Most University of Alabama students are not going to be spending their time out of class studying for fun.
But the Alabama Academic Quiz Bowl team spends their time out of class doing just that – studying trivia and information across all areas to compete against other teams.
“Playing is fun; it gets heated and intense because it is important, but at the end of the day, it is not too serious and we get along,” Jonathan Thompson, vice president of AAQT external affairs, said.
The AAQT was established on the University’s campus in 2006 by a group of transfer students from Faulkner State.
“I wanted to continue the fun of playing that I had had at Faulkner State, where I won a national title in 2005, and also getting to see friends throughout the region and nation,” Thompson said.
The team is sponsored by Margaret Peacock, a professor in the department of history, along with vice president for Student Affairs Mark Nelson and the UA Honors College. The team has participated in four tournaments so far this year, including Quark in Ann Arbor, Mich., and ACF Fall at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tenn., this past weekend.
The AAQT received high rankings in many of the tournaments they have attended this year. In the Quark I tournaments, the A team placed second and B team fifth overall. The team also did well last spring during the National AQT Southeast Sectional tournament where they came in first and second place.
The scoring for the tournaments is based on the quiz bowl organizations and their different scoring systems. The Academic Competition Foundation hosts tournaments in addition to the National Academic Quiz Tournaments.
According to acf-quizbowl.com, ACF put on three of the most highly attended and esteemed tournaments per year, as well as two tournaments hosted regionally around the United States, Canada, and Great Britain and a national competition in April. NAQT was founded by high school and college-level players in 1996 and hosts competitions nationally. Thompson said competitions vary according to the host.
“You can be good in both, but there are deeper, longer questions with clues that carry more substance in ACF as opposed to shorter ones in NAQT, but you need both, and one helps the other format when you play,” Thompson said.
Thompson, a top scorer and winner of over 600 matches, said being a top scorer takes much more than natural skill.
“It takes the little things in bonuses, paying attention to clues, seeing how questions are worded, remembering past things, as much as being quickest to the buzzer, knowing where your teammates are good on stuff and not,” Thompson said. “And scoring more points in matches than other opponents. And that is hard with the level of talent at other Southern and national schools you face in competition.”
Thompson said the social aspect of competing is a benefit too, as he leans on teammates to fill in gaps in his own knowledge during competition. Thompson expects his experience on Alabama’s team to pay off in the long run.
“They help bring rewarding friendships and discussion and learned facts, but at the end of the day, I have picked up knowledge and friends in the same package,” Thompson said. “It pays off at some point, maybe in impressing people, or you might strike it off rich like Ken Jennings, you never know.”
