Neg prize

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Neg prizes are awards given (usually) in jest during a tournament's awards ceremony to the player with the most total negs. When multiple players tie for the award, ties are broken by lowest tossup/interrupt ratio. While most team and individual prizes consist of various trophies and books, neg prizes can be, and often are, just about anything and are often chosen to be humorous.

Are neg prizes a good idea?

No. There is always a risk of the person being "honored" taking it the wrong way and feeling embarrassed. The ad-hoc solution of deciding on the spot whether the person with the most -5s is "inside enough" to the community to avoid being offended is sub-ideal because it requires TDs to make judgment calls about social connections, which, instead of possibly targeting players, excludes TDs from being able to run tournaments properly based on factors that should have nothing to do with quizbowl logistics competence.

More often, you end up with people deciding that their team has no shot of winning the tournament and intentionally trying to win the neg prize by getting questions wrong on purpose. This has a lot of bad consequences, primarily that it makes the games those players participate in meaningless for their opponents.

In line with many other aspects of quizbowl professionalizing since the 2000s: Do not award neg prizes or call attention to negative aspects of team or individual performance in your tournament.

Previous Tournaments' Neg Prizes

College

High School

  • TJHSST Tournaments
    • A 1986 Women's Bowling trophy, clad in a skanky duct-tape dress, Fall 2003
    • A Powerpuff Girls picture book, defaced with Sharpie mustaches and goatees, January 2004
    • A purple ribbon indicating "I Tried My Best", Fall 2004
    • A copy of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics, autographed by tournament staff, January 2005
    • Grotesque Alanna Beard water bottle, Fall 2005
    • Charles Dickens action figure, January 2006
    • Genuine Nottingham Castle pink maiden hat, Fall 2006
    • Dolphin candle, January 2007
    • "Quizbowl's Greatest Hits" CD, consisting of 21 versions of "Never Gonna Give You Up", Fall 2007
    • Hampshire College Ultimate Frisbee's naked calendar, January 2008
  • three Pokémon plushes (Prison Bowl I)
  • Jane Austen Action Figure - complete with writing desk and quill pen! (The Decemberist 2007)
  • Matt Morrison's music (unidentified GSAC tournament)
  • Plush AFLAC Duck (Harvard Fall Tournament 2007)
  • Harmonica with case and instruction book (Harvard Fall Tournament 2008)
  • Hannah Montana Activity Cards (BGSU BRAVE Falcon 2007)
  • a hug from Ian Eppler (GDS fall tournament 2007)
  • A copy of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead signed by Steve Feldman (GDS fall tournament 2008 (?))
  • A videotape on teamwork, courtesy of Bob the Builder (WCI 2009)
  • A book on Alcoholics Anonymous, picked up from a garbage can at McGill (Lisgar mirror of LIST, 2013)

Lucas Brown is infamous in the southern California circuit for winning the neg prize at every southern CA tournament he attended, save two (UCLA's 2010 mirror of the New Trier Varisty tournament and ACF Fall 2010). Some of his neg prizes are:

  • A thank-you card signed by members of the other teams at the tournament (Triton Winter 2008)
  • Postsuburban California: the Transformation of Orange County since World War 2 (Baby Anteater 2009)
  • A kiss from the TD (NAQT state championship, Southern CA, 2009)
  • Galloway's Book on Running, on the theory that his teammates would pursue him seeking vengance for the negs (TWAIN 2009)
  • A copy of Sarah Palin's autobiography Going Rogue (ASCII 2009)
  • A Nation of Victims, on the theory that the neg winner had victimized his team (La Jolla Rocket Surgery 2010)
  • Who Moved My Cheese? (NAQT state championship, Southern CA, 2010)
  • Behavior Modification: What It Is and How to Do It. This book was given not to him but to his teammates. (CBCT 2010)
  • A Man, a Can, a Microwave (Triton Winter 2011)
  • A California HS Exit Exam study guide (Arcadia Carnal Embrace 2011)
  • A copy of Breaking Dawn (La Jolla Rocket Surgery 2011)
  • A book on hydrocephaly and Accounting Terminology in the PRC and USA--the hosts, anticipating that Lucas Brown would win the prize yet again, provided two neg prizes so that somebody else would have a turn. The person with the second most negs declined his prize. (NAQT state championship, Southern CA, 2011)
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