So, in Texas, the University Interscholastic League (UIL) is a pretty big thing in schools. UIL handles all manner of competition from sports (like football or baseball), to band (such as marching band or choir), to theatre (in the form of One Act Play, though iirc, they also had musicals), to debate, but my favourite thing they did was the academic competitions, where a bunch of schools would meet up to compete in various tasks. 1/

I loved UIL Academic stuff when I was in elementary and middle school. Whether it was spelling; maps, graphs, and charts (which I pretty consistently dominated, mind you); or number sense, I loved getting the day off to get together, hang out with friends, and try my best in these competitions. But, when I got to high school, they'd stopped doing them up there for "lack of interest" 2/

However, Junior year, a new principal would decide to bring it back, much to my excitement. I got in on all manner of events. Calculator apps, number sense, computer apps, compsci, spelling. I was ready. Unfortunately, most I failed at. There was fuckery with number sense that meant my submission wasn't graded; spelling I bombed; and I didn't do well enough with the calculator. But the other two, I did well in. (Kinda.) 3/

Now, I'm not gonna dwell on junior year too much. That's not what I'm here to brag about. But I came 2nd in comp apps and 1st in comp sci (not hard when my competition thought "2 + 3 ^ 4 + 1" evaluated to 84 in Java. Most had a negative score). At regionals, I came 2nd in comp apps again, and I came in second once more at state. Unfortunately, I came 9th in compsci at regionals and didn't qualify for state. 4/

But senior year, I had a goal. See, compsci had two portions: handwritten and practical. I did handwritten, a 40 question test on Java and some basic CS maths (bases, boolean algebra, postfix/prefix notation, etc.). The practical was the actual coding, but you needed a team, something I lacked junior year. But, senior year, I was gonna get a team and we were going to state. 5/

Unfortunately, I was the only one who knew CS at the school. But, I had a friend who'd wanted to do it junior year before finding out we would be doing the coding, and I was able to convince my sister to join in for the heck of it. At an invitational practice meet, that friend, who we'll call A, couldn't make it, so another, J, filled in and did reasonably well for having no training, so I brought him in as well. I had a team, now to get them the knowledge 6/

Our "coach" had two classrooms and she let me borrow one of them. So, before district, I had one goal: teach those fuckers as much CS as I could. And, so, I did. Or, rather, tried to. Finally, district rolled around. And, we...well, performed. My team did reasonable ok on the handwritten part, and we managed 1 (of 12!) coding challenges. I did well enough to move on individually (coming 2nd), but would I be bringing them? Well... 7/

We came 2nd as a team, so if we made it to regionals, it'd be by having the highest score out of all the 2nd place teams in the district. And, lo and behold, we made it! But, now, we needed to buckle down more than ever. Over the next two weeks, we spent everyday in that room, me training those 3, trying to impart every last little bit of knowledge I could to get them in shape for regionals. 8/

At regionals, the competition was split across two days. Day 1: practical. We went into that room ready to give it our best shot. We. were. ready. Time started, and I immediately begin on the first challenge (basically a hello, world challenge). We turn it in. 60 points. Then, another. 60 points. By the time we finished, we had 235 points, far more than we got in that part at district. We were in first. Tied for first. 9/

The next day was the handwritten. Beforehand, I gave them the best motivational speech I could, and then we went in to do it. I put up my best performance to date, answering nearly every question and scoring 140 points, easily putting me in first. Unfortunately, my team fell behind, with 40, 20, and 😬 -20*. The -20 was dropped, but it still meant we didn't have enough to get first. We'd have to be the wild card.

And, we weren't. Sad, I know. But, we came close. If we'd finished on more coding challenge, we could have done it. I could have pulled off the most impressive thing I've ever done: taking a team of 3 people with no CS knowledge to state in the CS competition. I failed, but, it wasn't a complete loss. After all, we were close. Like I said, I challenge off from making it. We *nearly* did it. 11/

Anyways, I went to state, came 6th, behind all 4 members of another school's team (they actually had a CS program at their school), and well, I'm not sad or mad or disappointed. I did what few could. Not just making it to state, but everything I pulled with our team. You may have noticed "coach" in quotes. There's a reason for that. She didn't know anything about CS. I was the de facto coach. Our principal even acknowledged such in a local newspaper interview. 12/

I don't think anyone's done that since. I don't think it's likely anyone will. It could happen, but I doubt it. It's one of those once in a blue moon stories that, if it were sports, would have had a movie made about it. A lone athlete's desperate bid to lead a ragtag group to the championships with no real coach. But, instead, it was nerds in a classroom talking computers, so, no movie. Shame :P /s 13/

So, yeah. There's the story of the time I almost singlehandedly led a team to state in an academic competition. Voila. 14/14