Luke Chen and Devereaux Knight had already helped lead their Blue Valley North Scholars Bowl team to a state title as juniors. 

But as seniors, the Mustangs’ co-captains had even bigger roles to play. 

Chen and Knight, this week’s CapFed® True Blue® Students of the Week, became much more like player-coaches for their team.

It all started when former coach Ryan McCoy stepped down and new coach Kat Buchanan took over. Buchanan had primarily had a background in debate, so she ended up needing a little bit of help learning about the ins and outs of Scholars Bowl.

From the jump, Chen and Knight took it upon themselves to give her direct support during this transition.

“I leaned on their leadership,” Buchanan said. “We had a separate GroupMe. Every single email I’d send about Scholars Bowl, even just about regular tournaments, I’d consult them.

“They helped me figure out everything, down to the trip sheets.”

Buchanan said the duo even gave a list of other Scholars Bowl coaches who they thought would be good choices to run questions by and ask for advice.

“They definitely were the leaders of this team,” Buchanan said. “I always say I didn’t really coach them. I was more like a sponsor or chaperone to them.”

Knight said it started with him and Chen just offering help as soon they found out that McCoy was moving on.

“It was instant, like ‘Okay, what do we have to do?’” Knight said. “There wasn’t really a break and we didn’t have to think about it. First thing we did, we went to the classroom and said, ‘Okay what do you need us to do?’ 

“It was instantaneous. We just had to get straight to work on it.”

Chen and Knight ended up running practices together, asking the other competitors questions and keeping track of scores. They narrowed in on which topics the team had answered wrong and needed to work.

“We were trying to keep track of who was having a good day and who’s having a bad day,” Knight said. “We were even thinking about what teams we faced, what teams we don’t know much about.”

For Chen and Knight, the move to player-coach roles felt natural.

“I like this format of a kind of student-led team,” Chen said. “It has more passion and also feels more down to Earth.”

Chen gave Knight most of the credit for most of the communication work outside of practice with Buchanan and the team.

Knight said most of that work came naturally to him.

“I’ve done leadership work pretty much all of high school,” Knight said. “I’m currently my marching band drum major. I do a lot of religious work on the regional and local level as well.”

For Chen, the leadership qualities were largely influenced by his passion and experience for Scholars Bowl and other academic-based compeitions such as Science Olympiad. While Knight got started with it in high school, Chen had been competing since junior high in quiz bowl, the equivalent offered back in North Carolina where he grew up.

“When I moved to Kansas at the start of ninth grade, I noticed this thing called Scholars bowl,” Chen said.

The term caught his dad’s ear, who participated in Scholars Bowl back when he attended high school at Topeka West. His dad, Dr. Ronald Chen, graduated in 1985, never won a state title as Scholars Bowl did not become an official KSHSAA-sanctioned sport until 1987.

But McCoy led Topeka West to a state title in 2008 before going on to coach up the younger Chen to a state title in 2022.

Chen said that his dad’s connection to Scholars Bowl, as well as other academic-based competitions, motivated him to do the same.

“My dad and I always have had this sort of friendly competition,” Chen said. “When I did math contests, too. We always try to beat each other.”

Now that Chen is a two-time state champion in Scholars Bowl, he feels a little like he’s won this battle of wits with his dad, who is the chairman of radiation oncology at the University of Kansas Cancer Center in Kansas City.

“I guess this is just a fun thing where I show him that the apprentice beat the master at some point,” Chen said.

Knight said he does not have the same illustrious middle school career or familiy history as a story for what drew him to Scholars Bowl. Instead, he was simply recruited by a fellow freshman who seemed to already be taking the steps neccessary to one day become a player-coach.

“Luke got me into it,” Knight said. “He came up to me and said, ‘Hey, we have a pretty big void in social studies if you want to hop on.’ I said, ‘I’ll give it a try.’”

By the end of his first tournament, Knight fell in love.

The duo grew together as competitors, leading the charge on the team winning its first state title. Then they started running the show on the way to a second. 

Chen and Knight led their team to a perfect performance at the KSHSAA Class 6A State Scholars Bowl tournament on Feb. 11, going 7-0 in pool play before taking down Free State and Manhattan in succession to finish their high school Scholars Bowl careers with back-to-back state titles.

Despite going undefeated at state, there were still a few scary moments for the Mustangs, such as when they reached the final question for the second-to-last round in pool play.

“We went into the 16th question tied,” Buchanan said. “It was kind of nail biting all the way up to that, too.”

Her students came through with the win, although it was still not smooth sailing after that. After completing the first seven rounds with a 165-point advantage over the next highest scoring team, Blue Valley North faced another nail biter in the semifinals.

“That round was tense,” Buchanan said.

In what she describes as a nerve-wracking round, Blue Valley North needed to hold off Lawrence Free State with a 55-50 victory.

Chen said that while it was tense, it was not unexpected.

“Every year before the state tournament, I always mention to the team that the most important round is the semifinals,” Chen said. 

Chen said that no matter how well you perform in pool play, getting the wrong packet can send you packing if you go up against the wrong team.

“Last year we did really well in the semifinal round,” Chen said. “This year obviously was much closer, but I think Dev and I did a good job keeping the team cool. If we missed a question, we always reassured the other people that, ‘It’s all good.’

“I think that was one of our strengths is always being able to keep calm throughout a match.”

In the championship round against Manhattan, Blue Valley North returned to form as they pulled off an 80-50 victory to secure the state title two-peat.

With a year under her belt watching Chen and Knight run the show, Buchanan feels like she’s got a much better grasp on this activity going forward. Also, her dynamic duo are making sure to get the returners as ready as possible for their departure upon graduation.

It already looks to Buchanan like the team has the dedication necessary to achieve the three-peat.

“We went to celebrate afterwards at Dairy Queen and I thought the kids would want to just rehash what had happened,” Buchanan said. “Immediately, the conversation turned to, with Luke and Devereaux still there, ‘Okay, here’s what you guys need to do next year.’

“That was fascinating to me. It was like we took a millisecond to celebrate and we were already looking at next year.”

After hearing that comment, Chen decided to jump into Buchanan's field of debate and argue against that view of the events.

“I feel Ms. Buchanan exaggerated that a bit,” Chen said. “I think we were definitely happy to win.

Knight added that it’s also not quite the end of their Scholars Bowl career. They have a handful of competitions coming up toward the end of the school year, followed by nationals in June down in Atlanta.

“We still have stuff that we need to get done, but there’s always time to celebrate,” Knight said.

But the duo also admits that their minds never strayed too far away from the idea that they only had so much time to impart whatever knowledge they could on the underclassman. Chen and Knight want their legacy to include not just the two state titles they won, but hopefully a few more over the next couple of years from the competitors they coached.

Chen and Knight are not exactly sure who will take their place as team captains, but both see Chen’s younger brother Matthew as a possible option.

“I'm not super worried about who be the leadership next year,” Knight said. “Honestly, anyone that went to state with us this year is more than capable of being captain next year.”

Chen is still hoping to continue his Scholars Bowl career next year when he attends Harvard, where he’ll study biochemistry. Knight plans to join the Coast Guard, where Scholars Bowl will not be an option.

“If I get turned down for medical or physical reasons, then I’ll probably end up going to TCU,” Knight said. “I believe they have a quiz bowl team.”