Saturday (I would say yesterday, but because of a silly Philosophy paper, it’s Monday now =P), I took a little trip to Starkville, Mississippi with three of my friends. You may be wondering at this point, “Why?”, and I’ll tell you, friend: a Quiz Bowl tournament. Yes, my good fellows, due to the hard work of certain individuals, the University of Central Arkansas now has a team of people gathered together for the purpose of academic competition.
On this particular Saturday, Mississippi State University was hosting a tournament, and we were scheduled to compete. (Side note: the MSU campus is awesome. It’s big and seems like one of those places that’s just been there forever) Seven teams were in attendance, and a round-robin style bracket was had. In the end, we got fourth place, but we did really well. We averaged around 210 points a game. However, it was somewhat bittersweet, as we lost three (out of nine [not completely sure there]) games within 20 points (in the NAQT-style format that we were playing, each question is worth ten points, and if you answer correctly, you get “bonus” questions which are worth 30 points in total. You also get counted off five points if you buzz in before the question is finished with an incorrect answer). It was still really fun, though, and I think we did quite well considering that this is only our second tourney.
There’s one more thing I must mention. If you’re ever in Starkville, you have to eat at a restaurant called “Harvey’s” and hope that they have the Jamaican Jerk Tilapia Lunch Special going on that day. It is to die for. A mouthgasm, if you will.
Oh, one more thing. One of the people on the trip is a magician with music. He called up “Sweet Home Alabama” when someone said they wanted something classical rock, he found Rick Astley, Jewel, and Matisyahu on Sirius sattelite radio, among other things. ‘Twas epic.
Are these competitions… debate stuff? Or just trivia? Sounds interesting, how would one get involved into something like that?
They’re just Trivia-Type stuff. You can read more about the format and things of that nature [rules, etc.] on the NAQT website.
I originally got involved in High School through one of my courses. (The official title of the class was “GT (Gifted and Talented) Seminar,” but really, it was just a front for the school Quiz Bowl team (back then, we used Arkansas Governor’s Quiz Bowl rules).
Eventually, one of my teammates from high school and some other people who played AGQBA who also happened to go to UCA got together a team, and we’re starting a student organization.
If you wanted to do something like that, I would ask around with teachers or someone like that about academic competitions to see if there’s anything like that around where you are.