Gold Medal in Latin!

In the Olympics of Latin, the 1st place team award on the Novice Level was won by. . . . . OHIO!

  The picture is before the final round, on the stage.  Please notice the young man who is sitting second from the right and has his game face on.  He's important.  Not more important than any other player on the team, but important to me.  The moderator is checking each player's i.d. number to make sure that they are who they say they are. The audience is waiting:

 Now, I'll quote Larry Dean's recap:

It was truly a team effort.  All 4 players contributed to the victory by winning toss-ups.  Adam, fulfilling his role as captain, led the way with 3; Will really shined on the Big Stage with 2; and Dustin & Alex each took 1.

The tide seemed to turn in OH’s favor after a review of a missed question.  They had initially rejected parco as an antonym of neglego (agst OH), but this ruling was later overturned (for OH).  That took pts away from MA and added pts to OH.  OH then went on a roll and had an insurmountable 25 pt lead going into the final question (which OH also got).  The OH fans mobbed the stage at the conclusion of the match.

As I said in yesterday’s post, it was a victory for the whole OH certamen group.  I think the happiest people in the group were the older players.  go ohio go

You can read more from Larry here:  http://ojcl.org/?page_id=1019

And the individual gold medal for best certamen competitor in the Nation was won by

Adam Sichel of Indian Hill!  Remember how I said to look for the discipulus with the game face?  That is the young man who took it upon himself to go beyond the basics of Latin and devote himself to knowing and understanding as much as humanly possible about Latin.  And he made me a better teacher in the process.  Adam was flexible enough to work with not only me, but was trained daily during the school year by my fantastic colleague K.C. Kless, then moved on to train at the summer Castra with Mr. Dean, Chris Lapp, and the upper level deities from across the state.  Adam never missed an opportunity to hone his talent.

The question asked of Adam, "You were a state champion before, what are you now, Adam?"
Response:  "A national champion."
You bet he is!

 Finally, let's not forget that behind it all are Adam's parents!  Gratias vobis, Parentes Optimi!  I know I speak for Latin teachers across the nation when I say that we are so appreciative of your sharing Adam with us and giving us the honor of handing him the torch!

The hours and hours and hours paid off, amici!  The Ohio Latin teachers (especially the SW Ohio Latin-in-laws) are beaming with pride.  Congratulations!

Now I am going to try to stop crying with joy and pride and happiness.  Yes, Burgess, that's prappyoy.