series of toss-up questions worth 10 points each; this is followed with the first Lightning Round (5 points per question); the second half of the game is called the "Capitalization Round," which is played as above, and is followed by the second Lightning Round, with 5-point questions. In the event of a tie at the end of the second Lightning Round, an overtime round consisting of another full-length Lightning Round begins immediately with a new category. The show's participants are also interviewed over the course of game play; each student talks for 15 seconds or so, usually about activities in which he or she participates or interests he or she has. Playoffs The way to determine the playoff teams is summed up best in the slogan for the show: "It's all about the points!" Only the top eight highest-scoring teams at the end of the season advance to the playoffs. This is different from the original format, where a winning team would return on the next show and needed to win three times to reach the playoffs. The current method means that a team could win their match, yet still fail to make the playoffs if their score was not one of the highest. On the flip side, a losing team could potentially make the playoffs if their score was high enough, although this is highly unlikely. The playoff format itself works in a single elimination format. The winning team receives the "Collamore Cup," named for Leonard Collamore, creator of the show and writer of the program through the 1960s and 1970s. History As Schools Match Wits, which originally aired on WWLP in Springfield, Massachusetts, is a high school quiz competition that bills itself as "America's Longest Running High School Television Quiz Show Since 1961". (However, the DC-area It's Academic actually started 19 days earlier, on October 7 versus October 26 for As Schools Match Wits.) This high school quiz show includes schools from western Massachusetts and northern Connecticut. Its regular timeslot, from at least as far back as the early 1970s until its switch to WGBY, had been Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. However, it has aired at other times as well. This was especially true from the late 1990s until 2002, when the show would sometimes air on Sunday mornings because NBC's NBA basketball telecasts preempted its traditional timeslot. Phil Shepardson, an English professor at Westfield State College, hosted