The official student newspaper of Walter Johnson High School

The Pitch

The official student newspaper of Walter Johnson High School

The Pitch

The official student newspaper of Walter Johnson High School

The Pitch

WJ Clubs: Going Behind the Scenes with ‘It’s

“For your first chance at twenty points, in ‘Why not W,’ give the four-word nickname given to Thomas Edison based on the many inventions he created in his laboratory in New Jersey?”

Several buzzers go off as the members of the “It’s Academic” team eagerly respond to the history question during one of their daily training sessions. The History category, from which this question was pulled, is among many categories that the team members train for and memorize facts about for the competitions.

“One person covers Music, another Literature, Biology, Pop Culture, and more,” said senior Ashu Joshi, one of the team’s captains. “One person tends to be better at one category, but we share information with everyone.”

The team’s record is pretty impressive. A few weeks ago, the team finished taping for the NBC show, “It’s Academic,” which they have won twice, in 2005 and 2007. Last year, they came in seventh in the country out of 150 teams in two national tournaments. But many of the members of the winning teams have graduated, and the remaining members of 2007’s winning team will graduate this year.

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“Our number two and number four ranked players are seniors, totaling the team’s number of seniors to three,” said science teacher Mark Whipple, coach of the team. “We have a pretty young team this year, which means we’ll have members stick around for a while.”

Two of the seniors, Joshi and Todd Glazer, had older brothers who were a part of winning teams. Joshi’s older brother was on the team and graduated in 2005, the same year the team won the NBC show. Glazer’s older brother was also a part of the winning team in 2005 and again in 2007.

Though only three of the approximately ten team members will be graduating this year, it is a heavy blow to the team who will be losing some of their “A” team members. The “A” team, or the starting team, is comprised of the top four ranked players on the team who can make it to each tournament. Each of the other members trains daily, waiting for their turn to compete.

“Based upon practice scores, I have a ranking of everyone, so when we go to tournaments, we’ll pull four of the top of that list,” said Whipple. “Sometimes people can’t be there, so we’ll pull the next highest ranking players.”

The younger players of the team have a lot of pressure on them to win next year. The team has been a driving force on the NBC show, in the national tournaments, and local tournaments, but they are confident that this year, as well as next, they will excel.

“I always like the way our years start off,” said Whipple. “The difference this year is I have players involved in a lot of other things. The preparation of the players, their background knowledge and their motivation has always been good at WJ. The reason I do this is its fun. The day it stops being fun is the day I know it’s time to stop coaching.”

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Abby Singley, Online Editor-in-Chief
Abby Singley was on the Pitch staff since her sophomore year, and as a senior, she was Online Editor-in-Chief and the Print Copy Chief in 2010-2011. The previous year, Abby was the first online editor-in-chief, and was also a copy editor during her sophomore and junior years. She is excited to be involved with the up-and-coming Pitch Online and help bring news to the WJ community in a faster, more innovative way. When not scanning the online administrator page or copy editing articles, Abby likes reading pop culture and news magazines and Web sites. Although she does not know where she is going to school yet, Abby will be entering college as a journalism major next year.
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