For all you would-be Ken Jenningses out there, consider the plight of the Quiz Bowlers on Saturday afternoon at the Vance County Administration Building on Young Street.
The best athletes overcome pressure in part by not thinking — through training and practice, they teach their bodies to build on natural instincts and perform in the clutch. They don’t have time or need to think about what they’re doing.
But an academic competition is all about thinking. That was the remarkable thing about Ken Jennings’ record run on “Jeopardy!” You can’t dig trivia out of the recesses of your mind without turning it on, and once the brain is in high gear, it fills the time between questions with wild thoughts about all those people staring at you and judging you and counting on you or expecting you to fail. The adrenaline courses through your bloodstream, which of course makes it all the tougher to concentrate and remember that Aristotle taught Alexander the Great or that John Hancock led the Continental Congress or that one cup equals 16 tablespoons.
And when it’s over, and you realize that you blanked out on Lance Armstrong as the cyclist behind the Livestrong bands and John Glenn as the first American to orbit Earth, you’re left as stunned as the point guard who clanged two free throws off the front rim with no time on the clock or the second baseman who threw the two-out, ninth-inning grounder into the first-base dugout or the holder who bobbled the snap on the chip-shot field goal on the last play of the game. How could you make that mistake? How could you lose the game for your team, your school, your family?
Unless you never cared and thus never deserved to win, it hurts to lose, whether you’re Mimi Keil closing out your high school days at Kerr-Vance Academy or Taron Downey desperately trying to extend your college basketball career at Wake Forest. That’s why Keil, despite the smile on her face, wasn’t really joking when she said her team played like “crap” in its loss to Cary Academy. Any great competitor feels a loss is a failure, something you would have avoided if you’d done your best.
But we learn a lot more about ourselves in the losses than in the victories. When you win, you’re too busy looking ahead to notice all the things you did wrong. When you lose in a one-and-done situation, you have nothing to do but replay every mistake. What if I’d hit that three-point shot? What if I’d remembered that Hank Ketcham created “Dennis the Menace” and not “Garfield”?
So we look forward to seeing an even stronger KVA team next year, and to seeing stronger teams from Northern Vance and Southern Vance ensure that no one has an easy route to the district finals, and to seeing someone, anyone, knock off the Wake County champion.
Just remember to check out “Casablanca,” “The African Queen,” “The Maltese Falcon” and “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” so next year you know who Humphrey Bogart is.