Illinois High School Scholastic Bowl Coaches Association
Revision as of 17:57, 24 January 2010 by fix>QBWikiBot
The Illinois High School Scholastic Bowl Coaches Association or IHSSBCA is an organization of coaches, former players, officials, and like minded people who support improvements in Illinois Quizbowl. The current president of the organization is David Reinstein, the Head Coach at New Trier High School. Membership in the organization is typically around 300.
Mission Statement
From the IHSSBCA website:
- The purpose of the IHSSBCA is to increase awareness and support of the public, school leaders, and parents for high school Scholastic Bowl competition in Illinois; to provide opportunities for Scholastic Bowl coaches to meet and cooperate in the development and communication of coaching techniques, tournament formats, and other ways of improving the quality of competition with integrity and the highest possible standards; and to promote recognition of participants, coaches, and programs.[1]
History
Initiatives
Here is a non-exhaustive list of the projects which the Association has taken on over its history.
- The quarterly newsletter Scholastic Visions[2]
- Perhaps the earliest project to pay immediate dividends was the publication of an annual newsletter that included articles about happenings across the state, information that connected coaches to the often monolithic IHSA, and editorials on everything from rules to questions. Advertising from lockout and question vendors came later, as well as polls ranking the top teams, as well as information about quizbowl in other states. Throughout much of its over eight year editorial run, Rob Grierson has been the editor of the newsletter.
- ihssbca.org[3]
- As the digital age arrived, the association branched out onto the world wide web to speed up communication across the vast geographic divide of the state. The website keeps an up-to-date listing of tournaments in the state, as well as some in other states which may be of interest to Illinois teams.
- SchoBowlFest
- Back in 2007 after several years hiatus, it is an annual workshop and meetings for coaches across the state where coaches meet to discuss topics ranging from player recruitment, running practices, writing questions, and dealing with IHSA bureaucracy. Vendors also attend to advertise their wares.
- Presented originally in 1996, it is presented, at the discretion of the steering committee, to an individual or group for their support of Scholastic Bowl in Illinois. The award was renamed in honor of Rob Grierson when he was elected to receive the award in 2003, two years after Grierson had received the Cooper Award from PACE.
- The IHSSBCA is annually charged by the Illinois State Board of Education to assemble an all-star team to represent the state at the Panasonic Academic Challenge in Orlando. The IHSSBCA sponsored the team from 1997 through 2008, winning the PAC in 2007 and 2008.
- The annual IHSSBCA Kickoffs are mirrored at 3-4 sites around the state in November, annually drawing over 100 teams. While no longer the earliest tournament in Illinois, for many teams, it is still the beginning of the competition season.
- Turnabout Tournaments
- In response to the need for tournaments where teams in need of improvement could find a competitive level of their own, while giving them a greater probability for success (which would hopefully translate into their program's expansion, and later improvement among other great teams), the Turnabout Tournaments were born. Mirrored at 2-3 sites across the state, specific teams which have been recently successful are specifically uninvited.
- Since 2002, this has been the official recognition program for the state's best players. At each of the 16 Sectional seeding meetings (8 Class A, 8 Class AA), the coaches select the best 10 players as being "All-Sectional". The top 4-5 players are then advanced to a committee who select the best 20 players in each class to be named "All-State".
- 2005 saw a long standing project finally get under way as the first class of the Illinois Coaches Hall-of-Fame was inducted to recognize outstanding coaching careers.
- Annual Banquet
- The annual banquet is usually held in April on the campus of Illinois State University. In addition to being an annual celebration of quizbowl in Illinois, it is here where Team Illinois is first introduced, the All-State honorees receive their awards, The Grierson Award is presented, and the Hall-of-Fame class is inducted.
- Moderator Certification[8]
- One of the newest initiatives to get off the ground is an attempt to improve the quality of game officials. Based off of the system used to certify athletic officials, moderators can become Test Certified by taking an open book test, and can them become Performance Certified based on the input from coaches who see them officiate in matches.
- Rule Proposals
- Virtually since its inception, the Association has had at least one high ranking member sitting as a regional representative on the IHSA Advisory Board. This has become moot as in the last few years, as the sitting president of the Association has been invited to the annual meeting of the Board. Thus, the Association has had a hand in helping to shape the rules of Scholastic Bowl in order to make them more player oriented, and more in line with good quizbowl practice.
- Scorebooks
- Much of the IHSSBCA's revenue comes from selling bound books of scoresheets. The scoresheets are designed for the IHSA format, but are readily adaptable to other formats.