Courtesy of David Thorsley and Lexis-Nexis, here are the TRASHionals articles from the Chattanooga Free Press... Copyright 2004 Chattanooga Publishing Company Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee) April 18, 2004 Sunday SECTION: LOCAL NEWS; Pg. B8 LENGTH: 485 words HEADLINE: National championship of trivia concludes today BYLINE: By Mike O'Neal; Staff Writer BODY: The 116 players competing this weekend in TRASHionals 007: Lazenby! hope to win bragging rights as national champions of popular culture, or "trash." More than a supersized game of "Jeopardy!" -- this is the super bowl of popular culture quiz bowls, according to participants and hosts. Imagine a game of Trivial Pursuit played by class clowns, Mensa members, savants and merry pranksters. "Its players are curious by nature," said Eileen Steinhice, an assistant during the tournament and president of the Middle Tennessee chapter of Mensa. "They're the people who read the back of a cereal box." Imagine a game with questions like: name the sea animal from its name on a sushi menu. Or name the movies that come up when you do a language search for Aramaic on the Internet Movie Database. Or which NBA, NCAA and high school players have scored 100 points in a basketball game? There is no need to imagine such players and games. They are here at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga this weekend, playing games. TRASH (Testing Recall About Strange Happenings) is played by teams going head-to-head, buzzing in to be first to answer toss-up questions. Correct answers lead to bonus questions that team members work together to score points. Matthew Levine, a recent graduate of University of California at Berkeley, came to play and distribute resumes during the national tournament. Among all competitors Saturday, Mr. Levine was the only person to answer one particular toss-up question correctly during the seventh round of preliminary play -- a very unusual happening for this group. UTC student David Moore said players "don't attach any stigma to wanting to be smart." Mr. Moore, who last year competed at the national tournament in Boston, said, "In school, trivia contests are treated as a competitive sport, but here, it is for the satisfaction of the game." Sponsors and competitors said this is primarily a participatory sport. But spectators often find the questions entertaining, and begin competing themselves. Because the UTC Trivia Association hosts more tournaments than any other, Harvard and many other organizations often uses questions prepared by the Chattanooga group, said Wally Edmondson, a coach for the UTC Academic Trivia Association. Next Saturday the annual Moon Pie Classic, a college academic tournament, will be held at UTC followed Sunday by the RC Cola Classic, a trash tournament. Answers to the earlier questions: *Tai is red snapper, ika is squid and awabi is abalone. *Aramaic is spoken in the 1999 film, "Stigmata," and in the 1998 film, "Fallen." (And the 2004 Mel Gibson film "The Passion of the Christ"). *100 points were scored by Wilt Chamberlain in the NBA, by Frank Selvy of Furman University in the NCAA and by Dajuan Wagner, now of the NBA, when he played for New Jersey's Camden High School. E-mail Mike O'Neal at moneal_at_... ------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 2004 Chattanooga Publishing Company Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee) March 28, 2004 Sunday SECTION: LOCAL LIFESTYLE; Pg. E1 LENGTH: 710 words HEADLINE: TRASHionals quiz bowl tournament to test knowledge of pop- culture gurus BYLINE: By Jan Galletta; Staff Writer BODY: For competitors with a knack for nonessential knowledge, the quiz-bowl tournament coming to Chattanooga next month is no trivial contest. Thirty teams from as far away as British Columbia will square off April 17 and 18 in the world championship of Testing Recall About Strange Happenings, called the TRASHionals for short. "Along with the Trashmasters and the Ann B. Davis tournaments, it's part of the triple crown of TRASH titles," said Chattanoogan Charlie Steinhice, 44, of the brain brawl, set for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. "We bid for it (TRASHionals), because Chattanooga is a hotbed of trivia." As a nod to the annual event's seventh installment, the official name of this year's competition is TRASHionals 007: LAZENBY, said James Dinan, 30, business manager of the 11-member TRASH quiz-bowl group. "Lazenby refers to actor George Lazenby, who played James Bond 007 only once, in 1969's 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service,'" said Mr. Dinan, an Arlington, Va., resident and a writer and editor at "Voice of America." Movie-miscellanea is a frequent question topic in TRASH frays, one of several quiz bowls in the nation traditionally set on university campuses. But unlike the scholastic focus of queries in the College Bowl and the National Academic Quiz Tournament, TRASH contests ask players about elements of popular culture such as television, films, music and sports, said Mr. Dinan. He said competing teams might be asked to name the youngest-ever host of Saturday Night Live, for example, or the Heisman Trophy winner who was chosen the farthest down in the National Football League draft. Teams who buzz first and peg Drew Barrymore or Ty Detmer as correct answers to the toss-ups earn 10 points and a chance to add to their score via bonus questions, Mr. Dinan explained. He said TRASH members write the questions for each round, which has 20 toss-ups and runs 30 minutes. Mr. Steinhice, who played in last year's TRASHionals in Boston, said he isn't studying for the upcoming contest, "unless you count everyday life. "Being in a TRASH tournament makes you notice more things because you're thinking, 'Hey, that breakfast cereal commercial or that song on the radio might come up in a tournament,'" he said. "It changes how much attention you pay to popular culture." In the Chattanooga tournament's Saturday action, contestants will pit their skills in three 10-team brackets, with each four-member team playing 9 games. A highlight of the evening will be an exhibition theme-packet round, in which players pen single-topic questions such as "British Invasion Songs" or "Farewell to Frasier," according to thetrashzone.blogspot.com. Sunday's donnybrook ends with the top two teams from elimination rounds battling to take home the TRASH belt. The belt used to be the heavyweight prize on the former Extreme Championship Wrestling circuit, said Joseph Dion, 37, of Cleveland, Tenn., a veteran quiz- bowl contestant. Although the coveted belt has eluded him in three earlier TRASHionals, Mr. Dion said he competes as a hobby. "A lot of times in the academic tournaments, you have no idea what they (the questions) are talking about," he said. "With the TRASH tournaments, you're putting your useless information to work. It's a lot of fun." Mr. Dinan said some teams have vied in the TRASHionals every year since its 1998 launch. Among them are The Gerbils from Boston University, the Evil Reptilians from Ann Arbor, Mich., and a Georgia squad that generally sports costumes ranging from Roman togas to limousine-driver togs. Either as TRASHionals players or officials, some cerebral celebrities will be making the Chattanooga scene, too. They include Mark Dawson, winner of the 2003 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, and the competition's runner-up, Brian Weikle. Also in attendance will be Dr. Kevin Olmstead, believed to be the biggest winner in American game show history for his $2 million-plus take on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire in 2001. Although all the tournament's team-slots are full, Mr. Dinan said that free agents looking to join a team may have a chance to compete. Admission is free to silent spectators, he said.
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