Productive discussion about expanding to new schools

Matt Weiner · Post by **Matt Weiner** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 6:08 pm

OK, so most of us have decided to move past what the College Bowl thread became, and there has been some stirring in less publicized channels over the question of what can be done, productively, to get more schools involved in quizbowl, including current College Bowl/Honda-only schools. There are some questions that I was hoping someone could clear up, and some suggestions I heard that could be discussed here, regarding one angle that was proposed and some of the further questions implied.

The thought was that NAQT could try to offer an intramural program via the organization that Andy Wehrman mentioned, NACA.

*It seems that many schools are members of both NACA and ACUI, and there's no particular animosity that would prevent this from being the case. Is that right?

*Is NAQT interested in doing something like that? There have always been rumors that NAQT attempted, or wished to attempt, to get the ACUI contract away from College Bowl. But, as best I can recall, it's always been at the level of rumor and no one from NAQT has actually confirmed such an interest.

*How successful is NAQT's current sale of intramural questions? I don't hear people talking about doing NAQT IMs all that much. Is there a lot of impetus to run intramurals when it's not a prerequisite for participating at the intercollegiate level, like it is with College Bowl? Assuming NAQT does not implement any similar requirement (shudder), is there a reasonable expectation for them to make inroads here?

*Will such schools be encouraged to participate in independent invitationals, SCT/ICT, and ACF events, if they become customers of the NAQT intramural questions? How?

jhn31 · Post by **jhn31** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 6:21 pm

http://www.hcasc.com/enroll.asp
I used this website to find email addresses of all HCASC teams within several hours of MSU and invite them to our tournament on April 12.

Unfortunately many of the people on this list are Campus Activities Coordinators and probably don't know what I'm talking about and also don't care. I wish I could find a list of players themselves from each school, and try to facebook message them or something.

Strongside · Post by **Strongside** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 7:17 pm

So it appears there is a consensus that there are numerous teams that are involved in CBI and HCASC that probably don't have a clue about what we consider mainstream quiz bowl.

My guess is that the first step would be for someone who people will listen to and trust contact schools individually. Whether this would be NAQT, ACF, or any organizations described in the CBI thread that fell apart, I don't know.

The things about quiz bowl is that if a CBI or HCASC team goes to a mainstream meet and does poorly, that might turn them away from quiz bowl. It might be easy for a new team to be intimidated. Now I realize we are talking about these people going to tournaments on easier questions and against easier competitions, but that possibility exists as well.

I see the absence of CBI and HCASC teams on the mainstream circuit as similar in some ways to teams that play NAQT and not ACF. I feel that NAQT is more popular than ACF in large part because of how involved they are at the high school level. the fact that they supply IS sets and even A sets for teams to play at the collegiate level. ACF is not involved in the high school game, and does not provide questions at the difficulty level of an IS set or an A set.

NAQT provides separate tournaments for community colleges (on IS sets), and gives berths to teams that do well enough at the ICT. NAQT also has Division 2. NAQT has more trash questions, which I feel favor new and inexperienced players. Because of these things, I feel that some people receive a false sense of security from NAQT questions and tournaments.

Because of these above reasons, I don't see ACF overtaking NAQT in terms of popularity. I like ACF a lot, and ACF has done a great job this school year in making Fall and Regionals more accessible, and giving discounts to less experience teams.

You can look at the total number of Community College teams that went to 2007 ACF Nationals at Vanderbilt, and 2008 ACF Regionals at Vanderbilt. It is zero. I realize ACF Nationals probably isn't a very good tournament for community colleges. As for ACF Regionals, it is unfortunate that no Community Colleges made it, especially since it was a week after the NAQT SCT. ACF Regionals would be great prep for Community Colleges going to the ICT. I know that Chris Borglum said that many CC students work on the weekends, and need a chaperone/adult to accompany them to tournaments, and that going to tournaments in back to back weeks might not be feasible. In no way am I criticizing CC teams not going to ACF, it is just somewhat unfortunate.

So I realize that I got off topic here. What I am essential saying is that if people are going to try to get CBI and HCASC teams into mainstream quiz bowl, it probably needs to be done gradually, gently, and delicately.

Pilgrim · Post by **Pilgrim** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 7:22 pm

Matt Weiner wrote:*How successful is NAQT's current sale of intramural questions? I don't hear people talking about doing NAQT IMs all that much. Is there a lot of impetus to run intramurals when it's not a prerequisite for participating at the intercollegiate level, like it is with College Bowl? Assuming NAQT does not implement any similar requirement (shudder), is there a reasonable expectation for them to make inroads here?

CMU attempted to do this earlier this year, but had to cancel the tournament after getting all of two teams to sign up. We plan on trying again next year, and hopefully doing a better job creating interest.

Awehrman · Post by **Awehrman** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 7:50 pm

Thanks for starting this thread, Matt. I sent off a long email to NAQT this morning outlining some of my thoughts in a bit more detail. I'm wating to hear back.

In the mean time, I'd like to clarify the difference between ACUI and NACA as best I can. ACUI is a professional organization strictly for people who operate college unions, and though some college unions are the hubs for all student programs/activities, not all colleges operate this way. NACA is the professional organization for Campus Activities staff, who may or may not be housed in the college union. Many colleges do not have student unions and many more operate their campus activities outside of the union as a totally separate office. (For example, the college union can sometimes operate out of an auxillary service, while most student activity offices are run through the student affairs division.) At IIT there is a “Campus & Conference Centers” staff (auxillary – incidentally, members of ACUI) and a completely separate student activities coordinator (student affairs – members of NACA). CBI focuses on the student union coordinator, but the student organizations are run through the student activities coordinator.

I'd have to get more specifics from my wife, since she's a member of NACA, but it seems like ACUI itself is falling out of favor at many schools in favor of NACA, but many schools belong to both. [Wife edit: In my experience, not all student activities personnel are ACUI members, but a vast majority are/are also NACA members. College union personnel will still be members of ACUI. Historically, college union folk would have been the only student programming people on campus, but that is not always the case anymore as more universities shift their student activities into a separate office.] Part of the beauty of this idea is that NAQT would not have to aggressively take the ACUI contract away from CBI, they could just appeal to a different section of the university--one that deals with many student groups and activities.

ValenciaQBowl · Post by **ValenciaQBowl** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 8:04 pm

I think ACF has done a great job in bringing the game to a broader audience, including CCs, through the implementation of ACF Fall and this year's fine efforts to make ACF Regionals more accessible and a tad shorter (even though we didn't go--but that had nothing to do with anything on ACF's part, just bad timing for us). Unfortunately, there's not much more ACF or any other entity can do to easily to get more CCs involved, as the culture at CCs is very different. The teams are run by faculty coaches/advisors (like myself), and, sadly, only a few of us are connected to the larger game. Almost none of the CC coaches I know played four-year QB, and even fewer read this board (though maybe that's a good thing!), so it's been a long, uphill struggle for me over the last fifteen years to get the Florida circuit to the point where many CCs regularly go to tournaments at USF, UF, and FSU. CC coaches pick tournaments based on proximity, so next year I hope we have ACF Regionals at a Florida site (and I'll seriously consider hosting at Valencia if that works out), as that will bring out more CCs and, one hopes, get them hooked.

ACF Nats is unlikely ever to have CC participants until some year it's in the Southeast and I've got money left over after ICT. I wouldn't want ACF to do anything to specifically accommodate CCs for Nats, as, frankly, Valencia might be the only one who would ever go.

PaladinQB · Post by **PaladinQB** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 8:18 pm

Matt Weiner wrote: *How successful is NAQT's current sale of intramural questions? I don't hear people talking about doing NAQT IMs all that much. Is there a lot of impetus to run intramurals when it's not a prerequisite for participating at the intercollegiate level, like it is with College Bowl? Assuming NAQT does not implement any similar requirement (shudder), is there a reasonable expectation for them to make inroads here?

For existing circuit teams (most of the current customer base for NAQT Sectionals), there isn't much reason to do intramurals; they do their recruiting in other ways.

But, if you're selling to student activities people/campus activities boards, intramurals _is_ the product. That's what NAQT (hi there, R!) can take to the NACA trade show or wherever and try to sell. I don't know if they've ever had any success with that but it seems like a good approach for them to try. Put some info about Sectionals in with the packets and people will get the idea.

BuzzerZen · Post by **BuzzerZen** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 8:26 pm

<snark>I also want to spend my free time doing strategic planning for NAQT in exchange for no money.</snark> Seriously, though, I think the college game is most likely to be spread more organically by in-the-know high schoolers founding clubs when they get to college. William and Mary was a CBI-only place before Matt Morrisson showed up and founded a team, apparently without too much pushback from CBI. I think people who care about the college game would do best to try to reach out to graduating seniors attending college in uncharted territory and urging them to found clubs, get money from their student activities funds, and start going to tournaments.

Incidentally, is Matt Morrisson not posting much these days, or do I just have no clue who he is anymore after a million name change threads?

tiwonge · Post by **tiwonge** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 5:03 am

jhn31 wrote:http://www.hcasc.com/enroll.asp
I used this website to find email addresses of all HCASC teams within several hours of MSU and invite them to our tournament on April 12.

Unfortunately many of the people on this list are Campus Activities Coordinators and probably don't know what I'm talking about and also don't care. I wish I could find a list of players themselves from each school, and try to facebook message them or something.

Try this:
http://www.hcasc.com/playerhistoryrptdlg.asp

You can search players by year. If you select last year, it will list all players from last year, sorted by college. You can find nearby colleges and see if you can find facebook or contact info for them. Some of them may have graduated or are not playing, but you should be able to find a couple who either still play or who know people who play. (If you're looking for next year, I guess wait until after the tournament for this year's player database to be updated.)

KGeee · Post by **KGeee** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 12:28 pm

There is a facebook group called:

Black Nerds United (HCASC)

kylers · Post by **kylers** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 6:35 am

Ladies and gentlemen of the forums,

You've got a live one! My name is Kyle Schafer, and I am currently a student at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. There is so much I'd like to say in my first post, and I figure this would be an apt place to start. I, first, want to say that we are an ACUI school (I don't know about NACA), and we send a team to the CBI Regional (region 7) every year, for the last four years. I've never actually played there, since I am usually the only experienced player on my team, at the campus level, and always seem to get nipped (I lost this year's championship game on the very last question). However, we tend to have a particularly weak team (this year 2-7), and I feel it is mostly due to the way we choose our traveling team (take the CT winning team). But I'm not here to dish on the CBI or my campus.

I, just this year, formed a quiz bowl club (Officially the Varsity College Bowl or VCB team), and have had a rough going at it. This site is a wellspring of knowledge. But, I want to build a program for the future, at UM-D. I see this thread as a lone voice, crying out in the wilderness, and I have heard your cries. Will you step up to the plate and help me out (unless you don't want two Michigan's to worry about, heh heh. Umm, the Ann Arbor campus is really good, right?) I must say that it is rather intimidating, jumping into conversations with you guys, since it seems to be a cliquish group. I read posts of different people talking about other people, and it feels like I'm trying to butt my way into a group conversation that has been going on for about ten minutes. And really, isn't that exactly what I'm doing? I'm a bit late to the party, aren't I?

So, here's the deal, I don't know the difference between NAQT and ACF and PACE and ICT and division I play and division II play, and what mACF is, or the difference between sectionals and regionals, and all the basic stuff you guys reference. I would like to have a conversation (IM, phone, or something) with someone who can help me out and explain to me the world of organized quiz bowl. I'd also like some good information on where to start, where to go, what to do and anything else that I haven't thought of, yet. Do I just pick a few tournaments, try them out, and get my feet wet? How can I compete in NAQT tournaments (it sounds like that is the organization of choice, on the forums)?

I would like to enter a team into a tournament at the end of March. I'm eying down the UT-Chattanooga Moon Pie tournament. It appears to be an open and, while it is a good 9-10 hours away, it seems like it would be a good way to bond with new friends, and say, "Get used to this. This is the life of a traveling quiz bowl team." Keep in mind, I graduate at the end of April. I still want to assist with the UM-D program, but I will be unable to compete.

What makes a strong competitor? Is it a school with a long, proud, academic tradition (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, etc.), or is it a well organized program (make your own list of organized programs)? How do you keep a program going on long and strong, after you graduate, to the next four-year generation, and the next, and the next, and so on? Michigan-Dearborn is a school on the rise. Last year, and continuing this year, there has been a movement to get rid of the "commuter vibe", and make our school seem like a normal college. We are supposed to be getting dorms in a few years, and there are nothing but talks of expanding the campus. I would like to see this program grow, along with the campus.

I played four years on Southgate Anderson's (Southgate, MI) team, and it was the one thing that I enjoyed most out of High School. Going to Nationals (ASCN?), my senior year was a real nice way to end my high school career. I wanted to go to a college with this game (I got into Michigan-Ann Arbor!), but went to the Dearborn campus for financial and–as strange as it sounds–academic reasons. I tried to form a program for a year, then found out we were competing in CBI. I thought this was what the college game was. This fallacy wasted another three years. This year, I founded the club, but had no clue where to go or what to do. So, if you want college quiz bowl to expand and flourish, please help me. Will you please help me?

Kyle

P.S. Thank you for your time.

grapesmoker · Post by **grapesmoker** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 2:07 pm

Hey Kyle, welcome to the board. You have a lot of questions, and while we can try to answer them in this thread if you like, you're more than welcome to contact people with them. I don't want to volunteer anyone against their will, so I'll just say that you can reach me by email at [email protected] or find me on AIM, s/n: grapesmoker. Another good resource to get your questions answered might be the IRC channel (#quizbowl on irc.slashnet.org). If you'd like people to respond on the forum (which is good for general edification of everyone), let us know and I'm sure various people will do their best to answer all your questions. Good luck with running your program!

Skepticism and Animal Feed · Sat Mar 01, 2008 2:34 pm

Kyle: here are some other tournaments you might be interested in attending:

Fake ICT at the University of Illinois (April 5)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5040

Matt Cvijanovich Memorial Novice Tournament (March 8)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4565

Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament (March 29)
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4714

None of these require writing, and all of them are at least as close to Michigan as Moon Pie is.

pray for elves · Post by **pray for elves** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 2:45 pm

Kyle, another great resource for you would be the Quizbowl Wiki, which has answers to some of your most basic questions (explanations of what ACF, NAQT, PACE [actually a high school organization, so you don't need to worry about them], mACF, etc.). The region you're in (the midwest) is traditionally home to a lot of competitions and teams - even if you only travel to Ann Arbor, Chicago, and Urbana, you can go to a large number of tournaments. In any case, you shouldn't be afraid to jump in to the conversation.

Also, Bruce is right that you should consider those tournaments. I'd personally suggest you try and go to the Matt Cvijanovich Memorial Novice Tournament at Illinois, and furthermore you should talk to Trygve about registration and fees; we all want new people to play, and we're generally willing to help each other out to allow people to play.

millionwaves · Post by **millionwaves** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 2:50 pm

you should talk to Trygve about registration and fees

That's me!

The tournament he's referring to is a week from today. If you're looking to compete like, immediately, we'll be happy to have you come down, and can certainly work something out as far as fees are concerned. If you're interested (or want to talk about the circuit in the Midwest), you can e-mail me at trygvemeade at gmail dot com, or talk to me on AIM (s/n: Atlantan10).

I'm really glad to hear of a new team on our circuit, and if you have any questions or need anything, please don't hesitate to e-mail me.

bsmith · Post by **bsmith** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 3:17 pm

kylers wrote:I would like to enter a team into a tournament at the end of March.

There will be a mirror of the Ottawa Hybrid Tournament at the University of Western Ontario in London, ON on March 15. That site is intended for the novice teams in the area, and it's about 2.5 hours away from Dearborn. Shimi Ehrlich ( sehrlich -AT- uwo.ca ) will be running that site.

No Rules Westbrook · Post by **No Rules Westbrook** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 3:30 pm

Kyle,

I live in Livonia and played for quite a while at Ann Arbor. I want to join what Jerry said and strongly encourage you (and any others in a similar situation) to come to the IRC quizbowl chatroom for the most efficient answering of your questions (#quizbowl on irc.slashnet.org)...come at 9:00 or after on any given night and there will almost definitely be a whole group of experienced people, including myself, happy to answer any question you may have. We also play sometimes play packets online and debate the merits of pancakes vs. waffles. If you'd rather not, my AIM sn is CryoBristow. I would do some of this kind of research before willy-nilly going to a tournament, so at least you know what you're getting into, but you can't go wrong with the Illinois Cvijanovich tourney or the Minnesota Undergrad if you want to get into playing academic quizbowl.

tiwonge · Post by **tiwonge** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 6:12 pm

I'm in a similar position as Kyle. I have slightly more exposure to the world of academic competitions, but about as much non-CBI experience. I am in the process of getting a club started (I'm meeting with the Activities people on Thursday to get a temporary club up and running--I haven't been very proactive about doing this until recently), and because of the recent CBI tournament, I have a nucleus of players to start with.

Another difference between mine and Kyle's situation is that he's surrounded by clubs and tournaments, and I'm in the desert. The nearest ones to me (in Boise, ID) are Vancouver and the Bay area, each 10+ hours drive. There are several teams from the area (Idaho State, Idaho and Washington State are all within just a few hours drive) who attended the CBI regionals, and the people I talked to at Idaho and ISU both said they'd be interested in coming to Boise for a tournament, if we ever had one. I'm sure it's a lot of work to do it (even for a small tournament with just a few teams), but I don't have to worry about long trips and expenses and hotels and stuff. Plus, it might draw in a few other local teams into non-CBI stuff.

I have a little bit of experience with this stuff from time spent at NCSU. They started running a high school tournament while I was there, and I helped out with that and started attending practices with them. We also have a grad student here who was at Southern Virginia University, and he has some experience, too. Once I actually get the club formed and can reserve rooms on campus, I'll start planning to host a tournament.

I have a couple questions.

1. What does it take to mirror a tournament? What kinds of resources should I have to run a tournament (mirrored or not)?

2. How did *you* get started in this at the university level? Did you seek out the team? Did you run across them? (Where?) Me, I saw some flyers posted for the CBI campus tournament when I was a freshman, and played in that. (I'm old; this was just a few years removed from when NCSU won the national championship. At the time, they had a pretty active and strong program.)

3. How can I transition my team/club from practices for CBI to NAQT/ACF? In practice, we've mostly just been reading old CBI packets. I did bring one sample NAQT one once, but they didn't like it as much. Is there anything else we should be doing in practice (or for practice) than just reading questions? I know that we should probably write questions. Anything else that might be helpful?

Colin
Boise State University

Awehrman · Post by **Awehrman** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 7:55 pm

Hey mods, with two potential new teams already posting here, is there a way to have a permanent thread for new teams?

Post by **theMoMA** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 12:16 am

A short treatise on first tournaments....

One thing I've noticed is that newer programs tend to not know what to expect at their first circuit tournament. This is one of the biggest barriers to getting new teams on the circuit, I think. There are a lot of teams used to being competitive or somewhat competitive at CBI, where studying and playing packets doesn't help as much as having a wide array of general knowledge. They go to a circuit tournament and are amazed at the level of play, and sometimes can be scared away.

I'd like to start with a word of encouragement. New teams need to stick in there and give circuit quizbowl a real chance! There are plenty of people around here who are absolutely enthralled at the idea of helping new teams acclimate themselves to the circuit, and would be willing to give out free advice on improving, questions-writing, and tournament-hosting, as well as lots of free packets.

The reality of the situation is that teams new to the circuit usually have a very hard time getting a handle on circuit play, and a lot of times they have trouble winning games and scoring points, and simply walk away. For players on teams interested in joining the circuit, what can we do to avoid this pitfall that so many new teams encounter?

Matt Weiner · Post by **Matt Weiner** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 12:36 am

Andrew, I've found that what you describe is a shock for new players of all kinds, including people just coming out of high school. In high school, a top-quartile team expects to know every single question they are asked. Bonuses are supposed to be 30ed by good teams more often than not, and tossups are supposed to go halfway through for people who know anything more than the bare minimum. Communicating that, at the collegiate level, leadin buzzes and 30s are rare even for the best teams, and that there is nothing wrong with not knowing every topic that comes up, is something we can work on in order to avoid overwhelming people.

TheCzarMan · Post by **TheCzarMan** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 12:49 am

I plan to sticky this (As a High School Junior) because more than likely I'm going to a school without a team.

Probably the biggest obstacle to new teams is the perceived difficulty of the material by some students. At schools like the ones I'm targeting (Montclair State, Marist, TCNJ) you don't have many kids matriculating from schools with active/good Quiz Bowl. Thus, it makes it hard to recruit of even get the university to sponsor the team. If I'm lucky I won't have to go through this, get into Rutgers and get in with Jason Keller and hopefully start to become a much better player, but I may have to help get this new blood into College Quizbowl.

Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) · Sun Mar 02, 2008 1:02 am

Jason Keller

TheCzarMan · Post by **TheCzarMan** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 1:06 am

Athena Starwoman wrote:
Jason Keller

I'm assuming there's some kind of inside joke/pun involved here.

Post by **DumbJaques** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 2:21 am

Hey Kyle,

Feel free to IM me whenever at volkov3k - I'm happy to talk anything you'd like over with you, as I'm sure most of us would be. I'd encourage you not to feel at all like you're butting in - we definitely view the board not as a cliquish discussion circle but as an open forum, and starting new programs and spreading quizbowl is pretty high up there on the site's goals list. As someone who started out on the forum not really in any kind of circle or anything like that (just a kid playing hs quizbowl), there's definitely no barrier to entry.

The biggest thing I'd say to keep in mind is that any school has the capacity to start and maintain a great quizbowl program. As Andrew has said, it might take a bit of willingness to take some shots early on (and, for pretty much everyone, continue taking shots. . . that's how it goes). I think you'll find plenty of people here who are more than willing to offer their experience, advice, and help to you guys as you start the program up.

-Chris

cvdwightw · Post by **cvdwightw** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 9:28 pm

Colin,

To mirror a tournament, you just need to contact whoever is editing the tournament and explain that you would like to mirror that tournament. You and the editing team will then come to a compensation arrangement whereby you pay them some amount of money to run the tournament. Most of the people on the boards who are editing are interested in seeing a circuit up in that area, so any fee would probably be minimal.

If you are looking to get something started before the end of the school year, I would highly recommend trying to run something on NAQT IS sets. These sets are primarily designed for high school competition, so many of us are against their use on established college circuits, but I think most of the board regulars would be in agreement with me that these would be a good alternative to CBI on a circuit that as a whole is at about that level of competition. The questions are at about the same difficulty level and better written, and in addition, you would have the flexibility to run the tournament on any date that you and the other schools could agree on (instead of the usual mirror practice of no more than +/- 1 week). If you can't get something started before the school year, I would highly recommend mirroring EFT in late September/early October and ACF Fall in November.

If you have any questions at all about tournament direction, I'm sure you can just post on this board and someone will help. If you're running an NAQT tournament they'd be more than happy to help with any question you have as well.

BYU showed up to ACF Regionals and is also in the process of trying to build a circuit team (or in their case, re-build). They would likely be interested in a tournament held somewhat closer to them than Los Angeles (it looks like you guys are about 6-8 hours away from each other, or roughly what we at Irvine travel every time there's something at Berkeley or Stanford). I don't have their contact information but I can point you to someone who does.

Also, I believe Mike Bentley from Maryland is going to Washington for grad school next year and trying to start a club, so that's slightly less of a drive than Vancouver if he can get something started up there.

pray for elves · Post by **pray for elves** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 9:40 pm

cvdwightw wrote:Also, I believe Mike Bentley from Maryland is going to Washington for grad school next year and trying to start a club, so that's slightly less of a drive than Vancouver if he can get something started up there.

My understanding was that Mike is going to work at Microsoft and not going to grad school, although we could both potentially be wrong.

Mike Bentley · Post by **Mike Bentley** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 10:01 pm

Space geostrategy wrote:
cvdwightw wrote:Also, I believe Mike Bentley from Maryland is going to Washington for grad school next year and trying to start a club, so that's slightly less of a drive than Vancouver if he can get something started up there.
My understanding was that Mike is going to work at Microsoft and not going to grad school, although we could both potentially be wrong.

Evan is right, I will be working at Microsoft starting in August. However, there exists a strong possibility that Brittany is going to grad school at the University of Washington and a less strong possibility I may take a class or two there (or at some other Seattle based university) in the winter or spring. I will probably be trying to contact the people involved with the CBI team at Washington and seeing if I can't get them to become more involved in the non-CBI circuit. If Brittany goes to Washington, I believe she said she'd participate on a team that did non-CBI things but would not be building that program from the ground up or anything like that.

Regardless, I'll be around the area and probably at least willing to attend tournaments as a free agent from time to time, so if anyone in a reasonable distance hosts a tournament open to non-affiliated players I'll consider coming. There are a few other people I know from quizbowl in the Seattle area, so I may try to drag them to tournaments I go to.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 10:01 pm

Starting a team at the University Washington would be extraordinarily difficult. You would have zero freshmen who had played in high school, no nearby teams to play against, and no ability to make money because zero high school teams would ever come to a tournament you ran.

(PS welcome to the Seattle area, though — you'll like it a lot)

Mike Bentley · Post by **Mike Bentley** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 10:07 pm

Kyle wrote:Starting a team at the University Washington would be extraordinarily difficult. You would have zero freshmen who had played in high school, no nearby teams to play against, and no ability to make money because zero high school teams would ever come to a tournament you ran.

It sounds like you're more familar with the situation than I am, but I imagine things aren't as bas as you make them out to be. I'm sure there exist some students attending Washington who have played quizbowl before (after all, it attracts students from around the country). Plus, there were Washington teams that used to play in NAQT Sectionals. And you have the people who have played on the CBI team. Additionally, there was a Northwest Sectionals this year that attracted mainly Canadian teams, which I'm sure would be willing to attend at least one tournament hosted in the Seattle area each year.

It would obviously not be easy (and I'm certainly not saying I'm going to do this), but I don't tihnk it's impossible to establish a new club in the Seattle region.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 10:21 pm

Last year on the Washington knowledge bowl high school email list one new coach pointed out that there are no national high school quiz bowl tournaments. I wrote back noting that, actually, there are a few. And then I got yelled at by an English teacher who can't spell and, two weeks later, permanently kicked off the mailing list.

Washington public schools can best be described as bad, not in that they don't teach kids stuff but in that they actively discourage kids from going beyond the curriculum in any way or from competing in academic competitions of any sort. Some day I'll tell you about the time I was volunteering in a school and got yelled at (loudly, in front of all the students) for teaching a 7th grader how to round numbers more than 9 digits long, since the Washington Assessment of Student Learning tests 7th graders only on rounding to the hundred millions' place.

Which isn't to say that Washington schools are any worse than schools in other parts of the country, just that the vast majority of students at the University of Washington will be products of an institutionalized tradition that tries its hardest to smother academic enthusiasm at all levels. Quiz bowl has no part in this tradition and very likely never will, so, unlike schools in other areas, you will have to start from scratch. It's possible, sure. Just, as I said, "extraordinarily difficult."

tiwonge · Post by **tiwonge** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 12:25 am

cvdwightw wrote:Also, I believe Mike Bentley from Maryland is going to Washington for grad school next year and trying to start a club, so that's slightly less of a drive than Vancouver if he can get something started up there.

Google maps says Vancouver is 2.5 hours from Seattle, vs. more than 7.5 to Boise.

Still, what's a couple of (or five) hours for quiz bowl?

Edit:
(And I would love to get contact info for people at BYU. tiwonge (at) gmail (dot) com)

ezubaric · Post by **ezubaric** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 12:52 am

Banana paper wrote:Evan is right, I will be working at Microsoft starting in August.

Well, you could always form a Microsoft team with Dan Benediktson.

jazzerpoet · Post by **jazzerpoet** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:26 am

For anyone who might try to re-start a team at the University of Washington, you should contact Grant Volle, who is working on his Ph.D. there. He was active on the Tulsa team for 3 years (not so much his senior year) and was a great science, European history, and classical music player. And I am sure you could convince him to attend a tournament or two each semester (or quarter, as it is at UW).

Strongside · Post by **Strongside** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 7:16 pm

I haven't done it, but I can imagine that starting a team from scratch is very difficult. To do so you need someone to start the process, a few people to help out and somehow get recognized by the school, a way to get funding or make money to go to meets so team members don't have to spend their own money, buzzer sets, transportation to meets, time and a willingness to practice and go to meets.

If any of those things fall through, getting a team together can be difficult. To start a program and keep a team together, you probably need someone who is very motivated. Also, often times new teams will get destroyed at meets, and this might discourage people. Lots of people don't want to give up their Saturdays to get killed in quiz bowl.

I know that people like Matt Morrison, and Jerry Vinokurov, and others have started programs at schools that didn't previously have them, but I am sure they had to work hard to do so.

Considering many of these people would be incoming freshman who want to enjoy the college experience and do other things, this makes things more difficult.

I agree with Evan that to start up successful programs, it would be helpful for experienced quiz bowl players to help guide them as much as they can, and to provide advice and encouragement.

STPickrell · Post by **STPickrell** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 7:35 pm

Have issues changed much since my attempts to start up programs at Randolph-Macon and George Mason?

While my attempts to form college teams were in the late 1990s, I would be glad to share my "wisdom" with anyone who asks. One was at a small liberal arts school, the other at a large public university.

Lapego1 · Post by **Lapego1** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:11 pm

A counterexample for you. Josh Sokol (formerly of Raleigh Charter) and others started up a team at Swarthmore this year after a period of inactivity. In my talking with him, it seemed like they had to work at it but they became "recognized" and officially funded this year. He's gathered together a great group that won the NAQT DII Sectionals at Pitt despite being all (or at least mostly) freshmen. Having played them several times, both in tournament play and scrimmages, I know that they will be serious contenders in St. Louis.

Maxwell Sniffingwell · Tue Mar 04, 2008 5:44 pm

I founded a club this year - we're up to 10 members, 7 of which are serious, at a school of 1400. We've got funding, but they won't pay for anything unless I have a 21-year-old driving us to the tourney.

jhn31 · Post by **jhn31** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 5:49 pm

I started a club at MSU nearly 2 years ago, and we've built up to almost 20 regulars. One thing that got people to come to meetings regularly was having an intramural quiz bowl league using NAQT practice questions, and keeping stats and all and declaring a champion, so that if they skipped, they were letting their friends down.
Also, we've brought in a couple thousand dollars this year from hosting high school tournaments. We hosted 2 in 06-07 and are hosting our 3rd in 07-08 in April.

kylers · Post by **kylers** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:44 pm

Wow! The response to my initial message was impressive. I went to the QB Wiki, and researched many of my questions. I now know the differences between certain question formats and some of my other queries. I would like to attend the tournament, this Saturday, but it is too short notice for the rest of the guys, so I'm considering the Ottawa Hybrid Mirror, at Western Ontario, and am still planning on the UT-Chattanooga tournament. We're making plans for that one as sort of a "road trip", as well as a water-tester.

With a few tournaments on the horizon, what ideas do you have for preparing for this level of competition (I assume we'd be in D-II)? Also, how do teams get around the country? I looked at car rental sites, and it would cost about $225 to rent a van for the weekend. I figure it would be cheaper to get a used van/minivan, and have it for five years. With that, you could give it a custom paint job, and make it look really dorky (good dorky). How do schools with B, C, and other alphabetical teams get around? Bus? Has Chicago figured out how to turn brainpower into pure energy, and harness it into an alternative fuel? Just kidding (kind of).

Kyle

NoahMinkCHS · Post by **NoahMinkCHS** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 8:12 pm

We usually just have people take personal cars and carpool, and reimburse for gas or have the people riding with them split it. (Just make sure the financial arrangements are clear to all parties!) When you take 3, 4, 5 teams... just take 3, 4, 5 cars. It kinda sucks for the people that have to drive a long way to stuff (especially for your trip to UTC!) but it's a lot cheaper than renting (which would be a hassle for us anyway, not having anyone over 25). Spread the driving duties around if you can so that nobody feels over-burdened -- or, if you're fortunate (as we have been) you'll get one or more "professional drivers" who actually want to drive to stuff.

Buying a car is an interesting idea, but make sure you consider stuff like who will hold the title (I assume "a bunch of guys acting as the UM-D VCB team" will not suffice, legally), pay for insurance, etc. You might also want to consider what kind of mileage it would get, compared to what you would get if people on your team drove their own cars (if that's even an option). At the same time, the prestige factor of having a tricked-out quizbowl van to take to tournaments might offset those concerns...

Quantum Mushroom Billiard Hat · Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:50 pm

UM- Ann Arbor lets us use (rent, I assume- I'm not the treasurer) university cars to get to tournaments. You might be able to work out something similar.

Maxwell Sniffingwell · Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:00 pm

Kyle, think about the tournament in Minnesota on the 22nd: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4714. It's not until two weeks from Saturday, and the questions will be better (with all due respect to the other programs) than Ottawa's or UT-Chattanooga's.

pray for elves · Post by **pray for elves** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:09 pm

Frederick Dukes wrote:Kyle, think about the tournament in Minnesota on the 22nd

Or the 29th, which is the actual date.

Maxwell Sniffingwell · Wed Mar 05, 2008 1:12 am

Space geostrategy wrote:
Frederick Dukes wrote:Kyle, think about the tournament in Minnesota on the 22nd
Or the 29th, which is the actual date.

Lies! All lies! Um, I confused the tourney date with the date of some of the mirrors.

Golran · Post by **Golran** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:56 pm

Does anybody know if UC San Diego currently has a quizbowl program? I'm trying to decide between there and Pittsburgh as my #2 choice (behind UCLA), and if UCSD has quizbowl that would pretty much make my decision for me.

Matt Weiner · Post by **Matt Weiner** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 12:00 am

dinoian wrote:Does anybody know if UC San Diego currently has a quizbowl program? I'm trying to decide between there and Pittsburgh as my #2 choice (behind UCLA), and if UCSD has quizbowl that would pretty much make my decision for me.

They do not, but I'm told another person going there next year is looking to start something.

Gonzagapuma1 · Post by **Gonzagapuma1** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 12:06 am

dinoian wrote:Does anybody know if UC San Diego currently has a quizbowl program? I'm trying to decide between there and Pittsburgh as my #2 choice (behind UCLA), and if UCSD has quizbowl that would pretty much make my decision for me.

Yizhou Chen who graduated from Gonzaga 2 years ago went there and I bet would be interested if there was a team.

cvdwightw · Post by **cvdwightw** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 1:32 pm

UCSD's program went defunct when Kevin Costello went to Rutgers. There's been several attempts at some kind of undergraduate-led program, but nothing's stuck.

Auroni · Post by **Auroni** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:48 pm

currently, I'm looking at UCSD as my top choice (if I get in that is; five of my decisions including UCSD are still pending). dinoian, if I do go there, contact me and we could figure something out