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VJCL Fall Forum 2017
Coaching State Certamen
by ms. emily lewis
For the past four years, I have worked with the Intermediate Certamen team for Virginia, as well as helping out the historians from all levels. Every year, this has been an incredibly rewarding and fun experience! My philosophy as a coach is to work hard and play hard, and to make learning the material and playing the game the fun that it should be.
I guess what has always amazed me the most about working with Virginia Certamen is the amazing amount of current student and former student support that the players and coaches get. Every year, we have older students who come and help out the younger students and alumni of Virginia Certamen who return to Castra to help the current players learn their stuff. Even when the upper level players are trying to learn their material, they take breaks to assist the younger players. The camaraderie is just amazing. No one hesitates to share their expertise and advice.
After coaching the intermediate championship team last year, this year was a very different one for me. This year's intermediate team started off with a Mythologist who had played on the novice team last year and a Grammarian who was relatively new to Certamen. Mr. Hochberg, the Advanced team coach, found me two of his students who wanted to learn history, and that was the team. Castra was incredibly fun this year. With two weeks to learn a very large amount of information, the four members of the Intermediate team got down to business, assisted by me, JP Wilusz, Ms. Hattemer, Mr. Hochberg, Tashi Treadway, Mitch Arnold, Sayeed Akhtar, Alicia Lopez, David Orvedahl, and Xavier Williams among several others. This year's experience truly displayed that it takes a village to make a team amazing. The team's hard work and fun attitude took them all the way to the semi-finals! Great job team!
Gratias,
Magistra L
Left: Advanced team during Friday State Fellowship (L-R: Matt Nelson, Simon Van Der Weide, Minyoug Hwang, Ryan Klopp)