Who was the 23rd President of the United States, what is the largest collegiate library in the U.S. and when the Peloponnesian War was fought are the kinds of questions a group of MSU students can answer. The Mississippi State University Quiz Bowl team gives students a chance to showcase their general and sometimes not so general knowledge.
The team meets weekly to hone their skills in preparation for on and off campus competition against other colleges and universities.
“[The competitions are] fast paced, fun and exciting,” senior mathematics and political science major and Quiz Bowl team co-founder Harry Nelson said.
Harry Nelson and senior biomedical engineering major Paul Kimbrough started the club two years ago to continue the quiz bowl careers they began in their respective high schools.
“We ran into one other at an intramural quiz bowl tournament in ’06,” Kimbrough said. “Harry and I were the most enthusiastic at the tournament by far, and afterwards we talked about starting a club.”
Getting the club started was a rather arduous process. Membership remained low during the first few months.
“It was difficult to really spark the students’ interests at first, until we started meeting regularly,” Nelson said. “Also, last fall we had an intramural style league with set teams that lasted several weeks. We kept records and declared a champion. That really raised awareness and let people realize how fun the competition is. Just answering questions may not seem that much fun, but when you’re actually in a competitive scenario, winning and losing matches, it gets really exciting.”
At present, Quiz Bowl has more than 20 members who attend each weekly meeting. Meetings take place at 8 p.m. on Tuesday nights on the fourth floor of Griffis Hall.
“Don’t be put off by the word ‘meetings,'” Kimbrough said. “The organizational stuff is taken care of outside the meetings. The meetings are all about practicing and competing.”
The quiz bowl team is in possession of a buzzer set and at each meeting they divide into teams and play off against each other. Topics include science, literature, history, geography and even popular culture.
“It’s really laid back,” Nelson said. “There’s lots of joking and laughing. It’s good times.”
Nelson and Kimbrough would encourage any interested students to come check out the quiz bowl team.
“It’s open to people of all different skill levels and interests,” Kimbrough said. “We take multiple teams to some tournaments.”
The Mississippi State Quiz Bowl team has attended tournaments all across the Southeast, including competitions in Chattanooga, Tenn., Tallahassee, Fla., and Rome, Ga.
“We go overnight if it’s a long trip,” Nelson said. “We all hang out and have a lot of fun.”
Mississippi State struggled in their early off campus tournaments but lately have seen drastic improvements as players have become more and more skilled.
“We’ve never lost to Ole Miss or Southern Miss,” Nelson said. “Our signature victory was over Florida in last year’s NAQT sectional. Florida’s team would go on to finish seventh nationally in our division, which has over 100 teams.”
In addition to competing in tournaments, Mississippi State’s Quiz Bowl team has hosted multiple high school tournaments.
“We’ve done one every semester since the fall of ’06,” Kimbrough said. “We’re in the process of writing questions for our upcoming tournament in February.