Eric Douglass

Eric Douglass
Past colleges	University of South Carolina (1998-2005)
Stats	HDWhite • NAQT

Eric Douglass is a former quiz bowl player for the University of South Carolina and is a graduate of the USC School of Law. Currently serves the team in a variety of ways (writing questions, driving to tournaments, staffing, directing hosted tournaments, providing all manner of experience and insight to South Carolina players, generally being awesome and such) and plays in open tournaments with alumni. Despite constant pressure from team members (especially noted gambling addicts Robert Harden and Hudson Harper), is unable to play the South Carolina State Lottery due to his occupation.

Douglass' Law of Cracker Barrels

Douglass formulated "Douglass' Law of Cracker Barrels," some time in the early twenty-first century which has yet to be disproven with a counterexample.

It states that "Given the existence of a Cracker Barrel within an orthogonal distance of 1000 yards of any interstate or well-traveled highway, access to the Cracker Barrel via official roadways will involve at least 1080 degrees of net vehicular rotation in a route of a net length at least five times that of the distance to the interstate."

Douglass' Law of Teams Leaving Early

Having attended numerous tournaments that have been adversely impacted by teams leaving early, Douglass made a penetrating observation, which is now memorialized as Douglass' Law of Teams Leaving Early. This law states: "Teams that leave quizbowl tournaments early always have a shorter distance to travel than at least 80% of the other teams in attendance." Instances of Douglass' law holding true include William & Mary leaving the VCU MUT Mirror early in 2008 despite only being 51 miles from Richmond and Duke leaving the Wake Forest EFT Mirror early in 2008 despite a moderate 81.11 mile trek. Indeed, less than a week after this law was first posted, Carleton College, a school that is a mere 44.32 miles away from Minneapolis, left the Minnesota Open early. Trevor Davis invoked Douglass' Law of Teams Leaving Early in pointing out that Pitt C left the 2008 ACF Fall at Carnegie Mellon early "despite having to travel a grand total of three blocks." The law's logical conclusion came with the Hampshire College mirror of MUT, at which the house team disappeared after the break, apparently because one member overslept his nap and the second disappeared while trying to find him.