Brother Martin Academic Games 1970s

Brother Martin’s Academic Games dates back to St. Aloysius.

Academic Games at BMHS

Mr. Craig Zeller, who is currently the Moderator of the Academic Games (AG) team at Brother Martin, works hard to present the AG history accurately. So, he goes back through the school’s yearbooks to match people in photos for the metro league, New Orleans Academic Games League (NOAGL) and the national Academic Games League of America (AGLOA). That’s quite the challenge because the league photos rely on the yearbook pics and the yearbook staff often mis-identified guys in clubs they didn’t participate in.

Here’s a page from the 1971-1972 “Yesterday” yearbook featuring the Equations Team for that year.  The captions were on the opposite page:

Top Left: Brother Neal gives Junior Garland Miller assistance during an Equations game. Bottom Right: Members of the Equations Team are (kneeling): Terry Weber, Chris Krefft, Shawn Schneider, Robert Hall, (standing) Garland Miller, David Schaefer, Paul Puchot, Andrew Helis, and Donald Bagert. Bottom: Fred Kuhn seems to be letting the opposite sex outsmart him in a friendly game.

(Author’s note: Fred Kuhn rarely got outsmarted.)

Not yet Academic Games

Notice this is the 71-72 Equations Team. Schools in the city were only playing the Math games at this time. Social Studies and Language Arts competition would come later. So, throughout my years at BMHS, we were the On-Sets and Equations guys. The first Language Arts/Social Studies tournament in the city was in the spring of 1976, my senior year (we won). We played “Mister President” and “Ameri-Euro Card” as the Social Studies games and “Propaganda” and “Linguishtik” as the Language Arts games. Over time, AGLOA settled on “Presidents” (the game didn’t change, but the branding did), and Propaganda. So, by the time my Firstborn played AG, (01-02), league/sweeps competitions were based on those four.

Additionally, we earned letters in both On-Sets and Equations. Since my boys, which is now *shudder* twenty years, the AG team letters in “Academic Games.”

Alumni!

In June, the school honored Brother Neal Golden, SC, with a reception marking his formal retirement. Here’s a photo of the AG alums who attended.

Mr. Zeller maintains a Facebook page for Brother Martin Academic Games Alumni

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