CBI Nationals

[Scott Francis]

I am indeed referring to people who play trash only, or who will only play other formats once in a blue moon. Fortunately, I've never had to deal with anyone like that, but I may have to someday.

S.F.

[Chris Frankel]

The biggest problems with CBI are the awful question style and the irritating faux-decorum, neither of which haunt Trash.

Not to derail the thread (move it if necessary), but ,well I have to say that I still have the same resentments with TRASH (and maybe not all Trash tournaments, but most). The questions are probably somewhat pyramidal for the most part, but I hate the fact that 95% of the content seems to be either old person trash or current events trash. The second issue comes to mind with the way that academic tournament announcements on the Yahoo board seem to have to compete constantly with excessive announcements for novelty trash tournaments (e.g. Tournament by the Sea) and irritating posturing for publicity from TRASH itself over every little commercial endeavour they involve themselves up. Guess what, I don't give a flying fuck if two TRASH writers are going to play Trivial Pursuit on KUNT or whatever bumblefuck radio station that averages only 10 listeners an hour; and I don't need to see 10 posts about how Kato Kaelin's ex-girlfriend's brother's friend is going to autograph a TRASH thong for a Trashionals prize. CBI is far worse because it sucks up money, makes it harder for superior academic formats to draw teams, and tries to pass itself off as a legitimate format, but I can't say TRASH doesn't have an "irritating faux-decorum" thing going as well.

[grapesmoker]

The second issue comes to mind with the way that academic tournament announcements on the Yahoo board seem to have to compete constantly with excessive announcements for novelty trash tournaments (e.g. Tournament by the Sea) and irritating posturing for publicity from TRASH itself over every little commercial endeavour they involve themselves up. Guess what, I don't give a flying fuck if two TRASH writers are going to play Trivial Pursuit on KUNT or whatever bumblefuck radio station that averages only 10 listeners an hour; and I don't need to see 10 posts about how Kato Kaelin's ex-girlfriend's brother's friend is going to autograph a TRASH thong for a Trashionals prize.

Maybe you don't care but there are others who do. Really, there aren't that many Trash posts on the Yahoo! board, certainly not enough to drive academic tournament announcements underground. I'm not sure where those 10 posts that you mentioned came from, because I don't remember seeing any, but even if they were there, as long as they don't swamp the board, who cares?

Jerry

[BigFlax]

Not to derail the thread (move it if necessary), but ,well I have to say that I still have the same resentments with TRASH (and maybe not all Trash tournaments, but most). The questions are probably somewhat pyramidal for the most part, but I hate the fact that 95% of the content seems to be either old person trash or current events trash.

Clear me up here: what else, exactly, is there? Trash from the Middle Ages? Trash of the future? There's plenty of stuff from the 70s and 80s, and if that's the "old person trash" you're referring to, I'm stumped as to what's left. (There's also plenty of 90s trash, if that's the part you were thinking wasn't covered.)

CBI is far worse because it sucks up money, makes it harder for superior academic formats to draw teams, and tries to pass itself off as a legitimate format, but I can't say TRASH doesn't have an "irritating faux-decorum" thing going as well.

I can't disagree too much with the bit about Trash postings occasionally swamping the board, but by and large they only do it around TRASHionals time. The rest are tournament announcements; you may think that there are too many Trash tournaments, but that's your own problem. I don't recall there being anything saying there couldn't be Trash posting at quizbowl. Should they go to qbtrash? You know as well as I do that nobody really reads that, and so most postings there tend to go missed by the target audience. Even when there are a lot of TRASH postings, though, I've never found quizbowl difficult to navigate, just like I don't find it difficult to navigate when there's a 20-post cycle about whether a Middle Ages author is obscure or not.

As for the bit I quoted: what I meant by "faux-decorum" was CBI's general humorlessness, their demand of an institutional representative, forcing you to buy ten question sets (at 60 bucks each) to play at Regionals, crap like that. CBI sucks the fun out of quiz bowl partly because its product sucks, but partly because its mouthpieces explicitly discourage fun on most levels, forgetting that they're dealing with college kids in the end. TRASH may make a big deal out of silly prizes, but they're trying to add fun (whether they succeed or not), not sucking it away.

[First Chairman]

Not to derail the thread (move it if necessary), but ,well I have to say that I still have the same resentments with TRASH (and maybe not all Trash tournaments, but most). The questions are probably somewhat pyramidal for the most part, but I hate the fact that 95% of the content seems to be either old person trash or current events trash.

If it's an issue of content, I would suggest that you send complaints up to the folks who run TRASH regionals and TRASHionals (Dinan, Quintong). The people writing questions for TRASH write to their strengths and specialties, and the best way to change the "distribution" is eventually to start writing questions for them. Heck, write them a theme round that expresses your interests; they may even give you some feedback.

The second issue comes to mind with the way that academic tournament announcements on the Yahoo board seem to have to compete constantly with excessive announcements for novelty trash tournaments (e.g. Tournament by the Sea) and irritating posturing for publicity from TRASH itself over every little commercial endeavour they involve themselves up.

On this board we have (read: Matt) split off trash events from regular announcements. This formatted bb has that advantage for those purposes that the usual Y board does not. But I will also agree, I think part of your perception is the timing of the events. There are a lot of posts NAQT sends out for hosts for its sectionals, high school state championships, and its nationals. Charlie sends a ton of announcements on his competitions. That's their right, and you don't have to read it. Yeah for high post counts and sure it may be irritating, but no one has drowned them out with posts for competition announcements.

But you will also have to ask yourself why is it that these novelty tournaments are scheduling themselves in direct conflict with academic tournament announcements. I personally don't like that because it creates a ton of very small tournaments and does not really foster much of a community if some of us say, "we don't want to go to X tournament because it's not fun for us." I'm not sure what can be done about it as there are only so many competitions that can be run and always with some conflict anyway.

[Your Genial Quizmaster]

Disclaimer in advance: I consider myself neither a CBCI apologist not a CBCI basher, at least as they are are currently administered. I have never met Richard Reid, and my dealings with Mary Oberempt have always been pleasant. That being said, I'm one of the few people left in this game who can tell you the sad story of CBI 1980 Nationals. Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy post.

The series of banquets added a surreal quality to the event. As Dwight already mentioned, Richard Reid told a lengthy story about true love at CBI Nationals between a player from MIT and one from WUSTL at Marshall University

About the closest thing that I can find to this fucked up view of reality that Reid has is the 1980 NCT which was held at WUSTL. Since MIT is listed as 3rd place, and WUSTL is 2nd it's possible they hit each other in the semifinal as it was all single elim in those days. Other than that it's like trying to pick at what parts of Arthurian legend are true and what's been made up to sound prettier.

The tournament was won by Washington University in St. Louis. However, the national championship was awarded to a team that was not present at Nationals.

Yes, you read that right. Cal State-Fresno is officially CBI's champion, but they weren't even there.

OK, Sherman, set the Wabac Machine for fall 1977. I attended WashU as a freshman and was introduced to the world of College Bowl. They had a fall intramural series, held serially over the course of three or four weekends, as well as a spring one. Some friends asked me to join a team. I did, and we made it to the semis -- but then my dad died and I had to return to Tennessee for the funeral, and my teammates got their asses handed to them by a team led by Kurt Wallenberg, who probably would have whupped us anyway.

One of Kurt's teammates was Craig Leff, a name some of you on the West Coast may know as a sometime volunteer reader associated with the folks at Caltech. Craig and I had a class together, and we started plotting. The idea was that Craig would see if he could get Kurt, while I'd get my strongest teammate, Mitch Goldman, and we'd join forces for the spring. The deal was done, but then spring came and I had to bow out due to schedule conflicts. I suggested they get Vik Chandhok, whom I knew as a fellow Presidential Scholar and who had also asked me to join a team. After spring 1978 I was too broke to continue at WashU and didn't know enough to start asking the university for help. So I packed my bags and returned to Chattanooga, where UTC didn't have a team till the spring of 1981.

In the spring of 1980 Bill Dedman, a good friend and fellow Chattanoogan who went to WashU, sent me a copy of an article he'd written for the school newspaper. It was on CBI Nationals, which WashU had won. There they were, pictured together -- a team I formed, only without me. There was a fifth player pictured besides Kurt, Craig, Mitch, and Vik, a young lady whose name I didn't recognize, so there was indeed a possible leading lady for Mr. Reid's story. (By the way, if anyone doubts Bill's accuracy in the reporting of the event, the sonofagun has since won a Pulitzer for investigative reporting. No, really -- feel free to look it up.)

Of course I was happy for them, but I will admit this publicly for the first time: Seeing that photo really hit me hard and made me regret the ill-informed decision to leave WashU, and it took me another 20 years to forgive myself. And it probably has played a subconscious role in my ferocious commitment to the game when in the fall of 1989 I was handed a fourth chance [never mind the third, that's another story] while in grad school at UT. When we won ACF Nationals in spring 1991, it felt like an act of redemption for me.

So sometime in the early '90's, Craig Leff found out I was back around the game and got in touch with me using a still-novel method, e-mail. And when I congratulated him on his long-ago national championship, he gently corrected me and told me the story's twist ending.

Seems Region 15 had not gotten a regional tournament together in time to send the winner to Nationals. So CBI told them, hey, no problem, have the regionals anyway and we'll fly the Nationals winner to your tournament to have a playoff with the Region 15 champ. And that's what happened. WashU had a single match, cold, vs. a very warmed-up Cal State Fresno, and lost.

So there you have it, folks. I await any rebuttals, but I saw the article with my own eyes and have heard the story firsthand from an actual participant, so I am 100% sure that's what happened.

Decisions like that (there are other bizarre stories, but none as clear-cut or easily proven as this one) help explain why many..., hell, MOST of the quizbowlers of my era had a deep distrust of CBI. I hasten to add that from everything I've seen in recent years, I believe their operation is now on the up-and-up. If they weren't, Harvard would somehow mysteriously have beaten Virginia in 1997.

I'm sorry Reid chose to reopen wounds that had pretty much scabbed over. Again, I am not a CBI hater. While CBI is clearly more lightweight than NAQT, ACF, or the independent ACF-lite format that remains my personal favorite, there is still a place for it, and it's how many of us found the game in the first place. Whenever UTC administration is willing to fund it, I'm glad to have my team participate in CBI, as long as it's not an either-or situation. But I felt like someone ought to set the record straight.

-- Charlie Steinhice