Quiz Bowl in Minnesota
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 8:18 pm
It was interesting to read about Brian Weikle's experiences on the University of Minnesota quiz/college bowl team. Quiz bowl has obviously changed, and Brian made a great point in emphasizing how good my generation has it.
A variety of things have gotten me back into thinking more about quiz bowl recently, so I decided to talk about some items that might be of interest to others.
A lot of the most active and enthusiastic players are in or approaching their late to mid 20s, and some of us (like me), are not playing as much as they used to.
I felt this post would be a good recollection of the past 9-10 years of quiz bowl in Minnesota. For this terms of this post "Minnesota" will refer to the quiz bowl community, as opposed to the school (which will be referred to as the University of Minnesota).
I do want to preface it by saying that my time as a member of the Minnesota quiz bowl scene was a special experience, and one that I am grateful to be a part of. Looking back on it, I was spoiled to be surrounded by others with such a passion for quiz bowl.
Quiz bowl offered me some unbelievable opportunities in high school, college, and after college, and has played an important role in shaping my life.
There are three topics that I want to cover.
2005 NAQT State Championship
Back in August of 2008, Andrew Hart posted this on the forums in a 2008-2009 collegiate preview thread.
It's about the coolest thing that I can think of that four kids from the suburbs of Minneapolis who started playing quizbowl four or five years ago and graduated high school within a year of each other are in this position of "wildcard contending team." Who would have ever thought that four players who combined to go 5-64-25 at the 2005 Minnesota NAQT State (first pyramidal tournament for Rob, Gautam, and me; third for Brendan!) would be here?
Here is a link to the stats from that tournament.
http://www.naqt.com/stats/tournament-te ... nt_id=1793
This was an IS set. It was the first pyramidal tournament for Andrew, Rob, and Gautam, and Trevor. It was my fourth, and Carsten's third. It was the first time any of us had played on an IS set.
Here are our stat lines in the preliminaries. 6 rounds of 20 tossups each.
Brendan 1/34/15
Andrew 2/8/7
Rob 2/15/2
Gautam 0/7/1
Trevor 0/17/2
Carsten 0/12/0
Out of 720 tossups heard we combined to go 5/93/27.
To be clear this means that we combined to power .69% of the tossups.
Out of 720 tossups heard, we combined to get 98 tossups for a 13.6% conversion rate.
If you throw out my stats as I had the most quiz bowl experience at the time, the line is 4/59/12. That is a 10.5% conversion rate.
Andrew, Rob, and I were juniors, Trevor and Gautam sophomores, and Carsten a freshman.
My only power of the tournament was on the city of Fargo off of a Roger Maris clue.
I wanted to repost and expand on this so other people could realize that even players like us were not putting up impressive stat lines when we started playing pyramidal questions.
2006 State Tournament
The 2006 League State Tournament was a memorable experience. Looking back on who was involved, makes it even more memorable.
This was the last year the tournament was played on Patrick's Press, and the last year that 8 teams advanced instead of 16.
In the quarterfinals my team matched up against Eden Prairie (which included Trevor Davis, Gautam Kandlikar, and Michael Wright).
We played a close and competitive match. I remember I had what I felt was a very strong round, and my Mounds Park Academy team was able to pull win the intense match.
I believe I played against Gautam and Trevor six time in high school.
The next night my team was matched up against Chaska in the semifinals of the state tournament. Chaska featured Rob Carson and Andrew Hart. My team had gone to a couple of the same tournaments as Chaska, but this was the first I had every played against Andrew or Rob.
We played a four quarter format.
The first quarter always started out with 5-10 current events questions. These current events questions were not current events in the traditional sense of anything in the past 5 years, but anything in the past week or so. There would also be questions about local current events.
The round was timed, and the tossups were normally worth ten points, although I believe that might have varied. Chaska had a big round and ran out to a large lead. I want to say it was about 100 points.
The next round consisted of tossups with 20 point bonuses. Tossups and then corresponding bonus would be asked. I know that we got all four tossups in this segment, and converted some of the bonuses. This round also consisted of a spelling tossup on onomatopoeia, which I managed to spell correctly.
At halftime my team was down by five, which turned out to be a perfect scenario.
The third quarter was a lightning round. The team trailing would pick a category and have 60 seconds to answer 10 quick questions. Each question was worth 10 points, with a 20 point bonus for getting all 10.
My team got the first pick and picked world capitals. The category named a country and we had to name the capital. I remember we swept this category, but I think I came somewhat close to stumbling on Phnom Penh.
Chaska picked next. I do not remember what category they picked or how many correct answers they got. I want to say they got 5, and we got 3 back for a net gain of 20 for them, versus 120 for us, or something like that.
The fourth quarter was next. It was similar to the first quarter, except some of the tossups were worth 15 or 20 points, and the round lasted longer. Chaska was down by about 95 going in, but made a furious rally. Chaska got the last two questions to win by 5 points (450-445). I cannot remember the last tossup, but I think the second to last tossup was on Dean Rusk, and Rob got it.
It is worth noting that Chaska answered about 15 more tossups than my team, yet it still came down to the final question.
The rounds were timed, but the timer was not available for us to view. The pace moved fast, there were not timeouts, and it was hard for players keep an exact running score. This was also broadcasted on a local cable access show.
This was before Robert Hentzel ran the Thursday meets, and he was at the tournament as an observer and was the scorekeeper for this round. I remember when he announced the final score of Chaska winning by 450-445, I remember agonizing over not being able to pull it out.
I hope that Rob and Andrew will be a be able to fill in some more the details of this match.
I only played against Rob and Andrew twice in high school. The other team was at a meet on an NAQT IS set where Chaska defeated me playing solo in the semifinals of the tournament (275-225).
The other interesting thing about my two match ups against Andrew and Rob in high school, is that it featured 3 players in the top 30 of the 2011 all time greatest quiz bowl players list.
One question I have is has there ever been a non all star non open high school quiz bowl match that featured 3 of the top 30 players of all time (using the 2011 list and/or a hypothetical updated 2014 list)?
Why the summer of 2007 was important
In the summer of 2007, Andrew Hart decided to organize weekly practices at his home.
A bunch of us would spend Tuesday evenings in his basement, hanging out and playing quiz bowl questions. Andrew was able to get copies of past PACE NSCs, and that was our primary practice material that summer.
These practices were a can't miss event for me.
It is kind of crazy to think we were practicing primarily on high school questions that summer, and as far as I can remember we rarely if ever played anything that was collegiate regular difficulty or harder.
Looking back on my years involved with quiz bowl in Minnesota, I feel that the summer of 2007 was the turning point.
A lot of what one could call the modern Minnesota's quiz bowl "luminaries" attended these practices, and it gave me a chance to get to know some of them better.
In addition to Andrew and I, other Minnesotans who attended these included Rob, Gautam, Trevor, Carsten, Bernadette, Michael Wright, Sam Peterson, Quentin Roper, and Igor Luzhansky.
I hope what us Minnesotans did can inspire future generations of quiz bowlers.
A variety of things have gotten me back into thinking more about quiz bowl recently, so I decided to talk about some items that might be of interest to others.
A lot of the most active and enthusiastic players are in or approaching their late to mid 20s, and some of us (like me), are not playing as much as they used to.
I felt this post would be a good recollection of the past 9-10 years of quiz bowl in Minnesota. For this terms of this post "Minnesota" will refer to the quiz bowl community, as opposed to the school (which will be referred to as the University of Minnesota).
I do want to preface it by saying that my time as a member of the Minnesota quiz bowl scene was a special experience, and one that I am grateful to be a part of. Looking back on it, I was spoiled to be surrounded by others with such a passion for quiz bowl.
Quiz bowl offered me some unbelievable opportunities in high school, college, and after college, and has played an important role in shaping my life.
There are three topics that I want to cover.
2005 NAQT State Championship
Back in August of 2008, Andrew Hart posted this on the forums in a 2008-2009 collegiate preview thread.
It's about the coolest thing that I can think of that four kids from the suburbs of Minneapolis who started playing quizbowl four or five years ago and graduated high school within a year of each other are in this position of "wildcard contending team." Who would have ever thought that four players who combined to go 5-64-25 at the 2005 Minnesota NAQT State (first pyramidal tournament for Rob, Gautam, and me; third for Brendan!) would be here?
Here is a link to the stats from that tournament.
http://www.naqt.com/stats/tournament-te ... nt_id=1793
This was an IS set. It was the first pyramidal tournament for Andrew, Rob, and Gautam, and Trevor. It was my fourth, and Carsten's third. It was the first time any of us had played on an IS set.
Here are our stat lines in the preliminaries. 6 rounds of 20 tossups each.
Brendan 1/34/15
Andrew 2/8/7
Rob 2/15/2
Gautam 0/7/1
Trevor 0/17/2
Carsten 0/12/0
Out of 720 tossups heard we combined to go 5/93/27.
To be clear this means that we combined to power .69% of the tossups.
Out of 720 tossups heard, we combined to get 98 tossups for a 13.6% conversion rate.
If you throw out my stats as I had the most quiz bowl experience at the time, the line is 4/59/12. That is a 10.5% conversion rate.
Andrew, Rob, and I were juniors, Trevor and Gautam sophomores, and Carsten a freshman.
My only power of the tournament was on the city of Fargo off of a Roger Maris clue.
I wanted to repost and expand on this so other people could realize that even players like us were not putting up impressive stat lines when we started playing pyramidal questions.
2006 State Tournament
The 2006 League State Tournament was a memorable experience. Looking back on who was involved, makes it even more memorable.
This was the last year the tournament was played on Patrick's Press, and the last year that 8 teams advanced instead of 16.
In the quarterfinals my team matched up against Eden Prairie (which included Trevor Davis, Gautam Kandlikar, and Michael Wright).
We played a close and competitive match. I remember I had what I felt was a very strong round, and my Mounds Park Academy team was able to pull win the intense match.
I believe I played against Gautam and Trevor six time in high school.
The next night my team was matched up against Chaska in the semifinals of the state tournament. Chaska featured Rob Carson and Andrew Hart. My team had gone to a couple of the same tournaments as Chaska, but this was the first I had every played against Andrew or Rob.
We played a four quarter format.
The first quarter always started out with 5-10 current events questions. These current events questions were not current events in the traditional sense of anything in the past 5 years, but anything in the past week or so. There would also be questions about local current events.
The round was timed, and the tossups were normally worth ten points, although I believe that might have varied. Chaska had a big round and ran out to a large lead. I want to say it was about 100 points.
The next round consisted of tossups with 20 point bonuses. Tossups and then corresponding bonus would be asked. I know that we got all four tossups in this segment, and converted some of the bonuses. This round also consisted of a spelling tossup on onomatopoeia, which I managed to spell correctly.
At halftime my team was down by five, which turned out to be a perfect scenario.
The third quarter was a lightning round. The team trailing would pick a category and have 60 seconds to answer 10 quick questions. Each question was worth 10 points, with a 20 point bonus for getting all 10.
My team got the first pick and picked world capitals. The category named a country and we had to name the capital. I remember we swept this category, but I think I came somewhat close to stumbling on Phnom Penh.
Chaska picked next. I do not remember what category they picked or how many correct answers they got. I want to say they got 5, and we got 3 back for a net gain of 20 for them, versus 120 for us, or something like that.
The fourth quarter was next. It was similar to the first quarter, except some of the tossups were worth 15 or 20 points, and the round lasted longer. Chaska was down by about 95 going in, but made a furious rally. Chaska got the last two questions to win by 5 points (450-445). I cannot remember the last tossup, but I think the second to last tossup was on Dean Rusk, and Rob got it.
It is worth noting that Chaska answered about 15 more tossups than my team, yet it still came down to the final question.
The rounds were timed, but the timer was not available for us to view. The pace moved fast, there were not timeouts, and it was hard for players keep an exact running score. This was also broadcasted on a local cable access show.
This was before Robert Hentzel ran the Thursday meets, and he was at the tournament as an observer and was the scorekeeper for this round. I remember when he announced the final score of Chaska winning by 450-445, I remember agonizing over not being able to pull it out.
I hope that Rob and Andrew will be a be able to fill in some more the details of this match.
I only played against Rob and Andrew twice in high school. The other team was at a meet on an NAQT IS set where Chaska defeated me playing solo in the semifinals of the tournament (275-225).
The other interesting thing about my two match ups against Andrew and Rob in high school, is that it featured 3 players in the top 30 of the 2011 all time greatest quiz bowl players list.
One question I have is has there ever been a non all star non open high school quiz bowl match that featured 3 of the top 30 players of all time (using the 2011 list and/or a hypothetical updated 2014 list)?
Why the summer of 2007 was important
In the summer of 2007, Andrew Hart decided to organize weekly practices at his home.
A bunch of us would spend Tuesday evenings in his basement, hanging out and playing quiz bowl questions. Andrew was able to get copies of past PACE NSCs, and that was our primary practice material that summer.
These practices were a can't miss event for me.
It is kind of crazy to think we were practicing primarily on high school questions that summer, and as far as I can remember we rarely if ever played anything that was collegiate regular difficulty or harder.
Looking back on my years involved with quiz bowl in Minnesota, I feel that the summer of 2007 was the turning point.
A lot of what one could call the modern Minnesota's quiz bowl "luminaries" attended these practices, and it gave me a chance to get to know some of them better.
In addition to Andrew and I, other Minnesotans who attended these included Rob, Gautam, Trevor, Carsten, Bernadette, Michael Wright, Sam Peterson, Quentin Roper, and Igor Luzhansky.
I hope what us Minnesotans did can inspire future generations of quiz bowlers.