Oklahoma Junior Academic Bowl Association
| ||
| President or CEO | Larry Capps | |
| Location: | Oklahoma | |
| Status | Active | |
The Oklahoma Junior Academic Bowl Association (OJABA) is a middle school quizbowl organization in Oklahoma which, along with OAAC, is one of two organizations to award a middle school state championship. Like OAAC, OJABA divides its competitions into four grade level classifications: grades 5/6, grades 6/7, grades 7/8, and grades 8/9. Because of the allowance of ninth graders in OJABA's uppermost division, some high school teams field an all-freshman team to compete in OJABA events.
History
The first OJABA championship was held in the 2001-2002 season, and featured only the 6th/7th, 7th/8th, and 8th/9th divisions. The 5th/6th division was added during the 2005-2006 season. Originally, the OJABA championship used the class B through 6A system used by OSSAA, but shifted to a bespoke school districts-based system beginning in the 2007-2008 season. In the 2017-2018 season, Norman North became the first high school team to win the 8th/9th grade division fielding an all-freshman squad, while Edmond Santa Fe High School finished third. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the championship round of the 2019-2020 season was cancelled; plaques and medals were awarded to the top four seeds in each class and division in lieu of the tournament.
Format
OJABA's championships are divided into four classes based on Average Daily Membership (ADM) of each school district in the state. OJABA's championship structure mirrors that of the OSSAA State Championship, beginning with a round-robin district seeding tournament, followed by a double-elimination regional tournament and a double-elimination state championship. Unlike OSSAA, however, schools are allowed to register multiple teams, with the caveat that team compositions must remain the same from event to event.
OJABA rules are also similar to OSSAA's - rounds are divided into four quarters, with the first and third featuring twenty short tossups, and the second and fourth featuring sixty-second lightning rounds. OJABA questions regularly feature topics such as computational math, spelling, and binary matching of presidents or chemical elements, and are generally non-pyramidal.
Controversy
Ahead of the 2020-2021 regional competitions, OJABA President Larry Capps sent an email to coaches which referred to COVID-19 as “the China Virus”. The phrasing was met with concern by several coaches, and was widely condemned. Capps is also known for frequently discouraging tournament hosts from reviewing questions for accuracy before competitions. In responding to an email regarding typos in one set, he began with a deliberate misspelling of the complaining coach’s name, before denying that there were any errors with the set and assuring them that all questions were of “the highest quality.” No transparency exists for OJABA’s question writer selection, as OJABA does not produce its questions in-house.