What does it take to win the Mind Masters challenge? Flathead High School champions say, 'Sometimes just a good, lucky guess'

The Daily Inter Lake

Maybe it was the T-shirts with a little man in a suit and bow tie, standing on a hot-pink brain.

Maybe it was a chance to show that sophomores rule, seniors drool.

Or just maybe it was the chance to stretch their intellects that prompted Team USA to take on the Mind Masters challenge at Flathead High School during the past month.

Today, the all-sophomore Team USA (for Ultra Super Awesome) rules as the new school champion.

It's the second year of the general knowledge, college-bowl-style academic competition that rapid-fires questions at opposing teams of students until one triumphs.

The winners must have done some pretty hefty advance brush-up studies, right? So what can they do to prepare?

"Nothing," Team USA member Blaine Matulevich said. "There's absolutely nothing you can do to prepare."

Academics and 16 years of life experiences were about it for him and teammates Joe McGlenn, Jordan Arnold and Luke Hines.

"You just had to know a lot of random things," Matulevich said. "The questions were so broad, so random that it really just came down to remembering things you just heard once. Sometimes picking up on key phrases in the question. Sometimes just a good, lucky guess."

Their brew worked.

Team USA members now are the proud owners of Mind Masters signature T-shirts, designed last year by Kirsten Koslosky - and too hideously delicious not to carry on the design for this year's top two teams.

"It stands out," Matulevich said simply, "with the fluorescent pink."

Genia Allen-Schmid is a big fan of the edgy T-shirt design.

As coordinator for the community-service component of Flathead High's International Baccalaureate program, Allen-Schmid was an instigator of Mind Masters last year along with fellow social studies teacher Bruce Guthrie.

Guthrie had coordinated a scholastic bowl program for Chicago-area schools and participated in nationwide trivia nights broadcast in Chicago pubs. He looked for some of the same after moving to the Flathead.

Finding none, he and Allen-Schmid convinced Red's Wines and Blues owners Bill and Jana Goodman to start up a monthly trivia night at their pub.

Then, Allen-Schmid figured, why not try it with the high-school students?

"I thought it would be good to connect the academic excellence with the community service," Allen-Schmid said.

Guthrie was skeptical. Nobody would come to watch, he warned. Still, he offered his expertise with logistics and advice.

Allen-Schmid enlisted IB English teacher Sean O'Donnell, who helped organize and advertise Mind Masters. Social studies resource center aide Carol Holste helped with the preliminary quiz, spelling words and team seeding. IB coordinator and math teacher Lisa Schlange was involved throughout. School administration provided the money for the questions, buzzer system and T-shirts.

International Baccalaureate students who are looking for community-service hours - each diploma candidate must log 165 hours during two years - helped set up and score on competition days.

Ground rules were set: Each team must draw as many as five members from the same grade level. Because the rounds were during lunch, they must share the same lunch period.

Nineteen teams took the qualifying quiz in September. Sixteen teams scored high enough to be chosen.

The competition was on.

In 14 rounds scheduled for early lunch and late lunch periods Tuesdays and Thursdays during the past month, the higher-scoring teams faced the lower-scoring teams in a seeded single-elimination format.

They chose names such as Canadian Base Team and Electric Squirrels - "or something like that," Allen-Schmid said.

Crowds of 100, give or take, showed up to watch their fellow students get hammered with questions about history, literature, current events, geography, sciences, math, astronomy, music, art and spelling.

"They were hard, too," Allen-Schmid said. "And the kids got them."

Case in point:

"In the final round we got a physics question about opposing forces that nobody knew, so we pulled a random number out of the air," Matulevich said. "We picked 20. And it was right. The audience just laughed."

Other times, he knew the answer but was frustrated when opponents hit the buzzers faster. Once the buzzer is hit, the answer is given. If it's right, the other team is out.

Sometimes, though, that fast answer was not the right answer.

A question that began, "Who was probably born during his father's exile to Siberia despite official reports that he was born in a log cabin …" drew a fast buzzer slapper.

The competitor called out "Abe Lincoln," but that prompted Allen-Schmid to finish the question: "… on a high mountain top under a double rainbow. Despite estimates that 3 million of his countrymen starved in the late 1990s, his net worth is $4 billion. Name this national leader who has ties with China, though lately they are strained. He is now in possession of a few nuclear bombs."

The competitor laughed along with Allen-Schmid and discovered the real answer: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

In any round, if neither of the teams could answer correctly, Allen-Schmid turned to the audience. A lot of times, they got it right and earned a point. Matulevich said the audience actually beat one team in the quarter-final round.

"I think it made it more audience friendly," Allen-Schmid said of their decision to tweak the usual rule for absolute silence. "It was definitely more lively."

In the end, Team USA won over a junior class team of Dan Browne, Jenny Snipstead, Cody Harrison, Annika Heinle and Carinna Torgerson.

Each of the top two teams had beat out a senior team to make the finals, held after school Tuesday. About 40 or 45 students and a couple parents cheered on the competitors.

"It was a blast. I was very excited to see the kids enthusiastic about these questions, these academic questions," Allen-Schmid said.

"I think it really does showcase those kids who are extra bright and knowledgeable," she said. Although they quietly win the college scholarships, the hoopla of Mind Masters made their achievements a bit more noticeable.

"A lot of times those kids are just not acknowledged in a public way. [This was] a fun way."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com.