There are a lot of extracurriculars available at school, but some are less popular than others. One club that does not get as much recognition as it deserves is Academic Super Bowl. This club is separated into different teams: English, Science, Social Studies, Math and Fine Arts. These teams all go to competitions and answer questions based on a variety of different things they have studied, all pertaining to a theme that is decided every year.
In 2022-2023, the theme for the competition was explorers, but for this competition season, the theme is “The 1980’s and 1990s,” so every team is looking at material from that time period to prepare for the competitions. The English team is looking at a novel as well as poems from the ‘80s and 90s, while the Science team is looking at scientists and new discoveries made during that time, the Social Studies team is looking at the history of the time period and the Math team is working on Geometry and Calc problems.
Mrs. Maria Cabasino, a math teacher and the math coach for the club, has been coaching for two years now and said she plans to continue to coach in future years. She mentioned that her favorite part about the club is math and that is why she is the math coach.
“I love math, for me, it’s like doing crosswords,” Cabasino remarked.
Cabasino described the environment of Academic Super Bowl as laidback and fun. She also talked about the close-knit community formed in the club throughout the time that they meet.
“By the end of the year, we get to know each other so we talk about things other than math as well,” Cabasino said.
But the coaches are not the only ones who enjoy this club. Sophomore Xavier Crevier described the experience as being like “driving someone else’s super nice car” because it is a bit awkward and almost uncomfortable at first, but once you get used to it, it gets nicer and nicer.
“At the beginning, I had no idea what I was doing, and towards the end, I had formed a tight friendship with my math group mates, and really, everyone in Academic Superbowl,” Crevier said.
Crevier also said that he felt that his coach, Cabasino, sufficiently prepared him and the rest of his team for the competition season, and one of the techniques he found most useful was separating the different teammates into ‘study groups’ based on specialty.
“I was in Algebra II at the time, so I was given most of the Algebra questions along with a friend of mine,” Crevier recalled.
Crevier said he also has some advice for those who are thinking of joining Academic Super Bowl: “Try not to be too shy, if you join a smaller group and none of the students are talking, and it’s just the teacher giving people work, it’s just going to feel like school and you’re never gonna get anything out of it.”
