Gail is the Director of Programs and Student Life at Georgia State University. She lives in Atlanta in a house they call “The Tree House” with her husband Micky Boeckl and their three cats: Clove, Peppercorn and Cobe.

How did you get involved with quiz bowl?

While I have no experience with quiz bowl as a player, I have thoroughly enjoyed helping out with the administration of quiz bowl tournaments for over 27 years at various colleges and universities that I have worked at. During my first 17 years, I was coordinating College Bowl competitions associated with ACUI (Association of College Unions International) until CBI left the college market.

How did you get involved with NAQT?

Ten years ago, while serving as the chair of ACUI’s Academic Challenge Program Team, I began conversations with Robert Hentzel and NAQT leadership to create a new partnership between ACUI and NAQT as a replacement for the College Bowl partnership that had been in place for colleges and universities for many years. While NAQT’s partnership with ACUI only lasted a couple years before parting ways, I have enjoyed continuing my personal connection at NAQT’s national championships.

How did you first hear about the HSNCT?

My initial years of volunteering were at the Intercollegiate Championship Tournament, but when I heard NAQT needed volunteer staff at their other levels of tournaments that sounded like fun, so I added them to my annual spring travels.

When was your first HSNCT? What was it like?

My first HSNCT was in 2012. The high school tournament setting is so different than the collegiate level in that there are often multiple people along on the trip to help support and chaperone the team (coaches, family, siblings, etc.). It’s pretty amazing to see so many very smart high school students all gathered in the same place at a national tournament.

Many of your volunteering tasks surrounding NAQT’s national tournaments involve buzzer intake and outtake. What’s that like?

One of the few people I knew well when I first started with NAQT was Tim Woodward. He was coordinating the buzzer inventory management process and I hung out with him at the first couple tournaments. I offered to assist him with buzzer management and that has been my specialty area ever since. I enjoy organizing resources, and from my experience as a university administrator working with student activities, I can handle most customer-service issues that may come up related to the buzzer management process.

How has the buzzer process changed over the years?

Tim and I make a great team. I handle the buzzer intake process, the first station in the team check-in process, and Tim manages the buzzer testing process and organizes dispatch to the game rooms. We both coordinate the return of buzzers at the end of the tournament and are sometimes the last staff that teams interact with at the end of the weekend. We have certainly fine-tuned the process over the years, from developing the tags with the tear-off claim check system to color-coding the Post-It notes that track where buzzers are to be set up to make delivery more efficient. Together, Tim and I have a pretty smoothly running operation where buzzers are concerned.

What would you tell someone considering helping out at national championships?

I think I’m a little bit of an oddity since I didn’t come up through the player ranks or serve as a coach, but the quiz bowl community has welcomed me and I know that NAQT appreciates the skills I’m able to share with them at the championship tournaments.

If you weren’t working at the HSNCT, what would you be doing instead?

My other leisure interests include volunteering at the Atlanta Humane Society assisting with cat adoptions, volunteering at the Atlanta Community Food Bank in their Product Rescue Center, flower gardening, jewelry-making and various other handcrafts, bird-watching and hiking with [my husband] Micky.

What is your favorite memory of an NAQT national championship?

My favorite memory is actually from the end of the 2015 Middle School National Championship Tournament in Dallas. I had recruited my then-boyfriend Micky Boeckl to scorekeep for me at the tournament, and due to a flight delay from severe weather that weekend, we were having a quick dinner before he flew back to Georgia and I returned to Virginia that Sunday evening. On the spur of the moment during an otherwise casual conversation, he proposed to me and we eloped a few months later.

Where do you see the HSNCT evolving in five, ten, or twenty years?

Connecting with a corporate sponsor like LetterOne has certainly allowed for some nice enhancements to the tournaments this year. Perhaps there could be more sponsorships in the future. Use of technology will most likely continue to grow. In the last few years of CBI, they had developed a digital screen scoring system that was pretty nifty—maybe something like that could be developed by NAQT, at least for the playoff rounds.

How has quiz bowl influenced your life?

I appreciate the lasting friendships that I have gained over the past ten years with NAQT members and other volunteers. I’ve been paired with a variety of different personnel staffing game rooms over the years and feel like I learn something new every year about the intricacies and culture of the quiz bowl community through meeting new volunteers each year.

What advice do you have for players?

I know many of the other interviews have said something like this before, but it’s worth repeating: remember that this is a game—have fun with it! Don’t beat yourself up (or your teammates) over an incorrect interrupt or a wrong answer that doesn’t get accepted. Brush it off, let it go and enjoy it for what it is—a game!

How about advice for coaches?

If you’re new to NAQT competitions, don’t hesitate to ask questions of any of the NAQT staff and senior volunteers. We’ll gladly help you navigate the new experience. The buzzer team often does some brainstorming at the end of tournaments while we’re waiting for the last of the buzzers to be picked up and we’ve often talked about how it would be helpful to provide a quick coach orientation session during the evening of the team registration process to match up a couple experienced coaches with new coaches so they can share their advice on the do’s and don’ts of participation in an NAQT tournament. While we haven’t actualized that idea yet, maybe it will come to fruition in the future.

Any advice for the community at large?

A lot of people invest a great deal of energy and thought into the planning of a tournament the size of the HSNCT, starting many months in advance of the tournament itself. The majority of the staff are volunteers from all across the country who travel to the tournament for the weekend, without a lot of free time to themselves in the destination city. It takes a lot of moving parts to make things run smoothly, so please be patient with the tournament staff if there is a hiccup here and there.

Any final thoughts?

NAQT is open to suggestions on ways to improve tournament functionality, so if you have a suggestion for how something could be done differently, please don’t hesitate to drop them a note with your idea at naqt@naqt.com.