Jakob Myers is a freshman at Michigan State University. He was the leading scorer at the 2017 HSNCT as a player for Naperville North High School and created the popular Facebook group known as “Illinois Quiz Bowl Memes” and by various other names. (It’s not Illinois-specific.)

How did you get involved with quiz bowl?

I went to tournaments all through high school, but I wouldn’t really call anything I did before December 2015 or so “involvement.” Well, I just went to tournaments and played conference matches; we didn’t go to the HSNCT my freshman or junior years (to my everlasting regret). Initially, though, one of my friends who was a year older than I recommended quiz bowl to me at a first-year advice session my middle school was holding. I didn’t really engage with the community at all until about December of 2015, so that’s the demarcation line I chose

What was quiz bowl like for you back then? If you could give 2015 Jakob advice, what would you say?

Push harder to go to more tournaments (at one point the QBWiki article for Naperville North literally said “in the 2015–2016 season, Naperville North did not attend many tournaments”) and get to know more people. Quiz bowl friends are some of the best friends around.

Does that mean you have a bunch of memories involving them?

Does it ever. Let’s see, a highlight reel would probably be my teammates insistence on staying up until 1 a.m. watching anime on Saturday night at the 2017 HSNCT, playing my first collegiate tournament with Andrew Wang and Ike Jose at WAO, and meeting Matt Lehmann at the 2014 Fremd Invitational.

What do you remember about your qualifying for your first HSNCT?

I’ve forgotten entirely what tournament we qualified at. [Editor’s note: it was the IHSSBCA Kickoff Tournament at Homewood-Flossmoor.] This was when I still wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing, but in retrospect we lucked into a tie for 13th place. We gave Nirav Ilango-era Chattahoochee a run for their money, we beat Bloomington to at least some of their categories, and I 30ed a bonus on political sex scandals, so I’m quite happy with my performance.

Now that your high school career is over, do you plan on staying involved?

I’ll be working at the HSNCT this year. I’m not in the habit of passing up trips to Atlanta and opportunities to spend full weekends hanging out with quizbowlers.

As a former player, where do you hope to see the HSNCT evolving five, ten, or twenty years from now?

The overpresence of “Americana” in NAQT questions, as I’m sure you’re aware, used to be a very common complaint about NAQT that I think based on the 2017 HSNCT y’all have done a good job kicking. I was quite a fan of the tossup on Belgium in our game against Chattahoochee because it represented a sort of internationalization, especially in the pop culture distribution, that’s very welcome. Plus, with NAQT itself internationalizing more and more, I expect to see a gradual reduction in U.S. (and British) history and literature, and growth in the world distributions for both of those categories— both of which are, in my opinion, long overdue changes in quiz bowl at large that NAQT has a unique opportunity to lead in.

Here’s the question:

A cartoonist from this country named Merho created a comic strip about the Kiekeboe family. At the 2014 World Cup Marc Wilmots managed this country’s national team, whose official song was performed by the musician Stromae. This country was the birthplace of the comics creators Hergé and Peyo. For 10 points—name this country where comics about Tintin and the Smurfs are published in French and Flemish.

Speaking of question content, what are some of your favorite buzzes from the HSNCT?

Two of my favorites were beating Ashwin Ramaswami, then Detroit Catholic Central, to math tossups consecutively, my teammate Emily Hou’s buzz on fidget spinners based on her knowledge of their invention in the West Bank to distract Palestinian children (great clue, by the way), and my teammate Jacob Fisher powering “pancakes” and “Bad and Boujee” to take us to third place against Thomas Jefferson Science & Tech A. I usually note my teammates’ buzzes a lot more than my own when I’m remembering tournaments.

Here are those questions, respectively:

A woman credited with inventing these objects was inspired by seeing children throw rocks at Israeli police. In May 2017 a girl in Texas was hospitalized after swallowing part of one. The purpose of these objects is similar to that of a hand-held cube, and some schools have limited their use to students with ADHD. Three moving wings are a common feature of—for 10 points—what stress-relief toys?

This food shares its name with ellipsoids of gas that flattened along one axis in the early universe, according to a model proposed by Yakov Zel’dovich. An alternate name for the pre-Lenten holiday of Shrove Tuesday refers to this food. Four of these items are stacked and topped with whipped cream and fruit in a Rooty Tooty Fresh ’N Fruity. A cr\’epe is a thin type of—for 10 points—what breakfast food served by IHOP?

In the music video for this song, people eat from Chanel takeout containers and drink champagne in a fried chicken restaurant booth. This song’s third vocalist celebrates going “to sleep in a Jacuzzi” and “counting that paper like loose leaf.” This song’s chorus begins “raindrops, drop tops” and concerns a woman described by the title pair of adjectives. Lil Uzi Vert performed on—for 10 points—what 2016 single by Migos?

Speaking of remembering others more than yourself, who would you name among your fiercest rivals?

Illinois in 2016 and 2017 was a fairly tough circuit, so there were plenty of opportunities for rivalry. Matthew Lehmann and the rest of that year’s Barrington team, Ali Saeed and the rest of that year’s Stevenson team, and (I guess slightly before that) Adam Fine, Lauren Onel, and their UChicago Lab team stand out. Out of state, William Golden and his Taylor squad, Jonathan Tran at Westview, and Andy Huff at St. John’s were teams we played a lot and had somewhat ambiguous results with. I wouldn’t call any of those off-the-court rivalries; all of the above, especially Matt and William, are great people. I wish all of the above people who are still in high school the best of luck at this year’s HSNCT.

What advice do you have for players?

For players, especially younger ones, I’d advise making as many friends as you can. Friends are good to have and you’ll learn stuff from them. If you want to get good, just make sure you do something every day that’ll make you better at quiz bowl or as a person. Whether it’s reading a book, watching a movie that comes up, carding, reading old packets, or goofing around on Wikipedia, doing it every day is the important part.

How about advice for coaches?

Take your team to every tournament it’s humanly possible to go to. That’s how you get a good team, a happy team, and a team that won’t quit on you. If your team doesn’t want to get good, though, don’t force it. Bottom and middle-bracket teams are just as important to the community as perennial national contenders.

Advice for the community at large?

Just be good to each other. I think we all know from being “nerds” in high school or middle school that people outside the community can be nasty; we don’t need to let the nastiness in.