The Academic Olympics
The Academic Olympics first appeared in #337: “W-O-R-R-Y”; sponsored by Maureen Hodges, Sam Johnson had to take a series of subject tests to compete in it and was worried about the spelling portion. It last appeared in #553: “Potential Possibilities”, under a completely different format, when the Odyssey Middle School gifted class, under the direction of Mrs. Nietchew, competed against Connellsville Middle School and Trent DeWhite contributed significantly to the victory on the final question.
The Academic Olympics are modeled after quiz bowl competitions; however, unlike quiz bowl, in which a moderator reads open-ended questions and both teams must compete to answer them first and correctly, in the Academic Olympics a moderator reads questions to a specific team's member, who must answer them correctly with no chance for the other team to answer. The final question that appeared in #553: “Potential Possibilities” better resembles traditional quiz bowl, though in quiz bowl competitions, the teams cannot communicate with each other on toss-up questions.