Killing the pope
Revision as of 21:09, 3 April 2026 by Ganon Evans (talk | contribs)
A tournament is said to have killed the pope if it was very difficult. The term was coined to describe 2005 ACF Nationals, which was a very hard set whose date coincided with the death of Pope John Paul II ("Nats was so hard it killed the pope").
2025 ACF Nationals, which was held on April 19th and 20th, had two references to Pope Francis, who died one day later on April 21st.
This phrase is much more commonly used as the snowclone "X killed Y" to mention the proximity of a public figure's death to a tournament that may or may not even be hard.
Because of the nature of quiz bowl, almost all of the people whose death warrants mention in this format are academics and historical figures who are much, much less famous than the pope.