep’s second roster included Elizabeth Castner, Joshua Gluck, Zain Haq, and Rachel Weinstein. The game started up again, and, in the end, our team won – Varsity Prep beat Montgomery by about one hundred points.
As I left the room, I realized that Academic Team is not a boring game at all. If you like to answer questions and think, you’ll love this team. It’s easy to write something off with the word “academic” as boring, but this is definitely a time where “academic” creates excitement.