Swarthmore College Bowl's QOTC

QOTC IX

[Yet to be inscribed on these hallowed pages.]

QOTC VIII

QOTC VII featured a powerful 17-team field, dominated in the preliminary rounds by two teams from the University of Maryland-College Park. Maryland B went undefeated through the tournament, but a three-member Harvard team upset Maryland A in the final round of the cross-bracket playoffs to win the final slot in the finals. Maryland B easily prevailed, defeating Harvard 380-25; the team was composed of Dave Hamilton, John Nam, Willie Keller, and Moe Smith. The tournament's high scorer was Tim Young from GWU.

QOTC VII

Eighteen teams attended QOTC VII; the field was divided into two preliminary brackets, and then into three playoff brackets, with the top two teams from the top bracket advancing to the finals. Two Maryland teams dominated the tournament: Maryland A (Dave Hamilton, Willie Keller, John Nam, and Jason Dettelbach) swept its preliminary and playoff divisions and defeated Maryland B (Adam Fine, Zeke Berdichevsky, Shaun Hayeslip, and Khon Lien) in the finals. The Howard team of John Edwards narrowly missed the top playoff bracket and won the middle division, and John was the top individual scorer at the tournament (followed by Dom Ricci of MIT and Tim Young of GWU).

QOTC VI

"Pitt the Elder," a University of Pittsburgh team made up of Joe Wright, Daniel Lafave, Dylan Leber, and Andy Forbes, defeated "Princeton Slam" (Jeff Stewart, Jen Wadsack, and Geoff Dube) in the finals to win QOTC VI. Two Maryland teams made the semifinals, but both were defeated; three Maryland teams, two Princeton teams, Yale, Penn, and Pitt made the quarterfinals. "Die Fledermaus" (Dave Hamilton of Maryland Wilde Maus) was the tournament's top individual scorer.

QOTC V

A three-member MIT team of Peter McCorquodale, Dom Ricci, and Jamie Coffin won the 1996 QOTC, defeating "William and Maryland," the Maryland-College Park A team of the four Daves (Dave Goodman, Dave Hamilton, Dave Vacca, and Arthur "Dave" Fleming, who took second at PennBowl, 3/4 of whom took second at ACF Nationals).

The tournament, unfortunately, was not without its share of controversy. After a heaated discussion on the college bowl newsgroup, it was decided that coalition -- or "bastard" -- teams were ineligible for the playoffs. The UVa-Howard hybrid of Andrew Yaphe, Alice Chou, Phil O'Donoghue, and John Edwards therefore dubbed itself "Matt Colvin's Bastard Love Slaves," in honor of a Maryland player especially vocal in the newsgroup debate. (This team faced the masters' team "One Hundred Years of Scholitude" in a special bastard/masters playoff.) Other Highlights of the tournaments included Harvard's first appearance at QOTC and the one-man team "Cornell Mad Cow Disease"'s break to the playoffs.

QOTC IV

Princeton made its debut in the QOTC finals in 1995, when "The Artist Formerly Known as Princeton" won the tournament. TAFKAP was captained by Nick Meyer, and included Matt Morris, Matt Marino, and Ted Peltier. The field also included "Beavis and Butthead," a two-man team of Pat Matthews and John Edwards, and Crum Cakes (a masters team of Chris Goheen, Derek Croxton, Victor Rosenberg, and Diana Tenery). In one match, Crum Cakes defeated Penn B 685-40, answering 23 of the 24 tossups in the round and probably setting an academic competition record for highest percentage of tossups answered in any round.

QOTC III

The winner of QOTC III was "The Empire State Coalition," a bastard team made up of players from Cornell and SUNY-Albany. Because of a combination of school breaks and Passover, neither school had been able to field a full team; Dwight Kidder, Richard Dunlap, and Adam Welsh of Cornell therefore teamed up with Dave [?], who captained the Albany team that played at the CBI NCT in Los Angeles. The runner-up was Penn, in its third consecutive appearance in the QOTC finals. Among the other contenders was a team from the University of Chicago, which made the semifinials in its only QOTC appearance to date. The ESC's inclusion in the tournament began a tradition of allowing bastard team in invitational tournament playoffs. (Cf. QOTC V.)

QOTC II

In 1993, Penn A avenged its loss in QOTC I by defeating Boston University A in the finals. Penn's team was composed of many of the same players who went on to take fourth at the CBI NCT that year, including Mike Cadwalader, Pat Matthews, Kevin Jaskow, Adam Cohen, and perhaps Jeff Gordon; according the Pat Matthews, the final-round match was close until he answered a tossup on "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," giving Penn A momentum and ultimately the victory.

QOTC I

Very little is remembered of the original QOTC. The tournament was won by a three-man team from Cornell, made up of Steve Wang (who as a grad student captained Chicago A to victory in the 1997 NAQT ICT), Eric Reehl, and Steven Rapkin. The tournament runner-up was Penn A.