Week 268: I didn't even mind getting Rickrolled
A wedding, a championship, and a thought on loyalty.
I pulled the very long 72 hours this weekend. Thursday night I watched the dress rehearsal of Catie’s school musical (Peter Pan, 1954 version), and Friday night, I watched the opening, to see her get two solo dances as the sets were changed behind her. So instead of my usual Friday morning flight to Chicago Midway for a nationals, I got back home at midnight, got up at 3:30, and took the earliest flight possible into O’Hare on Saturday morning. I got into town at 7:15, out of the airport at 7:40, and into the opening meeting at 8:05. Five minutes late, but I nailed the transition.
This was the weekend of the Small School National Championship Tournament, and I needed to be there. I needed a win, I needed routine, and I needed to work myself out to the point of sleep and exhaustion. And I needed to have all the surprises be good ones, so if the wedding I had been planning to attend for a year happened to be on this same weekend on this same block, well you’re not going to be able to stop me.
I was definitely the NAQT guest who knew Greg Bossick the longest, I ran the first tournament he coached for Lowellville. And this being a second marriage after a fraught first, with a daughter welcoming a new parent into the family; well, it wasn’t exact, but it certainly rhymed to me. I want to thank Greg, Dawn, Annie and Lion, for giving me an evening to reflect and restore. I’ll even forgive you for dancing to “Together Forever.” That is still, technically, Rickrolling if you’re not expecting it.
I packed very light for this tournament, my changes of clothes, my laptop, toiletries, and two cases of extra cookies for the cookie table. The areas where the cookie table is common at weddings forms an ellipse, with Pittsburgh and Youngstown as its two foci. I had one at my wedding (for which we skipped baking Christmas Cookies that year to build up), and I hatched a plan to supply some to this wedding last year, because how could a Chicago bakery, even a Sicilian bakery in Chicago manage to do this right. I was aided by Catie’s musical needing cookies for the cast party, so the order was split and packed; three cartons went there, and two went in my bag. Even if they ended up being surplus, I know enough about the cookie table to know that by the end of the night, they got carried off in boxes for the next day’s breakfast.
I thank my tablemates for letting me unravel the past couple months over the wedding’s cocktail hour. While it was very therapeutic to let that loose in typing it out, there’s getting it out in one long conversation, and seeing the reactions to details that I had felt at the time, but I hadn’t been sure if it was just me.
I left that after being up for 22 hours finally feeling right with the world. It’s amazing how curative just normal things happening can be. I went through Sunday like it was nothing. I had the press releases ready to go before my flight, and even the cramped economy seat couldn’t bring me down.
Greg, with lots of help from coaches and players, realigned Ohio quiz bowl to the circuit, and one of the big ways he did that was by building up small schools. Ohio’s always come out big for the SSNCT, and that’s kind of why Greg and Dawn chose to do it on this weekend, to bring together everyone in an easy travel location, and where a good number of the guests would already be.
This was the weekend of serving the sectioned market. The Small School National Championship in Chicago, Academic Decathlon in Des Moines, National History Bee and Bowl in DC, and if you’re not at one of those, there’s an online trash tournament to support Shutdown Fullcast Charity Bowl. This weekend works for everyone to cover that group that is occasionally unconsidered, and people don’t really get a sense of their size.
Small schools have become a specialty of NAQT, not only do a number of members come from schools that qualify as small schools, but anyone who really looks at the competition in their local area sees the large number of high schools that would qualify. It’s a way to get more students into the game, and a sound business decision to push into a non-geographically defined market.
As I was thinking about it, I realized that while small schools have become part of the structure of NAQT’s support, other forms of quiz bowl are dominant in other types of markets and those markets have kept them afloat in challenging times. Each of these things are just enough to manufacture brand loyalty, while looking from the outside like nothing.
Academic Decathlon has long relied on the sponsorship of boards of education, this is part of how they are so strong in areas like southern California and Texas, getting a county or city board in California means the support goes to every public school in that area. That support means longevity and continuity for coaches and programs, which helps preserve AcaDec.
The late National Academic League followed a similar path to AcaDec, partnering with school boards in urban centers, but they also reinforced stability in their programs through an approved judges system. That almost made NAL a franchise system, as each approved judge was also local and invested in making sure there were teams in their area.
Even Questions Unlimited has a marketplace advantage built into their structure, and I’m not talking about multiple locations. The real advantage they have is for schools and districts that play quiz bowl in multiple grade groupings. If you have teams at the high school, middle school, and even elementary school level, and you want them to go to nationals, you can either make plans for three different locations on three different weekends, or you can take advantage of bulk and saving on travel costs. The only sting in that is that for it to work all the grade levels you support at the event have to be supported by enough teams. If your pool is too small you end up playing well above or below your experience level, and that is highly unsatisfactory for all involved.
Running a tournament for charity, scholarships, or fundraising is a solid brand loyalty and outreach move for any organization, and it’s a method that shows growth quite easily, and improves the brand by allying with a cause that people want to support, and gives the donors a feeling of extra bang for their buck.
I’m aware that new organizations will always be coming down the pike, and some will be competing with my efforts. When they do come through, they always rely on some novelty factor, to differentiate their new thing from what is already out there. NAQT pulled that trick with the power tossup. But what tends to separate those that exist for a short time and those that last over a cycle of interested students is a way to generate loyalty to the those particular events, and leveraging that loyalty over the years. It can be as simple as reliable production, a national championship, or a scalable way to run matches online. But if it can be done repeatedly, it becomes the advantage you have to build loyalty and keep your organization growing. It’s the product of a lot of work over a lot of time, and it’s the result of getting connected with a lot of people over a lot of time, and lots of sweat equity, but it’s the thing that keeps you from falling by the wayside. It wasn’t the power tossup that built NAQT, it’s the support of people like Greg, and the support we gave him.