San Diego County Academic League
The San Diego County Academic League is a loose confederation of four independent regional Academic Leagues that send their champions to compete in the televised (on ITV) San Diego County tournament each year.
History
The individual Academic Leagues have been in existence since the 1980s and possibly back to the 1970s. While they are all linked together by serving as qualifiers for the San Diego County Academic League tournament (overseen by the San Diego County Board of Education), they all have their own unique traditions, procedures, and question sources. They are also united by a common scoring system, wherein a correct tossup is worth 3 points and bonuses are 3 parts worth 1, 3, or 5 points for 1, 2, or 3 correct answers, respectively, though the San Diego City League has broken with that and adopted regular quizbowl scoring as of 2015-2016. Despite recent efforts by participating teams, only the San Diego City and the Metro Conference have adopted pyramidal questions. The remaining two divisions are still undoubtedly bad quizbowl
North County Academic League
Total Number of Participating Schools: 28
Current Champion: Torrey Pines High
Region: All schools north of San Diego Unified and Grossmont Unified within San Diego county (including the northern parts of the city of San Diego not covered by San Diego Unified).
Question Source: Coach-submitted database of mostly speedchecks, with verbatim repeats
Levels: Varsity, Junior Varsity, and Freshman
San Diego City Academic League
Total Number of Participating Schools: 24
Current Champion: La Jolla High
Region: Consists of all schools within San Diego Unified as well as most of the nearby private schools including Bishop's School and Francis Parker.
Question Source: NAQT (as of 2015-2016)
Levels: Varsity, Junior Varsity, Novice
Grossmont Academic League
Also called the East County League
Total Number of Participating Schools: 11
Current Champion: Santana High
Region: All schools within the Grossmont Unified District of Eastern San Diego County
Question Source: Speedchecks written by league commissioners each year
Levels: Varsity, Junior Varsity
Metro Conference Academic League
Also called the Sweetwater or South Bay League
Total Number of Participating Schools: 14
Current Champion: Olympian High
Region: All schools within the Sweetwater Unified District of Southern San Diego County
Question Source: NAQT from MS sets (JV) and IS-A sets (Varsity)
Levels: Varsity, Junior Varsity
Varsity Champions
Due to so-far scant information, it is difficult to come up with a list of historical champions. Anyone with knowledge of Academic League champions or second place teams is encouraged to add to the table. Final game scores, if known, are listed in parentheses.
| Year | Overall Champion | Second Place |
|---|---|---|
| 1991 | La Jolla (140) | Santana (20) |
| 1992 | ||
| 1993 | ||
| 1994 | ||
| 1995 | ||
| 1996 | ||
| 1997 | ||
| 1998 | ||
| 1999 | ||
| 2000 | Hilltop (72) | Granite Hills (32) |
| 2001 | ||
| 2002 | ||
| 2003 | Scripps Ranch | |
| 2004 | Mt. Carmel | Scripps Ranch |
| 2005 | Southwest (124) | La Jolla (53) |
| 2006 | Rancho Buena Vista (79) | Southwest (66) |
| 2007 | Torrey Pines (62) | Southwest (47) |
| 2008 | Eastlake (73) | Scripps Ranch (48) |
| 2009 | Rancho Bernardo (109) | Francis Parker (53) |
| 2010 | Rancho Bernardo | |
| 2011 | Torrey Pines (169) | Canyon Crest (63) |
| 2012 | Torrey Pines | |
| 2013 | Westview (88) | Rancho Bernardo (73) |
Controversy
In a 2007 match between La Jolla and Scripps Ranch for one of the regional championships, a closely fought match went to overtime. The tiebreak tossup asked which nation was the first to be established with the help of the United Nations. Scripps Ranch answered with Israel, was ruled incorrect, and lost one point (thereby losing the match). The answer on the page turned out to be Libya. As the county championships were not for several weeks, and the game took place on a weekday night and would not be broadcast until that Sunday, Scripps Ranch was able to file an official protest the next day. The team cited both the CIA World Factbook and U.N. Resolutions as evidence that Israel was established with the help of the United Nations three years before Libya was. The protest was denied and the regional commissioner cited two sources in their denial, printouts of which were mailed to the Scripps Ranch coach. The commissioner claimed the first source was Encyclopedia Britannica. The second source was Debbie's Super Trivia Encyclopedia. Emily from Scripps Ranch decided to e-mail Ken Jennings about this travesty. Ken's response, which can be found in this blog entry, notes that this kind of stuff happened all the time when he played CBI, which he describes as a "similarly monolithic and complacent organization". Results of an online search appear to indicate that the correct answer to the question depends entirely upon the exact wording of the question.