As this university gears up for its first basketball season in the Big Ten, there is another lesser-known team competing, and often winning, against other college’s top squads.
The Academic Quiz Team competes in national and regional academic tournaments against teams from other universities in what are known as “quizbowls.” In the challenges, two teams, made of four members, compete head-to-head and answer questions about history, literature, pop culture and other topics.
An academic quiz tournament was hosted on this campus Saturday, with four members of the 17-member quiz team, also known as the “A team,” competing against other college groups. The results for all rounds have not been released, but the end of six rounds, this university’s group ranked third out of 13 teams.
“The team and I definitely felt frustrated by our poor performance in some games, but I think we take frustrating moments as those for motivation to improve for future tournaments,” Jordan Brownstein, a sophomore computer science major and two-year member of the group, wrote in an e-mail.
The team has had success in the past, including a first-place win at a tournament in Richmond on Oct. 4, outranking the University of Pennsylvania varsity team, which is widely believed to be the second best team in the nation. The group later came in second place in a Philadelphia tournament after a loss to the University of Virginia’s varsity team, widely regarded as the nation’s best team, Brownstein wrote in an e-mail.
The tournaments are round-robin style, with every group facing off against one another and trying to score the most points with correct answers so they can advance to the next round. Quizbowl’s likeness to a certain game show is not lost on members of the quiz team, said Dan Puma, a senior film studies major.
“It’s kind of like Jeopardy!,” Puma said.
That similarity has given members of the academic quiz team, both past and present, confidence to take their knowledge to the next level of competition, said Isaac Hirsch, a 2014 alumnus and former member of the quiz team.
“I intend to go on Jeopardy! and make money, so Quizbowl and the university have been very helpful in that regard,” Hirsch said.
Brownstein said the reason the team strives to play at a high level against the best competition is simple.
“There’s no real tangible prize, except for maybe a trophy, so you do it for the love of learning and competition,” he said.
That love of competition is present in the quiz team members, because even if there is no physical activity involved, they believe the intensity during competitions is comparable to that found in sports, Hirsch said.
“Quizbowl fulfills the competitive needs of unathletic people,” Hirsch said. “If you’re very competitive and you like learning things, Quizbowl is the right activity for you.”
CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, a previous version of this story stated the tournament was held on Friday, Nov. 21. The tournament was on Saturday, Nov. 22. The story has been updated to reflect the change.
