College Bowl Offers More Than Trivia Challenge

Author: Cragin Brown Staff Writer

College Bowl has been coined "the varsity sport of the mind" and at Middlebury College, the College Bowl team is striving toward the same honorable standing as many of Middlebury's other successful varsity teams.

College Bowl is a historically famous and complex game of trivia between two teams that goes beyond a simple test of questions and answers. After a decade-long stint as a network television show in the 1960s, College Bowl became an official organization that held competitions at colleges and high school campuses nationwide. Now there are over 500 schools across the country that participate in the mind enhancing competitions.

This year at the regional competition, Middlebury's College Bowl team is expecting great accomplishments. In its third year running, the team hopes to improve its standing at the contest, where it competes against College Bowl powerhouses such as Harvard University and Yale University. Started 'in 1999 by Tom Marks '01 and Mike Alonzo '01, the Middlebury team has grown to almost 25 members and is looking for more students to get involved.

Intercollegiate College Bowl competitions have taken place since 1978, and each year the 15 regions in the United States, one of which now includes Middlebury College, holds a Regional Championship Tournament. This tournament will occur in February. The winners of the 15 regional tournaments and one wild card team selected at random among the second place team will compete for a National College Bowl title at the National Championship Tournament in the spring.

A typical College Bowl competition is divided into two seven-minute rounds where four academians compete for the most points. Although knowledge of the subject matter is essential, Club President Justin Drechsler '02 emphasizes that exposure to the format of the competition is important as well. "It is important to be quick on the buzzer and to know how it all works," Drechsler said.

Drechsler describes the questions' rigor as "extremely difficult." The standardized questions are sent by the National College Bowl organization and deal mostly with current events and politically related subject matter. Many literature inquiries are posed as well, with only a few questions touching on contemporary media and sports. "[The questions] are much more knowledge-based than on popular culture," said Drechsler. "Usually, political science and history majors do better than science majors simply because of the material the questions cover."

The purpose of College Bowl is to challenge students intellectually and to provide for a learning ground and application of knowledge. Students are encouraged to seek local and national resources and to conduct research to gain insight on potential questions.

The Middlebury College Bowl members will demonstrate their prowess at the club's tournament in January. The four-day competition will be held in Munroe Lecture Hall and may possibly conclude in a more public arena to allow more spectators into the event. The four members with the top performances will move onto the regional competition in the spring.

"In the past we have faired pretty well in the upper middle of the pack. This year we hope to do a lot better," Drechsler said. Practices are held a few times a month until January to prepare for the tournament. This is the first year that the team has held regular practices and with these added meetings, the team is hoping to improve its standing at the regional competition.

Drechsler says that the club is looking to expand membership and that all are welcome. "We really want first-year students in order to assure the future of the club, but everyone can come," Drechsler explained.