Life$marts Team Finishes 10th in the Nation

A year ago Waynflete entered the LifeSmarts competition for the first time and surprised itself by winning the State tournament and moving on to the national competition in Atlanta, finishing 20th.

According to its website, LifeSmarts “prepares students to enter the real world as smart adult consumers… Students who participate in the program begin competition online. The highest scoring teams are invited to in-person live state championships. State winners are invited to the National LifeSmarts Championship held in a different city every April.”

Despite our success last year, we didn’t really know what to expect this year in the absence of a formal program that most schools in the competition possess.  Instead, a collection of recruits, led by returning team members Mason Saltz and Sally Li, huddled with Coach Kautz in the weeks before the state event to prepare and then managed, in dramatic form as reported in an earlier USNOW article, to repeat as state champion.  The team went on to the national tournament in Orlando, Florida, and finished 10th, a mere two points short of qualifying for the quarter final round.

According to Coach Kautz in an email sent from the plane home, there were many great moments in our team’s performance, but “Sam’s (Frederick) second place showing in the technology event was a real highlight.”  Another highlight was “when we really needed to beat Alabama to stay in the playoff hunt, and we were trailing with just three questions left.  Sally and Sam nailed all three final questions to steal a win.”

Congratulations to Coach Kautz and teammates Sam Frederick, Sally Li, Mason Saltz, Cody Tiparos, and Chloe Williams.

If you would like to practice up on your LifeSmarts, here is a link to the daily LifeSmarts quiz.