Is it worth the hassle?

This forum is for anyone seeking advice on starting a collegiate team, branching out into new types of tournaments, or other "how-to" aspects of collegiate quizbowl.
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augieguy15
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Is it worth the hassle?

Post by augieguy15 »

Hi, I'm a first year at Augustana College in Illinois. I was a pretty good high school player and I know there are a few more Freshman that are just okay. Augustana is a pretty small liberal arts college. Do you think that attempting to make a quiz bowl team would be worth the work I would have to put in. Are there tournaments where we could be at all competitive? Thanks for any help you can offer.
Jacob Knox
Augustana College '18
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Re: Is it worth the hassle?

Post by Important Bird Area »

If you have players interested in playing, you should definitely start a quizbowl team! There are lots of easier sets (like ACF Fall and NAQT Division II SCT) for newly-established teams to enjoy.
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alexdz
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Re: Is it worth the hassle?

Post by alexdz »

augieguy15 wrote:attempting to make a quiz bowl team would be worth the work I would have to put in
One of the good things about the college quizbowl circuit is that having a formal organization is almost never necessary to compete. As long as you are a group of students who all attend the same school, you can go out and compete with relatively little "work" on your side "making a team." Obviously, having institutional support, especially of the financial variety, is very helpful, but I'd suggest getting out there and competing even if you haven't started the process of forming an organization yet. As far as practices, get a group together and read packets. You can play slapbowl or yell "buzz" for now until you get buzzers.

That being said, many of us have gone through this process at our own colleges, and would be more than happy to help you get started if you want to formally create an organization for your team. This is especially useful if you want to host a tournament (so you can reserve rooms in bulk) and to give you access to university-sanctioned means of recruiting (like activity fairs or putting up posters).
Alex Dzurick
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Re: Is it worth the hassle?

Post by Skepticism and Animal Feed »

Tournament sizes are growing in college. Hundreds of teams are playing ACF Fall, dozens of teams played Penn Bowl, even ACF Nationals is larger than it has ever been. Very few of the schools playing all of these tournaments have substantial institutional support, and many of them didn't have a team just a few short years ago. You would be playing against a lot of other teams overcoming the same obstacles you are facing, and thus you shouldn't worry about a major competitive disadvantage.

Also, consider the possibility that quizbowl may be an interesting, fun experience even if you don't win the tournament. It might be fun to travel with your schoolmates, to meet other quizbowl people, hang out with them before or after tournaments, or simply get to see other cities and other college campuses.
Bruce
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augieguy15
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Re: Is it worth the hassle?

Post by augieguy15 »

Thanks for the help! I think I'm going to start putting the train into motion.
Jacob Knox
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Re: Is it worth the hassle?

Post by Aaron's Rod »

Hey, so I'm not as active on the forums as I used to be and just saw this. Augustana is in a nice place; much like us, Chicago is obviously the closest and best option, but you could go to the Twin Cities if you had to. Although the giants of the quizbowl world have already given you encouragement, I just wanted to reach out because I also run a quizbowl team at a small Midwestern liberal arts college (actually, 1,000 people smaller!) that's been around for almost 10 years, so let me know if you want some commiseration. Good luck!
Alex D.
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