After months of practicing and meeting twice a week to test their knowledge and bond as a group, Walkersville’s 44th Academic Team has had a great competitive season. With a whopping 54 player count, each student brought their own unique traits to the team to create an intelligence powerhouse that placed 4th overall in the annual tournament this year against all the high schools in Frederick County
Additionally, three students–Sam Leggieri, Sid Parandapalli and Henry Van Orden–were given certificates forbecoming members of the 2025 Frederick County All Star Team due to their stellar intelligence and great sportsmanship among other determining factors. Sam, who typically runs the warm-up questions during practices, said, “Academic team has become such an important part of my high school career. I’m so glad I decided to join as a freshman.”
Out of all of the team’s players, only four students have been a part of the team for all four years of their high school career. One of the four, Cooper, said, “Academic team has allowed me to grow not just in knowledge but in my confidence as well. I couldn’t imagine these past four years without this amazing community of people by my side. I’m going to miss this amazing group of people and remember all we’ve done together.”
Along with the academic team seniors leaving for what awaits them, English teacher, John Van Bloem has decided to retire as the quizmaster and Master of Ceremonies for the Academic Tournament after four years of writing thousands of questions on a variety of topics for competing teams to answer. His witty sense of humor, great singing voice, and quick costume changes will be missed.
Van Bloem started teaching at Walkersville High School in 1998 after previously teaching at the middle school and in New York City years prior. However, it wasn’t until 2015 when he began his academic team journey. Mr. Williams shared his thoughts on the Van Bloem as a former coach: “Mr. Van Bloem was a great mentor and always good about guiding me in types of questions to write and how to train students appropriately.΅
After his years of coaching, Van Bloem stepped up to have a larger role in the tournament process: being the quizmaster. The Master of Ceremonies aka quizmaster is a substantial job for one person to take on, consisting of writing thousands of questions every year for students to answer. “I like the idea of playing a game with the students,” said Van Bloem, “when they try to study a specific topic they predict I’ll ask questions about.” He described his coaching years as a great experience as well: “Coaching included trying to motivate and encourage smart people into learning specific topics and techniques for the actual game. I loved teaching strategies during my time as a coach.” Throughout his career, Mr. Van Bloem has also learned many things about being a teacher: “Successful teaching gives the teacher a tremendously positive feeling, yet it’s still hard to do well as a teacher since a lot of times I can write a paper better than students, but that’s not what they need from me. They need me to teach them how to help themselves. I’m always pushing students to do better for themselves and study independently, so they can look back later in life and realize the work I did for them was to benefit them.”
Its bittersweet to say goodbye to teammates and staff, but its a natural part of life, and those that are left behind are gearing up to make next year’s season just as extraordinary. If you like trivia, and you can dedicate two days a week after school, maybe you can be the next All Star player.
