The top single player competition for quiz bowl, National Academic Quiz Tournaments' Individual Player National Championship Tournament was held April 6, in Rosemont, Illinois, with Jake Giem, a student from Katy ISD’s James E. Taylor High School competing in a 260-player field. Thirty-two states, the District of Columbia, and Guatemala were represented in the seventh championship of its kind.

“Jake has been invited to attend the National Championship Tournament in Rosemont, Illinois as an individual participant,” a spokesperson for Katy ISD said in an April 4 statement. “Players are invited to attend the National Championship Tournament based on their individual scores at local tournaments.”

This quiz bowl event is extraordinary in that it is an individual competition, without the support of teammates. Quiz bowl is a competitive, academic, interscholastic activity for teams of students. Quiz bowl teams use buzzers and answer questions about science, math, history, literature, mythology, geography, social science, current events, sports, and popular culture. Quiz bowl matches feature a blend of individual competition and team collaboration, since no individual player is likely to be an expert in all subject areas. Participation in quiz bowl both reinforces lessons from the classroom and encourages players to develop new intellectual interests. The competition day began with seeding rounds to determine position for qualification. After five seeding rounds, the top players competed in an elimination round to determine the overall winner. In addition, players who performed well in specific academic categories were honored for their performance. Tournament results posted at http://www.naqt.com/go/stats/16005 showed that Giem placed 207th in the competition. The Individual Player National Championship Tournament was first held in 2018, and the 2020 championships were not held due to the COVID-19 outbreak. This year's tournament will be contested after Saturday's Intercollegiate Championship Tournament, where top college teams from the US and Canada will compete for the title. ABOUT NAQT National Academic Quiz Tournaments, founded in 1996, organizes the premier middle school, high school, and college quiz bowl championships in North America. In addition to its national championships, NAQT provides questions to invitational tournaments, league championships, and television shows throughout the year. NAQT operates out of the Twin Cities and Kansas City, but its members mentor coaches, host tournaments, volunteer their services, and share their expertise across the United States.