All the posts about Mueller combing through the CBI stats for 70+ players got me interested in looking at the region we would have been in. I was really surprised by the number (and names) of schools that were there. Out of the teams there, only Georgetown and VA Tech are margianally active in the full circuit; Southern Virginia University came to Sectionals when it was held here and got clobbered, and I randomly know the guy who started the team at VMI, but all the other schools I was totally clueless about. There were 16 teams there; for comparison, 20 Div 1 and Div 2 teams came to Sectionals at Maryland.
Do all the sections have tons of random CBI-only schools? Is there a way to get their contact info (I assume most of them have never heard of the Maize Pages)?
I'm not really looking for anti-CBI flames or whatnot, just wondering if people know anything about CBI-only schools, if they only do CBI because that's all they know, all they can get funding for, all they care to do, etc.
CBI only schools
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mps4a_mps4a
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Matt Weiner
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To the separate topics:
1) For addresses, you might try the regional coordinator listed on College Bowl's website. The response is liable to be mixed depending on the particular coordinator's attitude toward circuit teams.
Of course, a better way to get addresses is to actually attend the Regional and make first-hand contact with the teams; Cornell had mixed results with this tactic trying to pull Region 2 teams onto the circuit in the mid-90's. Even if you don't deign/can't afford to play, you can always volunteer to officiate -- I've yet to run into a regional coordinator who'd turn down an experienced moderator, though my experience is limited to Regions 2 and 6. <chuckle> If you're going to hammer CBI, you might as well get some first hand knowledge.
2) As to why the teams only do CBI, I've observed a variety of reasons, in rough order of occurrence:
-- It's all they know.
-- The school pays for CBI, but no funding is available for other competition and interested players can't afford the travel and registration fees. These schools will at least show up at the occasional tournament local to them.
-- A school has ventured onto the circuit, not liked what they saw, and retreated to CBI. In the mid-90's, this was particularly likely if they stumbled into an ACF event and got hammered... since that's just about the *only* format I haven't moderated this century, I won't draw conclusions about the present state of ACF.
-- The administration is interested in a year-round team, but the players aren't (I know one Region 6 school for which this is currently the case).
Most of the time, a single motivated student (particularly a grad student coming from an established program) can be the impetus to push the team onto the circuit. In the end, the common thread is that the players have to want to be on the circuit.
1) For addresses, you might try the regional coordinator listed on College Bowl's website. The response is liable to be mixed depending on the particular coordinator's attitude toward circuit teams.
Of course, a better way to get addresses is to actually attend the Regional and make first-hand contact with the teams; Cornell had mixed results with this tactic trying to pull Region 2 teams onto the circuit in the mid-90's. Even if you don't deign/can't afford to play, you can always volunteer to officiate -- I've yet to run into a regional coordinator who'd turn down an experienced moderator, though my experience is limited to Regions 2 and 6. <chuckle> If you're going to hammer CBI, you might as well get some first hand knowledge.
2) As to why the teams only do CBI, I've observed a variety of reasons, in rough order of occurrence:
-- It's all they know.
-- The school pays for CBI, but no funding is available for other competition and interested players can't afford the travel and registration fees. These schools will at least show up at the occasional tournament local to them.
-- A school has ventured onto the circuit, not liked what they saw, and retreated to CBI. In the mid-90's, this was particularly likely if they stumbled into an ACF event and got hammered... since that's just about the *only* format I haven't moderated this century, I won't draw conclusions about the present state of ACF.
-- The administration is interested in a year-round team, but the players aren't (I know one Region 6 school for which this is currently the case).
Most of the time, a single motivated student (particularly a grad student coming from an established program) can be the impetus to push the team onto the circuit. In the end, the common thread is that the players have to want to be on the circuit.
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Matt Weiner
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What it comes down to is that 95% of these CBI-only schools aren't really "teams" in the sense we know them, they're just people who showed up at an intramural run by the student union and happened to win. So "it's all they know" is more than accurate. Saying "hey, do you like this? want to go to more tournaments?" and trying to get them to an invitational is worthwile, just don't expect any sort of program infrastructure to be there already if they take you up on it.
Georgetown College was at ICT last year in D2.
Eric Smith of Stanford gave out fliers to every team at Region 15 with an advertisement for a West Coast Quiz Bowl E-mail list and an announcement of a novice tournament held at Berkeley. We'll see how things work out.
One of the things that I've noticed in my region is that some schools seem to run CBI independently of established quiz bowl clubs.
All four playoff teams in Region 15 were composed almost entirely of players from the school's "circuit" teams; no other school had more than maybe two. Pomona has sent people to a few circuit events but sends an almost completely different team to CBI. UCSD has some strange selection procedure, which caused near complete overturn of their 2004 team and results in their CBI team having no more than a couple of regular "circuit" players.
For Region 15 in 2004-2005, the remaining teams were Fresno State (a marginal presence on the circuit in past years), two returning schools that have never played outside CBI (although Hawaii-Manoa's travel problems make that understandable), and two teams that evidently just found out about CBI.
One thing people haven't pointed out yet is that while CBI is the most expensive of the formats, it's the least expensive to any club whose school completely subsidizes it. I would imagine most CBI-only teams don't have the motivation to get together, make a new on-campus club, and especially apply for funding to get money to attend other tournaments.
Eric Smith of Stanford gave out fliers to every team at Region 15 with an advertisement for a West Coast Quiz Bowl E-mail list and an announcement of a novice tournament held at Berkeley. We'll see how things work out.
One of the things that I've noticed in my region is that some schools seem to run CBI independently of established quiz bowl clubs.
All four playoff teams in Region 15 were composed almost entirely of players from the school's "circuit" teams; no other school had more than maybe two. Pomona has sent people to a few circuit events but sends an almost completely different team to CBI. UCSD has some strange selection procedure, which caused near complete overturn of their 2004 team and results in their CBI team having no more than a couple of regular "circuit" players.
For Region 15 in 2004-2005, the remaining teams were Fresno State (a marginal presence on the circuit in past years), two returning schools that have never played outside CBI (although Hawaii-Manoa's travel problems make that understandable), and two teams that evidently just found out about CBI.
One thing people haven't pointed out yet is that while CBI is the most expensive of the formats, it's the least expensive to any club whose school completely subsidizes it. I would imagine most CBI-only teams don't have the motivation to get together, make a new on-campus club, and especially apply for funding to get money to attend other tournaments.
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emactruman
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Matt is correct. Take it from someone who is disillusioned with the "CBI-only" attitude adopted by my university, Wayne State. It sucks. I wished they'd just listen to me or give me control. I'd gladly give up playing to elevate the program, but no one here seems to care. It is in lew of this and other personal problems that I stepped down my efforts this year.
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buzzermaster
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CBI-only teams in Region 12:
Texas A&M at Kingsville
Tarrant County Community College (2 branches)
Austin College
U of Houston (2 branches)
Midwestern State
Hendrix College
Texas State
SMU
2/3 of the teams there were CBI-only. I even overheard players wondering how "quiz bowl" is different from "college bowl". Most of them do it because CBI's the only thing they've ever heard of. Midwestern State and Hendrix have a shot at being decent teams with time.
Texas A&M at Kingsville
Tarrant County Community College (2 branches)
Austin College
U of Houston (2 branches)
Midwestern State
Hendrix College
Texas State
SMU
2/3 of the teams there were CBI-only. I even overheard players wondering how "quiz bowl" is different from "college bowl". Most of them do it because CBI's the only thing they've ever heard of. Midwestern State and Hendrix have a shot at being decent teams with time.