Nervous Breakdown

During and immediately after Germany barely defeated Poland in the 2006 World Cup, instances of cardiac arrest and heart-related hospitalizations in Germany nearly tripled. German fans had apparently experienced a deadly bout of extreme sports-related nervousness and keeled over. Fortunately, Seabury students tend to be fit and younger than 50. Otherwise the student body would have been markedly diminished by recent events.

The first such event was Friday the 11th, when the varsity basketball team faced its local rival, Veritas. At first, all seemed calm. The zen and naïve students were given their usual lecture on sportsmanship and fan conduct, a seasonally-appropriate clothing theme was chosen and the pep band practiced feverishly for their first appearance. Then, when the game had begun, Veritas started to win. This unacceptable conduct continued for what seemed like an eternity, until just four seconds remained on the clock. Tempers ran high, students screamed, parents sweated and the faraway debate team waited in agonized silence for news. Then sophomore Zach Bloch took a quick step back, shot and solved the problem.

But unlike the sweat-soaked and panicky Seabury fans, Bloch was not paralyzed by doubt. In the minutes before the shot, he was convinced that the result would be positive. “Before we got the ball and they were shooting free throws, I told Miles that we were gonna win this game,” says Bloch. When Seabury fans were most panicked, he was calm. “I was confident in my shot when I got the ball and when I released it I thought it was . . . going to go in.” But the closeness of the game only sweetened the result for Bloch. “It was a more meaningful win since it ended it that way and the closeness just brought out the best in everybody."

The second event, the school-wide spelling bee, has never been reported as a leading cause of cardiac arrest. Usually, the event is rather brief. Many students too old or too cowardly to compete simply sit way in the back of the room and hide their phones from the raptor-like eyes of headmaster Don Schawang or watch calmly until a brief final round results in a clear winner. This year, all was pandemonium. The final round, at first subdued and mundane, lasted for a shocking twenty-plus minutes. After all this time, sixth-grader Sean Ruddy finally ended the tense, nail-biting excitement with the spelling equivalent of Bloch’s game winning shot.

But unlike Bloch, Ruddy never thought that he would win, not even towards the end of the final round. “I did not have high hopes,” says Ruddy. “I really wanted to stay in as long as possible.” Even in the final round, however, Ruddy says, “I completely thought Jason would win and, to be fair, he got a lot more right.” Jason Meschke took second at the bee and was often just one correctly-spelled word away from the crown, although Ruddy is too humble; he also put forth an excellent performance. On the result, Ruddy says that he was “very surprised.”

Speaking from the perspective of a spectator, Catherine Timkar says, “I was really impressed with Sean and Jason because their words were really difficult.” But the most notable feature of the competition was its closeness and length. “The final round felt like it lasted for two hours, because it was such a close match. But I really enjoyed it,” says Timkar. Clearly, while extremely close competitions may put undue strain on students physically, a razor-thin margin only makes victory sweeter.