Sprague duo wins national constitution competition
Matthew Meyers and Colin Williams hoped to earn a finalist spot at the national We the People competition last week.
The Sprague High School seniors traveled to Washington, D.C. to compete in the annual civics extravaganza, preparing 18 speeches on various aspects of constitutional law and history.
After the second day of competition, they made the cut for the top 10 teams in the U.S., beating out rivals with 24 or more students.
“We went buck wild,” Williams said of the announcement, which they posted on the Sprague team’s Instagram page.
The cut meant another day of giving speeches before judges from the legal community and fielding questions on the finer points of legal theory and the U.S. Constitution.
The duo placed second a state competition in January, setting the constitutional law community ablaze. Teams for the competitions typically have a dedicated coach who often does research, and 24 to 36 students, so each only prepares one or two speeches.
A two-person team competing at all was unheard of, much less winning.
On Friday, April 11, they assembled with other teams at nationals to hear the results, which started with 10th place. With each announcement, Meyers and Williams looked at one another, expecting they’d be called next.
The judges got to fifth place, then third. Sprague still hadn’t been announced. Several teams that had already placed told the duo they hoped Sprague would win it all.
Meyers then noticed about 30 silver medals waiting the second place announcement. He concluded they must have placed first.
“We just kind of stood up and looked at each other for a while,” he said.
“Is there a mistake? What happened? Is this real?” their teacher and coach, Jaqueline Pope Brothers, recalled thinking when the team was announced as champions. “It was pretty crazy.”
The prospect of a duo winning nationals was so unheard of that it prompted a New York Times feature on the Sprague team.
The two were mobbed with people wanting photos in the ballroom, and ended up staying another hour. Williams said his phone disappeared into the crowd for five minutes after someone asked for it so they could add him on Instagram.
“When I got it back, I had like 50 more followers and I had like, a bunch of photos of other people that they had taken on my phone. I’m not even in the photo,” he said, laughing.
“We felt like these huge celebrities,” Meyers said.
Aside from competing, the pair was able to visit landmarks in the nation’s capital and meet with U.S. Reps. Andrea Salinas and Suzanne Bonamici.
They were late to the Bonamici meeting because they accidentally locked themselves in a security screening area at the U.S. Supreme Court. When Pope Brothers called to find out where they were, they reported they were “locked in.”
“She thought that meant, like figuratively locked in, studying. It took a few iterations of, no, we’re physically locked in,” Williams said. A security guard eventually rescued them.
After the competition, the Center for Civic Education revised its scoring because of an error and concluded Lincoln High School of Portland should have tied for first place. But the boys remain national champions.
“I’m just very proud of them,” Pope Brothers said. “It’s an honor just to be able to even to go. This is the cherry on top.”
Correction: The Sprague team placed second in state, which qualified them for nationals. They did not win the state competition. Salem Reporter apologizes for the error.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers education, economic development and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade and is a past president of Oregon's Society of Professional Journalists chapter. Outside of work, you can often find her gardening or with her nose buried in a book.
