College Bowl team looks for championship

Spring is nearing and with it the Wolverines move into the post-season to defend last year's national championship victory. This year the competition will be stiffer, the pressure thicker and the questions tougher.

But this isn't a Michigan sports team.

Forget about the Rose Bowl victory and the NCAA Hockey Championship - the University College Bowl team is the one to beat this spring.

An open University Activities Center organization, the Michigan Academic Competitions squad provides an opportunity for students to participate in academic competition.

LSA sophomore Michael Davidson is a returning member from last year's national championship team.

"It was pretty exciting to win last year," Davidson said. "We surprised a lot of people - including ourselves."

The format of the competition is similar to that of college or quiz bowl, LSA junior and MAC member Craig Barker said, with each team fielding four participants. The team has alternates as well as a second and third team to compensate for the strenuous schedule that includes competitions nearly every weekend.

As one of more than 70 circuit teams that participate on a regular basis, the University team competes nationally in various circuits. Individual institutions also set up meets, as the University team did in mid-January of this year when it held an invitational over the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend.

Barker said the University has, as of late, been one of the most successful teams in the country - and the world. The 1996 team brought home the College Bowl, Inc. National Championship from Arizona State University and proceeded to defeat Imperial College of London at the International Championship in Manchester, England.

Imperial College was the winner of the British equivalent of College Bowl. The British national television station BBC2 covered the match - a competition which resulted in a 265-125 victory for the University team on New Year's Day.

Barker has a history of success in academic competitions - in 1997, he was the winner of the College Jeopardy tournament.

"It was different being one man versus a team," Barker said, comparing the experience of winning alone on Jeopardy versus the College Bowl championship in 1996. "But I equally prize winning Jeopardy and winning the national championship."

This year's team seems to be following the illustrious path set forth by its predecessors.

In November, the team won a meet at the University of Illinois that involved all of the Big Ten teams. They were also victorious last April at the NAQT Mideast Sectional competition at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Penn.

Last weekend, the team won the College Bowl, Inc. Region 7 Championship at Michigan State University.

Now they are gearing up for this year's National Championship meet at the University of Florida the weekend of April 16 to 18.

Rackham sixth-year student and team member Rory Molinari said he is cautiously optimistic about the upcoming championship.

"We have an honest chance at winning again," Molinari said. "But it will be tough to win again. We will have to play well."

02-25-99