Serra's whiz kids face Menlo on 'Quiz Kids'

And there's substantially more than a mere trophy at stake here -- aside from the respect of their peers and elders, the 24 teams (up from 16 last year) are each trying to win the grand prize: A nine-day tour of London.

Read cautiously if you don't want to know who won the duel before the event's 8 p.m. Friday premiere broadcast on Peninsula TV-26 (PTV). The winner will be revealed near the end of the article.

It might not matter, though if you know much about the event. Those who saw last year's inaugural tournament probably know that Menlo-Atherton is back to defend its championship -- and it showed.

A crowd of about 80 friends, family members, schoolmates and interested observers crowded into the PTV studio in the San Carlos SamTrans building just after noon, bustling about as technicians set up cameras, ran soundchecks and adjusted lighting. Directors and sponsors made short presentations, a few local dignitaries were introduced, and then it was time for the students to troop onto the stage to cheers from the crowd.

The three juniors from Serra -- Edward Boenig, Scott Drexel and Nick Wong -- were introduced to the audience, as were Menlo-Atherton's representatives: Junior Noah Veltman, sophomore Daniel Barclay and senior William Most. Each student spoke briefly into his microphone to set a level, the audience was prodded into loud, foot-stomping applause, and host Brad Friedman came bounding on-stage to begin the show.

"You just try to stay relaxed," said Boenig. "You try not to think about what's coming up."

* * *

Peninsula Quiz Kids is the brainchild of PTV Director Bob Marks, who also claims the show's executive producer's role. Marks grew up a fan of the quiz show format, and the idea sprang to mind when he launched the cable channel 18 months ago.

"My wife, who is a teacher [and I] were looking at some early shows that we wanted to do," Marks said. "One of them was a Game of the Week, and she said, 'Why not something for kids that are doing well in school?' When she said that, I immediately remembered seeing the GE College Bowl from the 1950s, and so we thought, 'Hey -- that's great!'

"So when I started going out and trying to sell the idea of the station to all the cities and the county, to the mayors and everybody, this was the show they all perked up over. This was the show that they said, 'What a great idea -- it's different.'"

San Mateo Mayor John Lee, who attended Saturday's taping to offer his support to the kids from Serra, made his reason for supporting the Quiz Kids endeavor known.

"So often, the only things we really see individually in high school youngsters are sports," he added. "It's really great to see academics in this type of thing for that reason, so I think it's just great for all of the kids."

* * *

The questions come in eight categories -- the news; sports; math; science and technology; history; literature; geography; and fine and performing arts. The competition takes place in three segments, beginning with the collaboration round, in which teams agree upon a group answer. Friedman, the Theatre Arts director at San Mateo High, directed questions at the teams in alternating order; a missed question can be answered by the other team to steal the ten points awarded for a correct answer.

Menlo got off on the right foot, responding that the author of "Call of the Wild" who once ran for mayor of San Francisco was Jack London. But Serra's first question heralded problems to come.

"Which team represented the National League in last year's World Series?" asked Friedman. The Serra team huddled momentarily, discussing the answer.

"The Atlanta Braves," the kids responded.

"That's incorrect," said Friedman, throwing the question over to the Menlo-Atherton squad, which came up with the correct answer -- the New York Mets.

The first round ended with the Serra Padres trailing 110-80.

* * *

"Cheating on a quiz show? That's sort of like plagiarizing a comic strip."

-- Paul Scofield, "Quiz Show"

The movie "Quiz Show," which by most accounts is an accurate interpretation of real-life events, depicts a formative moment in television history: The 1956 revelation that the highly popular quiz show "Twenty-One" and others like it were rigged. Contestants had been given answers ahead of time and performed from scripts to create artificial drama.

Before that disclosure, quiz shows had been one of the most popular formats on the new medium, descended directly from the radio quiz shows that sprang up in the depression's wake and proliferated after World War II.

But once the news was out, the repercussions were serious. There were Congressional hearings, amendments to broadcasting and truth-in-advertising laws, legal consequences for the parties involved in the scandal -- and the virtual disappearance of the quiz show format from the airwaves for nearly four decades.

"I think what happens is, once [a format] kind of goes away, out of vogue, people are very nervous to be the first one to bring it back," said Marks. "I just remember when I was a kid, I loved watching quiz shows."

But that all changed in August 1999, when ABC-TV decided to take a chance and produce an American version of a wildly popular British quiz show titled "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire." The show unexpectedly caught fire, and now it's hard to turn ABC on without catching the show -- new episodes air four nights a week.

"When ['Millionaire'] came along, we were about eight months into planning the show," Marks recalls. "At first we were thinking, 'They beat us to it -- this is terrible.' But then we realized this was the greatest thing in the world.

"When San Mateo High School announced that the show was going to be held, I guess 40 or 50 kids showed up, wanting to be on the show -- because they had been watching 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.' "

* * *

After a break, during which Friedman helped the audience meet the contestants -- Boenig, a photographer, likes to shoot flowers; Drexel runs cross country and track and field; Wong plans to run for student body president as a senior -- the "Face Off" round got under way.

This time, each team put forth one contestant to answer 10-point questions in a chosen category. Serra's Drexel selected sports, while Menlo's Barclay picked geography.

"First question, Daniel: What is the name of this most-populous African country, whose capital is Lagos?" asked Friedman.

"Nigeria," Barclay correctly responded.

Friedman turned. "Scott, what Hall-of-Fame quarterback delayed his career by four years to serve in the Navy?"

Drexel paused, then guessed: "Namath?"

"No, I'm sorry -- it was Roger Staubach," replied Friedman.

The rest of the round went in similar fashion. Barclay answered questions on the Baltic Sea, Sri Lanka and the Mekong River, while Drexel struggled with Lou Gehrig, George Blanda and former Giants outfielder Jeffrey Leonard.

The round ended with Menlo leading by a 170-90 margin.

* * *

Each team in the competition is spearheaded by an academic advisor. Serra's coach, Keith Stapleton -- who teaches AP English Language and Composition while coaching the jumping events in track and field and moderating the ski club -- says there's simply not much you can do to prepare for a quiz show.

"I don't think there's a whole lot you can do," he said. "I mean, there's classes, and they have their personal interests. But we play a lot of Trivial Pursuit, and we go through the indexes of authors and works, just to refresh their memories."

And the audience, lights and cameras bring a carnival atmosphere that's equally impossible to plan for, he says.

"There's no way to prepare for that," Stapleton mused. "I think you've got to select kids who will respond to that kind of pressure well. We had several kids who were interested who backed out because they felt they wouldn't perform well in that kind of atmosphere."

* * *

Menlo's lead, already large, quickly became insurmountable during the final segment -- the "Lightning Round," in which any player from either team can buzz in to answer a question for double the regular point value.

The Menlo team knew the home nation of the Farsi language (Iran), the transcendental number used in logarithms ('e'), and the current name of the city once known as Carthage (Tunis), often buzzing in before Friedman could finish asking the question.

Serra fired back with correct answers about Maya Angelou, the Siberian tundra and Chris Webber, but couldn't stem the tide. The match ended with Menlo-Atherton on top, 470-210.

* * *

After the show ended, Wong was quickly surrounded and spirited away by a large group of friends who had come to cheer him on. Drexel lingered, though, surrounded by friends and family -- and teammate Boenig -- but disconsolate about his performance, especially in the "Face Off" round.

"I was looking at this packet of questions they gave us," he said, downcast. "My dad was reading them off to me this morning and I was getting every single one. And then they gave me those up there, and I think half of it was nerves -- because if you ask me now, I think I'd know them. But I just froze."

Mayor Lee had kind words for Drexel, though. "It's hard, I think, for young people that have sports knowledge to get some of the real old-timers," Lee said. "That young man from Menlo was just outstanding in his [knowledge of] geography from around the world."

Boenig and Stapleton were equally forgiving, as well. "He did his best, and he knew some of the answers to the other questions," Stapleton said.

And while Boenig, Drexel and Wong are out of the running for the nine days in London, Marks thinks that they -- along with all the other contestants who won't make it abroad -- will benefit regardless.

"We heard from a lot of kids last year that people recognized them in their school," he said. "They came up to them and said that they saw that they were on the show, and for some of these kids it's the first time they've ever been recognized for anything -- because they spend all their time studying hard and doing things like that.

"We just think, from all of the kids we've talked to, that they really enjoy doing it. It's a fun thing. We had a big audience today, we've had big audiences most of last year, we've had cheerleaders -- so the environment of the show is something that's exciting for them."<