Non-Californian here, but some of the points are interesting ones nonetheless. sdrossboss <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com> wrote: I had a recent conversation with a Berkeley Quiz Bowl member (who'll be kept nameless) at which several interesting points were brought up concerning participation in quiz bowl, how the "circuit" works on a regional basis and what individuals compete in quiz bowl and to what end. So in other words, of several hundred schools in california, not to mention Arizona (ASU) who's pretty much gone and Oregon, who you 1) may count as being in the Pacific North West and 2) has everyone who played pretty much graduated, you could argue that there are 5 active schools in California, again 2-3 of which consistently compete for national titles. I guess it's a little different out here in the NorthEast, at least in terms of who's on top. But there still are perennial favorites and the like. But it is always nice to see new teams cropping up and appearing. The key is, i think, to make the events as pleasant and fun as possible for these teams to encourage their return. I don't think we can reasonably expect a new team to sweep Penn Bowl, but I'd like to see them stick around. Part of this, as you note, is a well-run tournament. By putting on a good tournament, you've done the most crucial thing to getting these teams to come back and hopefully improve themselves, and make the competition more interesting. I was never a hard-core player, in the sense that I didn't go to every tournament, or memorize fact and common answers and buzzwords. I, frankly, had other things that interested me more (no value judgements here). But I kept at CB because I enjoyed the game, often had fun writing questions, playing, and even moderating. I had friends on the team, and usually enjoyed meeting all the random other CB players. I think it's how the teams and tournaments are presented that help to keep interest in CB alive. -Dan Blim, on, um, hiatus. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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