User:Gaius stern/Bay area academic league

The Bay Area Academic League (founded 2002 by Gaius Stern and Ross Ritterman - for citation see www.sfbaal.com) provides local High School Quiz Bowl competition in the San Francisco Bay Area. Most years BAAL runs several NAQT contests, the winner of which is invited to play in the NAQT ICT in May (often in Chicago). In 2002-04 and 2005-06 BAAL provided the questions used on teh local QUIZ KIDS TV show filmed in San Carlos at Pen TV. In 2010-11 BAAL again wrote and edited the Quiz Kids questions. BAAL also ran its own local competition, a to0urnament stretched out over one year. Past winners have included University HS (San Francisco), Mission San Jose HS (Fremont), Berkeley HS, and others. BAAL built the local high school quiz bowl circuit, allowing a different non-sports competition in the Bay Area for students who do not choose to be on the Debate Team or similar activities, but prefer a trivia / academic contest. This is an important social outlet for many high school students. In 2009-11 many local high schools produced their own competitions, often with NAQT materials, to restore the circuit to 4 contests a year after BAAL began to cut back its scheduled tournaments. In February 2011 BAAL ran the California History Bowl, the winner of which, Bellarmine Prep (San Jose) was invited to play in the National History Bowl in April 2011. Several runner-up teams were also invited to Washington, namely Harker School (San Jose) and Mission San Jose (Fremont). In 2011-12 BAAL will again work for Quiz Kids and resume running a few weekend events.