Bible Quizzing preseason?

 I have often wondered what a Bible Quizzing preseason would look like.

See, as a football, I can tell you that NFL football has clearly marked offseason, preseason, season and postseason. The NFL offseason has events to mark its progression. First comes the pre-draft free agency. This is when the star players, who contract has expired and their team decides not to pick it up again, end up on new teams. Next comes the combine, when college football players, who hope to get drafted by a team, work out in front of scouts to demonstrate their abilities and skills. Then comes the draft, in which NFL teams take turns picking out college football stars to place on their teams. Following that comes post-draft free agency, which not only includes NFL players, who have been dropped by their team due to picking up a star football player in the draft, but it also includes undrafted college football players. Finally comes off-season training camps, when the players of the NFL teams report to their respective teams for their first practice. This event marks the end of the offseason. Next comes the preseason, in which each NFL team plays 3 scrimmages. Standings are kept, but they really don't matter. What does matter is the stats, as coaches will use these stats to determine who makes the team and who doesn't. The end of the preseason is marked by the final roster due date, in which NFL teams cut the roster down the maximum number of players allowed. Then comes the NFL season, the 18 weeks in which each team will play 17 games. Finally, the NFL football year closes out with the postseason, which consists of the playoffs, ultimately leading up to the Super Bowl. After the Super Bowl, repeat cycle.

I am careful to distinguish between the terms "quizzing season" and "quizzing year." The quizzing year has the quizzing season within it. The quizzing season is the 8 weeks in which the quizzing material is divided into eighths, and the quiz teams quiz on an eighth of the material of every week. The quizzing year not only consists of the quizzing season, but it also includes the 2 tournaments following the quizzing season. I guess one could say that those 2 tournaments are the "quizzing postseason" because they happen after the season. At the same time, however, it sounds weird calling the 2 tournaments the quizzing postseason because the term postseason typically implies playoffs, and while these tournaments can have playoff-like brackets, everybody participates in the tournaments, not just the best of the season. Furthermore, the season playoffs happen during the season itself, so does that technically mean the last 3 matches (2 semifinal matches + 1 final match) are the postseason? I digress.

For the time outside the quizzing year, that is quizzing offseason, and there really isn't a quizzing preseason. In my younger years as a quizzer, I would call the month of December the quizzing preseason, but I just did so because it was closer to the beginning of the quizzing year. Nothing really marks a quizzing preseason, like preseason quiz match scrimmages, because no such thing exists. Perhaps the quizzing practices before the first quiz meet counts as a quizzing preseason, but they do not look any different from quiz practices during the quizzing season. Again, it just makes more and better sense to say there's a quizzing year and a quizzing offseason.

If I quizzer would ever ask for the best way to prepare for the next quizzing year, the best answer I could give would be to read the quizzing material and write questions. That's what worked for me. Ever since my first quizzing offseason, between my first and second year of quizzing, that's what I have done. I have read the quizzing material and write questions. How many quizzing questions I could write depended on a couple factors. First, it came down to how much free time I devote to quizzing during the offseason. Second, since I aimed to write exhaustive questions (every question that could possibly come out of that verse), it also depended how many verses the first couple or few chapters had in them. When I was a quizzer, my question writing process involved writing a rough draft on paper with pen and then typing up my final draft on the computer. As a young quizzer, this process worked excellent because re-reading the question and answer on paper to type it gave me the opportunity to proofread it. This too took up time, which may have prevented me from writing questions.

In my first quizzing offseason, I wrote questions for the first 2 chapters of the quizzing material. The next offseason, I wanted to beat my record. On that second offseason, I wrote questions for 3 1/2 chapters (I found out the first week of the quizzing material would only cover the first 3 1/2 chapters, and since I was running out of time to do the whole 4th chapter, I called it quits halfway through the chapter). The following offseason I beat my record yet again. Not only did I write questions for the whole first week of quizzing, I wrote some for the 2nd week and some for the 6th week (the quizzing material got rearranged during the offseason, so what I thought would be week 1 ended up in week 6). The offseason after that I only wrote for the first 2 chapters of the quizzing material, but to be fair with me, the first chapter was long chapter, over 50 verses long. That gave me barely enough time to work on chapter 2. From there, it did not look too pretty. Every offseason following, as a quizzer, I would only write questions for the first chapter of the quizzing material. I imagine it mostly had to do with the fact that I was getting older and I had more responsibilities. I went into my senior year of high school and then into college. I barely had enough free time to enjoy a video game, let alone write quizzing questions. Then again, it may be due to the fact that I didn't need practice questions to learn and study the material, so I put less of a priority and less time on them. Even in my first year of coaching, I had barely managed to get 2 chapters worth of quizzing questions out there before the start of the season. 

Then came my ten-year tenure on staff. At first, I was just a timekeeper. Knowing that writing quiz questions was going to have no use, I put less priority and less time on them. In both 2011 and 2012, I have an incomplete set for the first chapter of the quizzing material. Yes, I got a bit of the way through the chapter, and then I ran out of time and stopped. Heck, in 2013, I didn't even bother to write a single quiz question, deciding instead to write a commentary, using the degree I had and was in the process of earning. Then came 2014, in which quizzing returned to Exodus. Quizzing had done Exodus before, and that's when I wrote questions on 3 1/2 chapters. I had lost those questions since, and I was kind of glad because they weren't the best questions. I decided that, since I lost those questions, I wanted to rewrite them, so I could, in a way, "gain them back." Then, halfway through the offseason, quizzing announces that they will change to the ESV. I had already written out questions for the first 2 chapters at that point! I had to start all over again. I did manage to get back on track, though. By the time that the quizzing season kicked off, I had finished 4 whole chapters of Exodus, technically beating my record. Then for 2015, they announced the quizzing material would be Mark and Acts. Just like Exodus, Mark had done before, Mark had written question on, but I lost those questions (and again, I'm glad because they weren't the best questions). Therefore, I resolved to once again "gain those questions back" by rewriting them. I did reach my goal of rewriting the first 2 chapters...when the quizzing coordinator Fred contacted me. He asked if I could become a judge for the staff this year. My motivation set on fire! Now that I knew I could use these practice questions to become a better judge, I worked harder on them. I doubled the results I wanted. I wrote questions on the first 4 chapters of Mark, which would become the whole first week and a bit of the second week. That spark of motivation did not last long, though. For the next few years, I again only wrote questions for the first chapter or two.

Then, for the 2020 quizzing year, I had a new spark of motivation. See, my church did not have any youth, and they did not have a lot of children, either. Finally, in time for the 2020 quizzing year, I had 2 youth eligible for quizzing. This gave me that spark of motivation to get back to question writing. Knowing the quizzing material would be on Joseph and Esther, and knowing quizzing covered that material before, I knew the quizzing season would begin with Genesis 37, 39 and 40, and I set a goal to at least get questions for those chapters. I would tread new territory, as the last time Joseph and Esther was the material, I only did a part of Genesis 37. I did reach my goal. By the launch of the 2020 quizzing season, I had exhaustive questions for Genesis 37, 39 and 40. Unfortunately, both of the youth of my church declined forming a quizzing team. While ultimately bummed that I could not coach for another year, I at least felt a bit of satisfaction knowing I could get back into the swing of quizzing question writing.

Despite the 2020 quizzing year ending without an invitational, an announcement for the quizzing material came later on that spring, and that announcement said the quizzing material would cover the stories of Job, Joshua, Nehemiah, Jonah and Zechariah. Still clinging to the hope of coaching a quiz team at my church, I still started on Job chapter 1 the day I heard the announcement. I will admit, due to the uncertainty of changing the youth's mind on quizzing, and the uncertainty of having a quizzing season during a COVID pandemic, I slowed down on writing the questions. By the time October rolled around, I only had that first chapter of Job done. October just so happened to be the same month I approached my church's youth about quiz team. When I first approached them, I got a probable, questionable and doubtful interest in quizzing. I told them to think and pray about it. Meanwhile, my spark of motivation caught fire. I now rushed to a second chapter of Job done. I finished that in November, the same time I approached the youth a second time. That probable, question and doubtful became a yes, yes and yes. Now that spark of motivation became a bonfire of motivation! I hurried to knock out the third chapter of Job. Unfortunately, the quizzing material changed to accommodate to an abbreviated quizzing season. The new quizzing material would be...Mark! I had realized that it was too late to go back and write questions on Mark (I received this news in December), but I did quietly finish Job 3, just in case I needed it for a later date ;)

At the end of the 6-week, biweekly quizzing season of 2021, the quizzing coordinator Fred did acknowledge that the coordinators did not know the quizzing material for 2022, but I had feeling, though. When they announced the change in quizzing material for 2021, they said they wanted to hold off the originally announced material for a time when they could all come together for a tournament. I knew if all the quizzing conference felt comfortable holding an invitational, the quizzing material would be on Job, Joshua, Nehemiah, Jonah and Zechariah. Therefore, for the beginning of the offseason, I went back to Job, starting at Job 40. That summer, I received confirmation of my suspicions. The quizzing material for 2022 would indeed cover Job, Joshua, Nehemiah, Jonah and Zechariah. Furthermore, by this time, all 5 of the quizzers said something to me about wanting to quiz again for the upcoming quizzing year. Between these two factors, I was spurred on to write as many questions as possible. By December, I had finished questions for all 6 chapters of the Job quizzing material, and I had even squeezed in a chapter of Joshua. 7 chapters, 152 verses, 1,724 questions, I'm pretty sure this is the most I have ever written in a quizzing offseason.

Reflecting back on quiz seasons past, I never realized how much I lost my love and my joy of quizzing. I know it may not seem like it to outsiders, but I did. The evidence of my offseason question writing stands alone as proof. Also as proof, look at where I applied to for my doctorate. I applied to both Wheaton College and Dallas Theological Seminary, both out of state. Clearly, I could not stay involved in quizzing in either state. I had truly lost my love and joy of quizzing. When I finally got to coach a team again, that love and joy of quizzing grew again. Again, just look at the number of quiz questions I wrote as proof. Same goes for the all the other studying. During the offseason, I would normally look for key words. When on staff, I would only find the key words for the first couple chapters or the first few weeks. Now that I had a quiz team again, I made sure they had the keywords for the entire year. Reflecting back, I realized I liked being quizzing staff, especially judge, but I love being a quizzing coach.

As for what else I did in the quizzing offseason, I sometimes would commit passages to memory. It usually was just 1 chapter, although for my third year of quizzing, I memorized 4 1/2 chapters! I don't do that anymore. As their coach, I try to practice alongside my quizzers, and I promised them no memorization (although I wouldn't discourage it). Instead, I encourage what I call "subconscious memorization," which means reading and listening to the material over and over until the repetition burns into their memory by default. I have already provided the quizzers their quizbooks and the ESV Audio Bible on the quizzing material on an audio CD. They have the resources. I will be reading and listening to the quizzing material alongside them. Let's see what sticks!