If you ever look up the definition of “disappointment” in the
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, you’ll get a wordy definition along the lines of
“the act or the instance of failing to meet expectations.” If I may offer a
less wordy definition, I would define disappointment as “when expectations are
not met.” And that perfectly describes my 2nd year of Bible Quizzing.
I had ended my rookie year of Bible Quizzing on a high. I had
mastered the situation question, and I could even get a few other questions
here and there. As for my team, in the ACC Tournament, my team was one match
away from becoming a semifinalist, and in the Ohio Tournament, my team was one
match away from entering the playoffs. In my mind, individually and as team
member, we could only go up. By the end of my rookie year, I had idolized Jake
and Josh Moss. Their superior smartness had gotten them both in Top 50 Bible
Quizzers List (they were in top 10, to be exact). I wanted to be like them. I
decided my goal for the next year of quizzing would be to make the Top 50 Bible
Quizzers List. And there is the high expectations.
I started hard right after the previous year ended. I began
writing questions. I would write them on paper, and as I typed them up, I would
double-check for errors. My questions weren’t always the best. Most of the
time, they were like fill in the blanks, but instead of blanks, I stuck a
question word in there (ironically, this is how Bible quizzing does questions
today, but not back then). Nevertheless, they worked. By the time next year of
quizzing came around, I had written an exhaustive list of questions for Mark
chapters 1 & 2. I had also taken the time to memorize James chapter 1 in
its entirety. And, of course, I continued my practice of finding situation
questions until they were key. By the time the next quizzing year rolled
around, I found myself studied up. I just needed the practice. Again, all the
studying produced high expectations.
This year, Ark Bible had a 7-quizer quiz team. Returning from
the previous year, the Ark Bible quiz team had Jake, Josh, Krystal, Christine
and myself. Joining the team for their rookie year, the Ark team added Tim and
Deanna. Tim had come from a long line in the Moss dynasty. Tim had actually
come along for last year’s invitational as a fan when a quizzer dropped out of
the team halfway through the season. Tim knew quizzing through watching it, and
now Tim would experience quizzing. While Deanna took part in the Ark Youth
Fellowship, Deanna knew only about quizzing from what she heard from quizzers.
Deanna would have to start from the beginning.
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| The 2003 Ark Bible quiz team |
I don’t remember too much what happened during the 2003 quizzing
season. I remember on the first Sunday of season Tim got sick, so he had to
miss the first meet of his first year. When you have a 7-quizzer team, and the
rules say that only 6 quizzers can be on the quizzing roster for a match, Tim’s
absence meant I could quiz every quiz match for the first quiz meet. Not only
did I quiz in every match, I started every match. When Tim would join the team for
the rest of the season, it would not always be that way. I had to prove myself
to even make the roster, and I had to prove myself even more to get a starting
spot. I could not always prove myself. Constantly I found myself as a
substitute, and even a few times I didn’t make the roster for the match. I
would remember sitting on the bench, arms crossed, stewing in my anger that I
couldn’t quiz the match. How could I make the Top 50 Quizzers List if I had to
skip over a match without collecting any points? Honestly, though, I got what I
deserved. I didn’t deserve to always start, and sometimes I didn’t even deserve
a spot on the roster. I had fallen back into old pattern of approaching
situation questions conservatively. I did not buzz in until I absolutely knew
quote and I absolutely knew the answer. When you have quizzers on the other
teams that just buzz in on the first word and hope it’s key, that conservative
play will not suffice. By the end of the season, I scored 120 points (in a
19-match season, that’s 6.3 points per match), landing me in 194th place. So
how did I do for my sophomore season, especially in light of my rookie season?
I really can’t tell you. I can’t tell you how many points I scored in 2002 now,
and I couldn’t tell you back in 2003 either. I could have scored more, I could
have scored less, I could have scored the same. All I know is that I felt
scored more points back in 2002, and in my mind, I felt like I did worse. This
is where our definition of disappointment kicks in. I had high expectations for
the 2003 quizzing season, and I did not meet those expectations. Therefore, I
felt disappointed in myself, and the overall quizzing season felt like a
disappointment to me.
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| The "Quizzer Extraordinaire" at Pequea High School for the 2003 ACC Tournament |
Despite the disappointment of the 2003 quizzing season, I still
had high expectation for the ACC Tournament. The previous year the Ark Bible
quiz team made it to the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament playoffs, one
match away from becoming a semifinalist. This year, I expected my team to make
to the semifinals of the playoffs, so we could at least take home a
semifinalist trophy. Again, the definition of disappointment kicks in. We did
not make it to the semifinals of the playoffs. Heck, we did not even to the
playoffs at all! The only emotion I could feel was disappointment. But see,
while the season can be about either individual or team (or both), come
tournaments, it comes down to team performance. Not only did I feel
disappointment in myself, but I felt disappointed about my team. At least 5 of
us were quizzing veterans. All 5 veterans should have improved from the
previous year. Therefore, in my mind, we should have naturally made the ACC
Tournament semifinals. I couldn’t help but feel disappointment toward my team
as whole and towards my teammates individually.
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| 2003 ACC Tournament at Pequea High School |
During the following week, I quickly dismissed the poor
performance as a series of unfortunate events or an unlucky streak. I turned my
eyes to the Invitational Tournament. This year, the ACC hosted the Invitational
Tournament, and Ohio would come to us. The tournament itself was hosted by
Calvary Church, and my coaches, the Willmans, became the team’s “host family.”
I remember my father driving me in his truck to the Willmans. I remember
telling me on the ride up, “Now Graham, you’ll be spending a whole weekend with
your teammates. You might get sick or tired of them, but they are still your
friends.” I didn’t know how my dad could foreshadow this. He must have saw my
disappointment with team and teammates the previous Sunday. I shrugged my
father’s words off. Like he said, they were my friends. I couldn’t imagine
being angry with them. When we got to the Willman’s house, I showed Krystal my
quizzing buddy, a Stitch doll I got on the Disney Cruise that summer. When the
rest of the team arrived, we had dinner, we had a dessert of butterscotch
chocolate chip cookies made by Krystal, we had quiz practice, and then we
watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail before going to bed.
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| Josh and Deanna standing next to the church van in front of Calvary Church |
Early on Saturday morning, we left our “host family’s” house for Calvary Church, the host of the Invitational Tournament. Back then, the Invitational Tournament format was set up so that all the teams were place in 16 groups. All the teams in the group would quiz against each other in round robin style. The top 2 teams would advance to a double elimination playoff bracket for the championship. The previous year, the Ark quiz team missed the double elimination playoffs by 1 match. This year, all I wanted to see was my team makes the playoffs. Once again, the definition of disappointment comes into play. Halfway through our round robin, we’re weren’t doing too hot. Based on our previous matches’ results and based on the performance of the other teams in our group, we had deduced that we needed to win the rest of our matches to make the playoffs. Our next match was against an Ohio team. We kept it close, but the Ohio team had taken a small lead. In order to win, we needed team bonus, and I was the best candidate to get the team bonus. No matter how hard I tried to buzz in, I just couldn’t get in. Finally, it came down to question 15, and I decided to just buzz in on the second word and hope I got it. The quizmaster began the question, “Whose cup...” I buzzed in, and I froze. The only cup I could think of was the cup of the New Covenant, mentioned in the Last Supper passage, but that wasn’t a who. Unable to think up a who, with time running out, I still guessed the cup of the New Covenant. Of course, it got marked wrong. I came to find out the right answer was Jesus’s Cup. I was so upset at myself. We were quizzing on the Gospel of Mark. Why couldn’t I just answer the all-else-fails answer of Jesus? I would have gotten it right, our team would have earned team bonus, and we would still be in the run for the playoffs. Instead, I answered incorrectly, our team lost, and we were knocked out of the playoffs. Our remaining two round robin matches were against Spring City and Reading, two teams that were friends of ours and still had a shot to make it in the playoffs. Because they were our friends and because they did still have a shot to make it to the playoffs, we took it easy on them, so they won. It didn’t help Spring City, but it did help Reading, and they made it to the playoffs.
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| The Stitch Doll |
Knocked out of the tournament and with a lot of free time, I had
a lot of time to think about why the team failed in another tournament. I still
stewed in my anger toward myself for answering a who question with a what
answer, instead of going with the all-else-fails who answer, which would have
won the match. But as I said earlier, tournaments are about team performance. I
felt like everyone on the team was distracted for one reason or another. I was
distracted for the most unnecessary reason. The younger Moss and Willman
siblings, fascinated that the Stitch doll could talk to you, wanted to play
with it. As the nice, kind guy I am, I let them play with it. Halfway through
the day, I asked them for the doll for my next match. Of course, none of the
knew where the doll went. They had lost him. I had to spend time between
matches searching the whole church for the doll. I eventually found the doll,
all alone, sitting on a table in the fellowship hall, but I had lost so much
time, time I should have spent studying, practicing or at least watching other
matches. Once again, resentment turned towards my teammates as well as myself.
I wanted to get away from it all. I could get away from my teammates. In fact,
I did. When we got back to the Willman’s home, I just stayed in the bed until
the next morning. I couldn’t get away from myself, however, as bad as I wanted
to get away from myself. I wanted to hide from myself in that bed, but I
couldn’t.
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| The "Quizzer Extraordinaire" at Calvary Church for the 2003 Invitational |
On Sunday, the Invitational final matches were held at Lancaster Mennonite School’s Fine Arts Center because Calvary Church had its Sunday morning worship service. We saw Rockville beat Paradise 2 for the Invitational Championship. They announced there would be a quizzing after party back at Lancaster Mennonite School that evening. Our coaches would not allow us to go because of wintry mix happening that evening. Half of me was angry I couldn't even participate in that, but the other half of me was glad. I had enough of my quizzing teammates and enough of me as a quizzer myself. The quizzing year had ended, and I actually was kind of glad it ended.
After a couple of days of calming down, relaxing and reflecting,
I realized what I had done. Without knowing the dictionary definition of
disappointment, I realized I wasn’t angry, upset or frustrated with my
teammates or myself, but I was just disappointed. I was disappointed because I
had set expectations too high, for both myself and my team. I had 6 years of
left of quizzing in me. I had time to improve, and so did my team. All of a
sudden, I missed my teammates. I wanted to see them again. I couldn’t wait to
get started preparing myself for the next year. And so I did, penning the first
question for Exodus a few days later. This time, however, I would set realistic
goals and expectations, so I wouldn’t face disappointment again the next year.
Happy 15th anniversary to my sophomore Bible quizzing team!
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