Apologia pro Matthaeo Colvino

[augustusmelmotte]

So here's my attempt to rehabilitate Matt Colvin's legacy. If he's remembered at all, it's as a somewhat ornery and rabid defender of ACF who looked down upon NAQT as a lesser form of quizbowl compared to it.

Matt was much more than that, though. Firstly, as a friend and mentor, he really helped me make the transition from high school quizbowl to college, and even bought me a few reference books out of his own pocket (including the illustrious Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia) and always had time to coach or just give advice to younger players. Matt really enjoyed the game and wanted everyone to get better.

Secondly, yes, he was a relentless critic of the game itself and his constant flamewars on the old a.c.c-b and quizbowl mailing lists certainly didn't help his reputation outside of UMCP. But pointing out the unfairness of variable point bonuses (Colvin Unfair Result) was something that helped quizbowl considerably. He also has a reputation for hating NAQT, but nothing could be further from the truth. Matt would play any format any time he could, even including a couple of rather poor showings at trash tournaments, IIRC.

The qbwiki says regarding the Colvin-Obstgarten grudge match (which he lost, to his great mortification and mockery by the rest of the UMCP crew): "What this all proved may have been clear once." Well, it came about because of a rather vociferous flamewar about how shitty CBI questions were compared to the first iteration of ACF, which I assume no one disputes today.

I don't intend this to be a hagiography, for sure - Matt was indeed rather prickly and definitely was an ACF snob. But he was much more than that. He would readily admit that he was never more than an above average player, but he truly loved quizbowl and wanted nothing more than to see the level of the questions and game improve.