High school news quiz

    In my high school days, I was on the debate team. As a side benefit, I was chosen to compete for Dreher High in the high school news quiz contest conducted by the University of South Carolina's Journalism school. As a freshman I was teamed with older students and we were quite well-behaved. But starting with sophomore year, childhood friends came from private school to Dreher and we made a much more rambunctious team. My now deceased friend Evans Elliott joined up as did another friend who will go by GCM since he is now a very prominent attorney in Texas.
    We weren't rock-star rowdy, but I don't imagine we were very popular with the J school. One time we wore our glasses upside down. Once we claimed to be members of the Dreher Moped Polo Team. Once we each introduced each other ("To my left is John Dantzler." "To MY left is Evans Elliott."...) My favorite was when we did a deal with Cardinal Newman High (including my next-door neighbor) where both teams would do dumb voices during the introductions and say about our school activities only that we were "a member of the high school news quiz team." We went first and we went through with it. Cardinal Newman though did their introductions perfectly straight, giving all their real activities, and they were smirking; boy did they get one over on us. We beat them, I think, 120-70.
    Strangely, I think the prank we did that had the biggest effect was the first one I mentioned above. A young lady on the Irmo High team (whom we also knew from the debate team and who went on to become a magistrate) just couldn't proceed she was laughing so hard. So if you're ever before a magistrate, try wearing your glasses upside down. Who knows? Might work!
    Apart from all the silliness, we were really good, but we never won the tournament. We never applied ourselves at all and figured that being really smart would be sufficient to carry us all the way. Unfortunately, other teams actually made an effort and, you know, studied. So we found ourselves eliminated before the playoffs every year. But man did we have a lot of fun first!