Adoring Fans, Incognito Celebs Revel in Spelling's Super Bowl

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The 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is the Super Bowl of American academia, where 12-year-olds who can spell ophthalmoplegia are TV stars and spelling judges are hounded for autographs.

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The bee has its beloved favorites:

Matthew Evans, a home-schooled 13-year-old from Albuquerque, made his fifth appearance at the national bee. Usually in the finals, he was the sentimental and logical favorite to win this year, the last in which he is eligible, aged out after eighth grade.

Spellers love watching Evans as he takes the microphone and confidently works through the word origin, the Latin roots and Greek beginnings and the pronunciation to come up with the correct spelling.

But in round six, he stood on stage, quiet.

"He doesn't know it. Oh. My. God. He doesn't know it," one speller quietly said, watching his hesitation.

"He totally knows it. He's just pausing for dramatic effect," another added.

But Matthew didn't know "secernent," spelling it with an "-ant" at the end. He hung his head low even as the audience and his fellow spellers gave him a standing ovation. He stayed in the comfort room behind the stage for almost an hour until he emerged, his face a little red and blotchy, for a string of interviews.

Fans hugged him. "In every curse there is a blessing, and in every blessing a curse," a fellow speller told Matthew. They asked for autographs.

"I really appreciate all of this, all the support," he said.

And the bee has its characters:

When Jahnavi Iyer, a 14-year-old from Enola, Pa., was stuck on "solidungulate," she asked for the language of origin, the definition and the pronunciations, as most competitors do. Stumped, she finally asked "for an easier word."

The judges laughed out loud.