Team eyes new venues
By Bob Dunn
Staff Writer
Published on September 29, 2006
When Stacy Carrier, the sponsor for the Amherst Regional High School's 'As Schools Match Wits' team, heard that the show was canceled, she was shocked.
I thought it would just keep going on, she said.
That shock was felt by the members of the team, who found themselves competitors without an arena.
Aviva Galaski, a senior from Amherst, is a new addition to the team this year.
'I'm so upset it's not happening,' Galaski said.
She was also surprised by the notice from WWLP, the Springfield station that had run the program for its entire 46 year run, that simply said he cancellation was due to an FCC regulation.
'When you think of FCC regulations you think of violence, language or nudity,' Galaski said.
The FCC regulation at issue requires that all programming be closed captioned and WWLP felt that doing so for a largely unscripted show like 'Wits' was cost-prohibitive.
Eleanor Avrunin, another Amherst senior, had participated with the team for the past two years and is hoping the team can continue competing, even if 'Wits' is canceled.
She's hoping that the team can find regional or college competitions to test their mettle in, such as the local Amherst Trivia Bee, which the team plans to participate in this year. The bee is set for Oct. 12.
The first order of business, Avrunin joked, was to find a new name for the club since, the 'As Schools Match Wits Club' no longer had relevance.
She's suggested 'EEK', the Eclectic Esoteric Knowledge club.
Amherst has been a contender almost every year they have competed, but lost during the finals last year to Longmeadow High School, and took home third place.
Avrunin said that connecting with the other, now-defunct, 'Wits' teams from around the area, and competing amongst themselves has been suggested as a possibility.
Eli Cohen, an Amherst senior, said that getting a similar program onto a venue like ACTV was possible, but would require a team of volunteers to produce the show as well as its script and questions.
Carrier said that the team took preparation very seriously, watching tapes of old programs, answering questions out loud and using handheld buzzers, similar to the ones used on the show to get used to the format.
The group learned of the upcoming 'Jeopardy' teen tournament try outs and thought that it would be poetic justice if the finalists were all made up of former 'Wits' competitors.
Claudia Weinberg, who coached the team from 1999-2001 was saddened to hear of the show's cancellation as well.
'It was a great activity for kids who might not get recognized, otherwise,' Weinberg said. 'Where else can you get rewarded for being a 'know it all'?'
Weinberg said that the team provided benefits to the students that went well beyond a trophy or appearance on television.
'You see the kids really start to blossom in confidence,' she said. 'It's sad to be losing this tradition.'
