New Team for Purdue University

[Drabiak]

My name is Dan Drabiak, and I am a founding member of the nascent Purdue University Quiz Bowl team.

Having spent six years from middle school through high school playing quiz bowl, I was more than a little disappointed when I came to Purdue and found that there was no quiz bowl team to be seen. I'm confident that there is currently no team for Purdue at this time, so a few other students and I are in the process of getting one started here. Two professors have already agreed to act as advisers, many other students have expressed interest, including for officer positions, and we're working on filing the necessary paperwork (such as the constitution).

However, we are unsure of how to get involved in inter-collegiate competition. We would nominally like to begin competing with other colleges and universities during the 2011 - 2012 school year. Considering that we are a new club with, among other things, a yet-to-be-filled treasury, we would be hoping to join a competitive league consisting of teams near the location of Purdue, in order that we may have lower travel expenses; in other words, we would hope to join a league with competitions that are easily accessible from the central Midwest. I do realize that this may a little late in the year to aspire for that, especially considering how primordial our team is at the moment, but I would very much appreciate if members of other teams could give some directions as to how to register with a league and then begin competing with other schools within this academic year. Failing that, I would still appreciate assistance in starting a team for competition in the 2012 - 2013 academic year.

In addition, if there are any special rules or regulations that I should know about before attempting to join inter-scholastic competition, I would very much appreciate if someone could bring them to my attention.

[Important Bird Area]

Welcome!

College quizbowl doesn't really operate in a league format, so the good news is you have plenty of time to get started for 2011-12.

Here are some tournaments that you should consider attending this fall and winter:

-Early Autumn Collegiate Novice. Your choice of Northern Illinois on September 17th or (maybe easier to organize?) Chicago on October 2nd.

-ACF Fall. November 5th, site to be determined

-NAQT's Sectional Championship Tournament. February 4th, site to be determined

-ACF Regionals. Traditionally in late February, site to be determined.

All of the last three are likely to have sites in close proximity to Purdue (eg, metro Chicago, University of Illinois, or University of Michigan)

[Drabiak]

Thank you very much. Those tournaments all sound relatively easy to reach from West LaFayette, Indiana (especially ones held at U of I, which is just an hour drive across the state line).

Will we need to pre-register our team for tournaments, will we sign up when we arrive, or do different tournaments have different systems?

[Important Bird Area]

You will need to register in advance, normally by emailing the host school in the weeks leading up to the tournament. Hosts will post their announcements in the appropriate section of this forum, with an email contact to register as well as details about finances and logistics. For instance, here's the thread for Collegiate Novice at Chicago.

[mhayes]

You may also consider the mirrors of MAGNI and MOO which will be held next month. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure what the closest sites are to West Lafayette, but I imagine there are sites within reasonable driving distance.

[Ben Dillon]

I take it there are no records of earlier Purdue College Bowl teams. Sigh. Four years of my life with no proof of the (admittedly scant) accomplishments.

Good luck though!

[Unicolored Jay]

You may also consider the mirrors of MAGNI and MOO which will be held next month. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure what the closest sites are to West Lafayette, but I imagine there are sites within reasonable driving distance.

I believe the closest MOO mirror is at the University of Michigan (October 8), while there are two mirrors about the same distance away for MAGNI: one is at Ohio State (October 22) while the other is at Missouri S&T (October 29).

[Red-necked Phalarope]

You may also consider the mirrors of MAGNI and MOO which will be held next month. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure what the closest sites are to West Lafayette, but I imagine there are sites within reasonable driving distance.

Ohio State is hosting a mirror of MAGNI on October 22; we generally run 1-2 collegiate events a year. I'd recommend that Collegiate Novice and ACF Fall are probably better tournaments for a novice team to attend this fall, but Columbus is a quick drive away and teams are always welcome.

Kentucky (particularly Centre College) also hosts tournaments occasionally.

[1992 in spaceflight]

You may also consider the mirrors of MAGNI and MOO which will be held next month. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure what the closest sites are to West Lafayette, but I imagine there are sites within reasonable driving distance.

I believe the closest MOO mirror is at the University of Michigan (October 8), while there are two mirrors about the same distance away for MAGNI: one is at Ohio State (October 22) while the other is at Missouri S&T (October 29).

Google maps confirms that MOO at Michigan is closer than the Rock Bridge site. These tournaments are "regular" difficulty, so I would highly encourage you to go to at least one of those mirrors, as these kinds of sets can really help new teams/players understand what they can do to improve/what categories they get slaughtered in.

[Auroni]

You may also consider the mirrors of MAGNI and MOO which will be held next month. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure what the closest sites are to West Lafayette, but I imagine there are sites within reasonable driving distance.

Ohio State is hosting a mirror of MAGNI on October 22; we generally run 1-2 collegiate events a year. I'd recommend that Collegiate Novice and ACF Fall are probably better tournaments for a novice team to attend this fall, but Columbus is a quick drive away and teams are always welcome.

Kentucky (particularly Centre College) also hosts tournaments occasionally.

Just to briefly interject, I would recommend that you come to MAGNI if it's within your budget. While it will be a harder tournament than the others mentioned here, it's being written with the express purpose of giving you a taste of what the standard weekend college tournament is like without losing you completely in order to do so.

[evilmonkey]

It's about damn time! Purdue is too good of a school to be lacking a quizbowl program. It will be good for the state of Indiana to have a fourth team.

If you can, certainly get to Collegiate Novice at University of Chicago on October 2nd. Also, I know it'll be a bit of a trip, but find some way to attend ACF Fall (either Truman St or NIU) on November 5.

In general I'd recommend trying one of MOO or MAGNI, but depending on where you played high school quizbowl those tournaments may be significantly more difficult than anything you've experienced.

Places you'll be visiting: UChicago and the University of Illinois will generally be your closest quizbowl tournament hosts, and will host roughly a billion events a year (okay, so, closer to 1 or 2 a semester each). Staying in the "close" range, Notre Dame *ought* to be hosting a tournament in the spring. Further out, you have Centre, Ohio St, Michigan, WUSTL, and NIU, which all host things with some regularity.