Knowledge Bowl is a competitive, academic team at MSHS that participates in Jeopardy- style trivia competitions against other school teams. Their practice occurs during lunch, each Wednesday and Friday in Mr. Slama’s room, room 24. Members of the 2024-2025 Knowledge Bowl team hope to alter the perception of their team, highlighting that anyone can compete and enjoy doing so.
Knowledge Bowl team captain, Evan Fugate (12) hopes to increase the Club’s notoriety on campus. “I feel like it’d be nice if people didn’t think of this as only a nerd club anymore,” Fugate said. “It’s just something cool to watch and maybe participate, if you want. I feel like not a whole lot of people know about us.”
Knowledge Bowl team captain, Kyle Blasi (11) is grateful to have enough players to fill two teams and is excited to compete alongside the talented freshmen. “Two years ago, we’d end up going to competitions with three people in total, and the max you can have on a team is four; so we were going short handed to a lot of competitions,” Blasi said.
Andrew Slama, Knowledge Bowl Coach, strives to create a space where each student has a platform. “I try to create an environment where all personalities can thrive and everybody feels included to help steer our ship,” Slama said. “I offer lots of ideas and mentorship, but ultimately the decision making – who is on what team, what we work on each practice round, etc, is decided by the more senior members of the group.”
Blasi is grateful for the community Knowledge Bowl has brought him beyond his involvement in sports. “I think there’s a lot of opportunities to be athletic in school or to do different things if you’re musically talented, or if you like to act, but there’s not a lot of things on the academic side, especially not competitively,” Blasi said. “Some of us play sports, but some of us don’t; so I think it gives people a chance to have a team without needing to be athletic.”
Blasi feels that Knowledge Bowl encourages him to study and apply his academics outside of class. He has found more enjoyment in studying for Knowledge Bowl than for grades. “It just gives an extra incentive to learn for the fun of it,” Blasi said.
Fugate finds that sometimes the results of competitions are surprising, and it’s always fun when educated guesses are correct. “We got a music based question, and Jason Jones, who was our music guy, wasn’t there; so I just went off of what I did know,” Fugate said. “I know ‘allegro’ means fast, and it was allegro something, so I said fast just on a whim as a guess. I was asked to elaborate, so I said, ‘extra fast’ just as a complete and total guess and I got it right.”
Blasi has participated in competitions at the state level with the team the past two years. “I just think states is a huge bonding experience for us as a team,” Blasi said,
“because we get to go up to Greeley, and even though it’s a little stinky, we get to share a hotel room together, and I think it’s a really unique way to bond.”
Slama enjoys the curiosity of students in Knowledge Bowl and their ability to take being wrong in stride. “My favorite part is watching how passionate each student can get about different categories: history, geography, math, science, English – everybody has a slight advantage over each other in specific categories,” Slama said. “Ultimately, I absolutely love the devotion to truth and understanding.”
Slama is uplifted by the students’ capacity to recover from incorrect answers and ultimately create a learning opportunity. “Seeing our students ask students from other schools how they understood how to solve a math problem or how they knew a fact, it is truly inspirational,” Slama said.
