Monday, 4/15

It was as exciting in person as it was on TV.

First of all, if you have any interest in this season of “High School Bowl” and have not yet watched the championship match from this past weekend, DO NOT READ THIS. It contains spoilers, and if you have yet to watch the match you SHOULD NOT GO ANY FURTHER.

Okay?

Okay.

“High School Bowl” is a great show to host, if only because every so often something cool happens. Oftentimes, especially in the early rounds of a season, the matches are blowouts, as a good school goes up against a school that's a little weaker and the final score ends up along the lines of 400-10 (an actual score this year). But as the rounds increase the number of blowouts decrease, and in the last few rounds you have close matches, just like in our championship game this past week.

How close was it, you ask? Well, I answer, at the end of the match the two teams that made it to the finals—West Iron County and Houghton—were tied. It was so close between the two teams that the 25 minutes of questions asked of both of them could not separate the two. For the first time in the 45 years of “High School Bowl” the championship game ended in a tie score.

It was cool.

Now, of course, you can't end a match, especially a championship match, without a winner. So after building the suspense for a minute or so by explaining what was going on (even though the suspense probably did not need to be build any more) I asked the question that would determine the champion. It was a winner-take-all question; whoever answered it correctly walked away with the title. When I asked, five out of the eight students gave it a shot, all incorrectly. The West Iron County captin bided her time, sifted through the incorrect guesses, and gave the right answer.

And that's how West Iron County became season 45 champs on “High School Bowl”.

We shot the match two months ago, so it's a secret I've been sitting on since early February. I'm amazed at the amount of people who watch the show but don't know how it turns out, so I in no way wanted to spoil it for them. I just hope they enjoyed watching Saturday; if you wanna see just how suspenseful it was—and trust me, it WAS suspenseful, especially when we were shooting it live—I'll post a link to the show tomorrow.

In the meantime...how about a dorky host and the two teams who helped put together the most exciting and memorable “High School Bowl” finale in the 45 years of the show--

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Also tomorrow?  Whether or not I blog while in Europe, based on YOUR votes.

(jim@wmqt.com)