Press clippings

By Emily Fancher, STAFF WRITER

Brad Friedman is San Mateo County's Alex Trebek.  The drama director at San Mateo High School has the same salt and pepper hair and sharp suits as Trebek, host of "Jeopardy." And Friedman also asks trivia questions on TV -- on "Quiz Kids," a local show broadcast on Channel 26.

More than 100 fans showed up at the television studio on Saturday for a taping of the first show of the fourth season, in which defending champ Menlo-Atherton High School faced off against Hillsdale High School.

The show is something of a local phenomenon. Broadcast 10 times a week on Channel 26, it is the station's most popular show. Executive producer Bob Marks says the station has estimated that it draws up to 25,000 viewers for some episodes.  "It's taken off beyond our wildest expectations," said producer Liz La Porte. "The kids are gracious, intelligent and articulate."

Marks said his wife, a former teacher, came up with the idea and that the popularity of shows like "Who Wants to be Millionaire?" helped generate excitement at high schools about the quiz teams and the show.  Teams compete for an all-expenses paid trip to Europe, which all three members of this year's Menlo-Atherton team enjoyed last year. The runners up will receive $500 in scholarship money for college.

Menlo-Atherton beat Hillsdale 390 to 200, partly because their team captain Daniel Barclay is an intellectual superstar.  "Daniel Barclay has a reputation as a genius," said Elinor Westfield, a senior at Menlo-Atherton, who came to the show last year.  Barclay is good at everything, but nearly perfect at geography. Teammate Jessica Woods excelled at the math questions and David Hestrin shined at culture and history.

Questions ranged from which governments fought the Peloponnesian War (Sparta and Athens) to what disease affects one's ability to regulate blood sugar levels (diabetes).  Barclay said he didn't have any expectations before he signed on for the team four years ago and the ride has been fun.  "I like the actual shows best of all," Barclay said after the show. "I may look uncomfortable up there, but I'm actually having fun."

Ethan Stewart, who coached the Hillsdale team and teaches history at the school, said he loves preparing for the events. "The kids are bright and motivated," he said. "I was proud of the team today. It was very close after the first two rounds."  Fans from both high schools turned out to clap, stamp their feet and wave signs for their teams like it was a homecoming football game.

"We wanted to make kids who are high achievers into intellectual role models," said Marks, "and I think we've done it."

Staff writer Emily Fancher covers Menlo Park, Atherton, Woodside and Portola Valley. She can be reached at 650-348-4340 or efancher@angnewspapers.com

Remaining undefeated for two seasons, the M-A team now reigns as the Quiz Kids champs for Silicon Valley because this year's expanded competition involved 24 high school teams from San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. M-A prevailed over Gunn, Menlo School, Sacred Heart, Woodside and 19 other high schools.

The showdown match was televised before a live audience in Peninsula TV's studio in San Carlos.

Coming up with correct answers to challenging questions were M-A's team of captain Robin Pam, Daniel Barclay, Noah Veltman and William Most. They and their coach, Bob Hasbrook, won a nine-day, all-expenses-paid trip to England, courtesy of ACIS tours. Their plans call for visiting London, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Stonehenge, and seeing a Shakespearean play and two modern plays.

During the championship match, the lead changed several times before the Menlo-Atherton team clinched the title. Some of the questions during the final "battle of the brains" were: What is the only major city on Australia's west coast? Who invented the machine gun? (The answers: Perth. Richard Jordan Gatling.)

Captain Lee-Ming Zen led the Crystal Springs team that included Tyson Mao, Mike Bauer and Jessica Wang. Their coach is Wells Wadleigh.

The Quiz Kid matches, which have developed a loyal following among television viewers, will be aired on Mondays at 7:30 p.m. on cable Channel 6 in Menlo Park, Atherton, East Palo Alto and Palo Alto, and also on Sundays at 8:05 p.m. on cable Channel 77.

The team edged out a squad from Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough in the finals. The championship match that concluded the 24-team tournament was held April 28 at the Peninsula TV studios in San Carlos.

Quiz Kids features a wide range of questions posed to a team of students. Since February, teams from Daly City to Mountain View and Pescadero have competed in the single-elimination tournament. Five of the teams were from private schools, and 19 were from public schools.

With its first-place finish, Menlo Atherton's team -- Robin Pam, Noah Veltman, Daniel Barclay and alternate William Most -- remains undefeated in the two years of the Quiz Kids competition.

The winners will receive an all-expenses paid, nine-day trip to London, accompanied by coach Bob Hasbrook, who teaches Western Civilization and European History at the school. The team is scheduled to make the trip on July 19.

Menlo-Atherton will lose half its squad for next year's competition -- Veltman and Most are seniors. But captain Pam returns, as does Barclay, who handled majority of the questions in the finals.

The future looks even brighter for the Crystal Springs Uplands team of Mike Bauer, Tyson Mao, Lee-Ming Zen and alternate Jessica Wang -- all four are juniors who competed in Quiz Kids for the first time. They were coached by Wells Wadleigh, chairman of the Crystal Springs Uplands history department

The questions were tough and the tension was high.

But after three rounds of brain-draining intellectual battle, a group of Menlo-Atherton High School students claimed the Peninsula Quiz Kids 2000 grand prize -- a nine-day European vacation.

The Menlo-Atherton Bears defeated the San Mateo High School Bearcats in the final match of the quiz show, which was broadcast live last Saturday afternoon on Peninsula TV. Menlo-Atherton and San Mateo had been competing since March with Peninsula high schools.

Menlo-Atherton beat out Half Moon Bay, Sacred Heart and Carlmont high schools to reach the finals. San Mateo clobbered rivals Burlingame, Capuchino and Hillsdale high schools.

Like the game Trivial Pursuit, the Peninsula Quiz Show presents students with several categories of questions, ranging from math to history.

In the first and third rounds of competition, team members from both schools race to see who can hit the buzzer first and answer questions correctly. During the second round, one person from each team chooses a specific category and competes for the most points.

Menlo-Atherton's Bears clinched the win with a total of 300 points. San Mateo's Bearcats racked up 230 points.

Daniel Barclay, a 15-year-old freshman, said Menlo-Atherton's win boiled down to lots of practice, some luck and good coaching. Menlo-Atherton's coach is Bob Hasbrook, an Advanced Placement history and Western civilization teacher. San Mateo's coaches are English teachers Sara Iraheta and Jane McCabe.

``I'm really glad that we won,'' Barclay said. ``We have mostly our coach to thank. He put aside two or three of his lunch periods every week to help us. We couldn't have done it without him.''

Although San Mateo didn't win, senior Michael Levy, 17, said his team had a good time.

``We just showed up and had fun,'' he said.

The championship match will be shown at 8:30 p.m. tonight and replayed at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, and again at 6:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, on Peninsula TV, seen in most San Mateo County cities on Channel 8 or Channel 26. Cable Co-op also shows Peninsula TV on local access channels.

Menlo-Atherton Quiz Kids Win Trip
San Mateo County Times, May 22, 2000

The three student team members - senior Lyndsey Toeppen, 17, sophomore Robin Pam, 15, and freshman Daniel Barclay, 14 - beat San Mateo High School 300 to 230 in the final round of the two-month long trivia competition, which was narrowed down to the two schools from the 16 participating when the competition began in March.

It's exciting, it's really neat - it's just fun," said Pam, who practiced twice a week with the team since January, using trivial pursuit cards and old buzzers they found in a closet.

San Mateo High School team members - seniors Kathleen Weeks, Michael Levy, and Reamonn Stynnes - each got to take home Web TV's. In addition to the trips, Menlo-Atherton team members received the first Quiz Kids trophy, which the school will get to keep for a year.

Both teams said the experience brought them closer together. As Toeppen put it, "It's been such a bonding experience for everybody."

M enlo-Atherton's Quiz Kids won the first-ever Peninsula Quiz Kids championship May 20, an academic competition where some of the brightest students from 16 high schools in the county match wits.

Before a packed television studio audience and under the glare of klieg lights, M-A's team of three continued its winning streak by defeating San Mateo High School's team in the championship match by a score of 300 to 230.

The first-place winners and their coach, Bob Hasbrook, will receive an all-expenses-paid, nine-day trip to Europe this summer, with stops in London, Paris and Rome, courtesy of EF Educational Tours. Menlo-Atherton will receive the competition's first perpetual trophy to be displayed (after it's engraved) in the school's Pride Hall.

Captain Lyndsey Toeppen admitted last Saturday's match was "a little bit nerve wracking," but the entire competition was really great. "It is one of the first academic-based competitions where high school students can work as a team to show off their intellectual skills," said the M-A senior.

Lyndsey credits M-A's balanced team for moving ahead to win the championship. Daniel Barclay, the only freshman in the entire competition and a history buff, answered all the rapid-fire "face-off" questions for M-A during the entire competition. Robin Pam, a sophomore, drew on her knowledge of literature, popular culture and sports to come up with correct answers. Lyndsey was the math and science expert. Seniors Jonathan Soon, Nicole Hildebrandt and Alexander Doherty added more depth to the teamwork as they attended practice sessions during lunch about three times a week and were ready to step into the competition at a moment's notice.

The turning point in the championship match came in the early part of the "collaboration round," when the team decides the point value of the question to be asked and then collaborates on the answer, said Daniel. M-A was ahead by only 20 points. Working together, the team was able to come up with the 40-point answers and then respond with the correct answer when San Mateo faltered.

The questions, read by charismatic host Brad Friedman, were noticeably harder in the finals match, according to teammates. Two of the questions M-A's team didn't get: What is the name of the Caribbean witch in Arthur Miller's play, "The Crucible?" Name two of the four teams for which San Francisco Giants' manager Dusty Baker played?

"Watching these kids in this academic competition was as exciting as any athletic competition," said coach Hasbrook.

Mr. Hasbrook returned to M-A this fall from retirement to teach his popular Advanced Placement European history and Western Civilization classes. To determine who made the team, Mr. Hasbrook invited all 30 sign-ups to participate in a practice quiz show to see how they responded and stood up under pressure.

Would M-A's teammates sign up again for the Quiz Kids program next year? "Definitely" responded Dan and Pam, who will be back at M-A next fall. Lyndsey, and the other seniors, who graduate next month, won't be eligible, but Lyndsey said she would definitely be involved, as she will be nearby attending Stanford. And Mr. Hasbrook said he would definitely like to coach the Quiz Kids again if there's a spot for him at M-A next year.

Locally, Peninsula Quiz Kids programs may be viewed on Cable Co-op Channel 6 Mondays at 7:30 p.m. and on Channel 77 Sundays at 8:05 p.m. Contact Cabel Co-op Channel 6 in Palo Alto for specific school matches.

"From the beginning, we believed it has been important to feature kids who are achieving academically, affording them the role model status usually reserved for star athletes," said Producer Bob Marks of Peninsula TV.

Peninsula Quiz Kids was sponsored by Pacific Bell, the Independent Newspaper Group and EF Educational Tours with support from area businesses, SamTrans and the San Mateo County Office of Education.