Midtown’s Ethics Bowl team competed this spring for the second consecutive year at the National High School Ethics Bowl at Duke University in Durham, N.C. after winning the regional and state titles. Even with a predominantly freshman team, they placed 12th.
Coach Cheryl Nahmias said the rapid development of the younger members stood out this year.
“We were so proud of our freshman players for the speed at which they mastered the basics of Ethics Bowl play in time to win the state and then the regional competition to earn a spot at Nationals,” Nahmias said.
Freshman Devon Crisler said the regional victory was when the team’s potential clicked into place.
“When we won at regionals, I saw our team really flourish and understood that we could be one of the best teams because we had the skill and the desire to win,” Crisler said. “When we won at states, I don’t think I fully realized that we would be heading off to nationals, but after we got the new set of cases, it finally clicked to me that our team would be attending nationals, representing the entire state of Georgia.”
Hours of weekend practices and shared meals built the team chemistry that helped fuel their run to nationals.
“Besides our weekly practices after school, we would have four-hour practices on Saturdays or Sundays leading up to competition,” Nahmias said. “During those practices, our veteran team would scrimmage our younger team, and we’d break to have a meal together. I think that these practices allowed time for us to focus on the work but also to relax and get to know one another better. And certainly the trip to Nationals, with 12 hours of driving time, meals together, competing together, have solidified us as a team.”
The team’s veteran members played a crucial role in preparing the new members by competing alongside them before stepping back to mentor.
“At the beginning, we practiced with the older members and they even competed at regionals as “Midtown Team A,'” Crisler said. “They helped us understand how they worked as a team and we had a lot of scrimidges with them to practice the cases for regionals and states. Many of them are still passionate about ethics bowl and philosophy, so I think it was important to them that they could help us succeed and still get a chance to compete one final time.”
Junior Georgianna Madge, the competition team leader, said that the format of Ethics Bowl differentiates it from other academic competitions.
“I appreciate how the rounds are structured more like conversations and less like arguments,” Madge said. “We are forced to acknowledge that most problems have a multitude of solutions, and there isn’t always a right or wrong answer.”
Freshman Mathew Brown reflected on his experience at nationals and said that the team didn’t ultimately lose due to skill level, but rather team dynamics.
“From my experience, no team at nationals that we faced had any skill that we didn’t; more so, other teams had more proficiency in certain skills,” Brown said. “A major proficiency that I found in both the teams that beat us is their ability to fluidly transition between members of the team. While we had this ability, they were more practiced at said ability. How this ability could be improved for next time is running more practice scrimmages, so we have a better idea of how to implement this in a realistic setting.”
Nahmias said she has high hopes for the team going into next year and feels this year was a successful competition year but also a great learning experience and transition period for the freshmen.
“Seeing the veteran [seniors] players pass the torch to the younger team was really fun to watch,” Nahmias said. “Our freshmen have not yet had those opportunities, and they were still able to compete at a high level. I can only imagine how good they’ll be with more coursework and experiences under their belts.”
