An Annual Tradition: The VHHS Math Tournament

Photo Credits: Mrs. Hyde, several Math Team students involved with tournament preparation

Each year, the VHHS math team hosts a tournament, garnering nationwide attention and over a thousand students, from 6th graders fresh off their first semester of middle school, to seniors in high school just about ready to leave. This year, on the weekend of December 6th, it was no different. With over half a hundred schools ranging from ASFA to West Point HS, a full alphabetical journey, 2025’s tournament was another major success!

But first, a brief background. Regarding the event’s history, the tournament has been an annual event--except for the COVID years of 2020 and 2021--since the early 1980s. Math team sponsor Mr. Taylor, who has been involved in it for over two decades, says that the overarching goal is to “get more schools involved in math competitions and for the students to have fun while competing.”

The morning of December 6th, while most of Vestavia was still asleep, yellow school buses and their excited passengers from across the Southeast filled the school parking lot, some having been on the road since before the crack of dawn. As students and sponsors filed through the front doors, they were guided by VHHS math team students and our well-known school representatives, the Vestavia Ambassadors. When asked about his role at the tournament, Ambassador Colin Strevy says, “I liked helping with the math tournament because it gave me a sense of purpose and someone for these kids to look up to,” a highly respectable answer from an even more admirable fellow.

From there, the competitors split into their respective divisions. The 6th Grade, Pre-Algebra, and Algebra I divisions went to a separate section of the school for their tests. The Comprehensive division, featuring the most advanced and complex topics, began in the auditorium for ciphering, an intense speed-based round. Finally, the Algebra II and Geometry divisions went to classrooms for the 25-question, 3-tiebreaker written exam. What these students don’t know as they furiously flip the pages and scribble down formulas is that each problem has been carefully crafted and examined with care over months of behind-the-scenes work, a mathematical osmosis, if you will. The writing process goes back all the way to the spring of the previous year, when the now-graduated seniors leave their final marks on the math team by preparing Comprehensive questions for the next generation. Then, the rest of the team meticulously analyzes them for any errors or red flags, leaving the best out of hundreds of problems to make the cut. The math tournament tests aren’t just ink and paper--they’re a low-stakes, but literal survival of the fittest.

Ever wondered what everyone else is doing? While the competing students made up the brunt of the population on Saturday, the VHHS math team was working relentlessly to keep everything smooth to the public eye. First, parent volunteers helped work the snack lounge for sponsors, as well as offering to proctor testing rooms. In addition, our math team students themselves were assigned to a variety of different roles. From door guards to live ciphering graders to announcers, not a single step was wasted or a job left undone. Junior Kelly Chen, who operated the screen showing problems during ciphering, describes her task as “fun but kinda stressful.” Sophomore John Bryan Ennis, ever the aspiring comedian, says he “supervised middle schoolers who tried to take extra food for 15 minutes while making EXTREMELY bad puns.” Not sure who assigned him that peculiar job, but I’m sure he was doing it spectacularly well. And of course, our calm and collected math team sponsors, Ms. Gifford, Mr. Taylor, and Mrs. Hyde, helped oversee the whole tournament as the brains of the operation. This background action continued for several hours as the competitors finished their exams and left the school for a lengthy lunch break.

Finally, the most-awaited time of the tournament arrived. Our charismatic announcers, Ryaan Singh and Tina Gao, cracked legendary dad jokes, a Vestavia tradition, as schools anticipated the awards ceremony. In High School Division 1, ASFA, Hoover, Oak Mountain, and Spain Park showed strong results. Among High School Division 2’s top scorers were Muscle Shoals, Homewood, Mountain Brook, Tattnall Square Academy, and West Point HS. Middle School Division 1 was dominated by Bumpus, Discovery, Journey, ASFA, and one of Vestavia’s branching middle schools, Pizitz. On the Division 2 side were Berry, Briarwood, Muscle Shoals, Simmons, and our other middle school, Liberty Park. When interviewed about the tournament, Michael Ding, a Pizitz eighth-grader and the Geometry champion, says, “It was a good experience because everyone was nice and I met a lot of new people.” Of course, he also mentioned receiving our characteristic award plaque, which I think most people were heavily interested in.

In a short reflection on this year’s tournament, Mr. Taylor says he had two favorite parts: “We had new schools attend (and they won trophies), and all of the hard work that our students did (from writing the tests to running the tournament) paid off--everything went smoothly, and the tests and keys were almost error-free!”

We’ll be back next year with a new batch of students, a new set of problems, and another successful tournament of math team camaraderie!