Fun first

• From: dpucollegebowl
• Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2000 13:40:28 -0800
• Message-ID: <000T0GTMC.0014NC7T4.12170551-quizbowl_at_...>

I must say that all this fodder has provided some
interesting food for thought for me, someone still very new
to the circuit. Having talked at length with my best
friend, who also still plays quiz bowl at a university
which will remain nameless, but competed at TRASH
Regionals on Saturday somewhere in the United States, there
are a few things that we like to remember about the
days of yore when we played together in high school
and the game was about having fun first and winning
silly things like national championships second (or
perhaps even lower). Our team here has gotten caught up
in the fever pitch that pervades the college
circuit, and that's okay if absolutely everyone agress
with it. The trouble is that I feel there are a lot of
marginals players like myself that still enjoy the TEAM
aspect of the game. This is to say that each bonus
section provides an opportunity for me to communicate
with my teammates and put our heads together for a
common goal -- whatever we decide that goal to be. We at
DePauw are hosting a tournament here in December that I
would like to be dedicated to having fun with this game
we have all grown to love. That's why we all
started, and that's why we should all continue -- we have
a good time competing with other good people from
different schools -- we build relationships with people we
would not have met otherwise, and look forward to
seeing them at other places and shaking their hands
after matches, win or lose. Just this year, our team
attended the Celeb Shoot and Buzz-a-Trois at Case Western
and feel that although the traditional style was not
employed, that everyone just had more fun on the day,
because the atmosphere was looser, and Tom Chuck did a
great job making sure people were there to have fun
first and do everything else second -- that's the way
it should be! 

Therefore, I beg everyone who
reads this to make a simple concession -- give up the
stressful quiz bowl lifestyle in favor of one that has more
fun. Beware what you say, how you react, what you do
-- people (as we all know far too well) will watch
and listen, even if we don't think they are able.
There's something to be said for the way the kids still
do it -- working hard, but having a blast win or
lose. My coach in high school instilled in our team
this philosophy and at first my competitive nature
hated it. Everyone got playing time, and we didn't care
what our record was for the first three years. But a
strange thing happened -- the more we got accustomed to
the system of having fun, the better we got, going
from next-to-last my freshman year to winning the
school's only conference championship ever my senior year.
Winning is fun, and so is the thrill of competition, but
neither of them are more important than having a good
time on those Saturdays that you've given up going to
the football game or the school's production of "A
Streetcar Named Desire", in order to be several hours away
competing. Scope is important, people, and I don't mean the
mouthwash.

Stan Jastrzebski '03, President and founder, DUCKS
Quiz Bowl

www.depauw.edu/student/orgs/ducks